Both the public opinion and the law of England were, for generations, characterized by the quality of conservatism. The various reform acts, starting in 1832, marked the advent of an epoch of individualism which, lasting for over fifty years, made England the land where personal liberty and private property were perhaps safer than ever before in the world's history. It was a country where government's chief concern was to furnish irreproachable courts, competent police and few but honest civil servants, so that each man might pursue happiness after his own fashion with the least possible interference, yet with complete confidence that he could assert his rights effectively when invaded. Hence it was that America learned to look to England for precedents. All this is changing. The substitution of the doctrines of collectivism for those of individualism began in 1885 and it proceeds rapidly in many directions. The socialistic harangues one hears from vagabonds mounted on benches in Hyde Park are delivered without interference by the police. The spreading of discontent by paid agitators proceeds at the market crosses and in the taverns of the villages between elections. Later the politicians appear and solicit votes for impossible schemes, an ever increasing proportion of which are actually adopted by Parliament and of which the laws regulating liability for personal injuries, attacks upon land and other forms of property, old age pensions and the methods of public education, furnish typical examples. [Illustration: SIDEWALK SOCIALISM--HYDE PARK] The Workingmen's Compensation and Employers' Liability Act of 1906 was a tentative step, but seems likely to lead to extended liability and reduced defences, particularly in the matter of contributory negligence, which has almost ceased to be a factor. One of the clauses of this Act shows that, even when it is proved that the death or serious disablement of a workman is attributable to his own wilful misconduct, compensation may yet be claimed on his behalf from his employer. In addition, another and unheard of form of liability for an employer, requiring him to compensate his servant if the latter falls ill or dies of an "industrial disease" (a list of which diseases was appended to the Act) and with the extraordinary provision that, having paid the compensation, the employer may sue any former employer for the amount, if he can prove the servant actually contracted the complaint in the earlier service and within ten years.