NOTE 50, p. 238.—After the Reform Bill of 1832 was passed it was soon evident that it would have to be supplemented. Again and again attempts were made to carry a measure that would extend the franchise on the same principles as those acted on in 1832. But the nobility and the middle classes appeared to have no further interest in reform. Meantime there were others who had thought of reform in a different method. As early as 1821 Lord Durham had proposed the establishment of electoral districts, essentially according to the custom in America. In 1859, when Derby and Disraeli were in power, Disraeli introduced a bill enlarging the suffrage and essentially modifying the methods of determining qualifications. But this, too, failed. Another reform bill was introduced by Palmerston’s government in 1860, and still another by Gladstone in 1866. But all were unsuccessful till Mr. Disraeli’s bill of 1867. This was founded on the principle that the franchise should depend on permanency of interest, rather than amount of tax paid.—McCarthy, iv., 94–117; Molesworth, iii., 303–347. NOTE 51, p. 248.—On the question here raised, there is a great variety of opinion, but the best authorities will accept the statement of the orator as substantially correct. The most careful consideration of the question has been presented in “Six Centuries of Work and Wages,” by Professor Thorold Rogers, who has devoted many years to the subject, and is unquestionably the highest living authority. On p. 522 (Am. ed.) he says: “Through nearly three centuries the condition of the English laborer was that of plenty and hope; from perfectly intelligible causes it sunk within a century to so low a level as to make the workman practically helpless, and the lowest point was reached just about the outbreak of the great war between King and Parliament. From this time it gradually improved, till in the first half of the eighteenth century, though still far below the level of the fifteenth, it achieved comparative plenty. Then it began to sink again, and the workmen experienced the direst misery during the great continental war. Latterly, almost within our own memory and knowledge, it has experienced a slow and partial improvement, the causes of which are to be found in the liberation of industry from protective laws, in the adoption of certain principles which restrained employment in some directions, and, most of all, in the concession to laborers of the right, so long denied, of forming labor partnerships.”