4. In all the movements we have described, the spiritual stimulus, the initial drive, and the solid successes have been provided by voluntary association. The State has not been the pioneer of social reform. Such a notion is the mirage of politicians. It has merely registered the insistent demands of organized voluntary effort or given legal recognition to accomplished facts. This is the distinctive note of English social development in the nineteenth century. FOR REFERENCE Dicey, _Law and Opinion_. Robinson, _The Spirit of Association_. Hovell, _The Chartist Movement_. Sombart (tr. Epstein), _Socialism and the Socialist Movement_. [Cd. 9236], _Report of Committee on Trusts_. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 20: From the writer's forthcoming book _Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century_, to be published by the Cambridge University Press.] [Footnote 21: Tooke and Newmarch, _History of Prices_, v. 356.] [Footnote 22: _Commons Committee on Emigration_, 1827, Q. 1761.] [Footnote 23: _Commons Committee on the Condition of Labourers employed in the Construction of Railways_, 1846, Q. 866.] [Footnote 24: Ibid., Q. 217.] [Footnote 25: Ibid., Q. 897.] [Footnote 26: Ibid., Q. 733.] [Footnote 27: Ibid., Q. 193.] [Footnote 28: Ibid., Qs. 869-78.] [Footnote 29: _Report of Poor Law Commissioners on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture_ (1843), pp. 20, 25.] [Footnote 30: Ibid., pp. 299-300.] [Footnote 31: _Report of Commissioners on the Employment of Young Persons in Agriculture_, p. 64.] [Footnote 32: Dr. Cook Taylor, Letter to the _Morning Chronicle_, dated from Rossendale Forest (Lancashire), June 20, 1842.] [Footnote 33: _Rural Rides_, i. 219.] [Footnote 34: _Poor Law Commission of 1834_, Appendix.] [Footnote 35: _Hand-loom Weavers' Commission, Final Report, 1841_, p. 18.] [Footnote 36: _Hand-loom Weavers' Commission, Assistant-Commissioner's Report, 1840_, Part IV, pp. 76-81.] [Footnote 37: _Second Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners_, 1836.] [Footnote 38: _Hand-loom Weavers' Commission, Assistant-Commissioner's Report_, Part III, p. 551.] [Footnote 39: _Anti-bread Tax Circular_, No. 91, June 16, 1842.] [Footnote 40: _First Report of the Factory Commissioners_, 1833, p. 27.] [Footnote 41: _Report of Commissioner on the Condition of the Framework Knitters_ (1845), p. 109.] [Footnote 42: Ibid., p. 115.] [Footnote 43: William Felkin, _History of the Machine-wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufactures_ (1867), p. 458.] [Footnote 44: _Evidence before the Truck Commissioners_ (1871), Q. 37,500.] [Footnote 45: Pamphlet of 1825, p. 14.] [Footnote 46: _Home Office Papers_, 40, Letter from R.J. Blewitt, Esq., M.P., November 6, 1839.] [Footnote 47: Richard Fynes, _Miners of Northumberland and Durham_, p. 72.] [Footnote 48: John Wilson, _History of the Durham Miners' Association_ (1870-1904), p. 40.] [Footnote 49: _Report of Commissioner on the State of the Mining Population_ (1846).]