The elections of 1906 indicated to the people of England that a new force had entered the domain of political power, which had so long been assigned to the gentry and men of wealth. A careful observer of political events, and a member of Parliament, described the results as follows: "When the present House of Commons (1907) was completed in January last, and it was discerned that 50 labor members had been elected, a cry of wonder went up from press and public. People wrote and spoke as if these 50 members were the forerunners of a political and social revolution; as if the old party divisions were completely worn out, and as if power were about to pass to a new political party that would represent the masses as opposed to the classes. These fears or hopes were reflected in the House of Commons itself. During the early months of the session the Labor Party received from all quarters of the House an amount of deference that would have been described as sycophantic if it had been directed towards an aristocratic instead of towards a democratic group."[18] The tidal wave of reaction following the Boer war had swept the Liberal Party into power, and had given fifty seats to the Labor Party. The effect was nothing short of revolutionary. Disraeli, in his _Sibyl_, spoke of "two nations," two Englands, the England of the gentry and the England of the working classes. The elections since the Boer war have given this "other England" its chance. The gentry, the Whigs and Tories, will never again fight their political jousts with the "other England" looking contentedly on. This "mass mind of organized labor" has become the "new controlling force in progressive politics."[19] The "transformed England" began to see evidences of the change. The first bill brought in by the Labor Party provided for the feeding of school children, from the homes of the poor, out of public funds. "The business in life of my colleagues and myself is to impress upon this House the importance of the poverty problem," said the spokesman of the Labor Party in an important debate.[20] England had awakened hungry. Now occurred the most significant political event in the history of modern England. The Liberal Party took over the immediate program of the Labor Party. This is significant because it swept England away from her industrial moorings of individualistic _laissez-faire_, and extended the functions of the state into activities that had hitherto been left to individual initiative. A complete revolution had taken place since Cobden's day. The state acknowledged new social and economic obligations. In the Parliamentary struggle that followed hereditary prerogative in property was undermined and hereditary prerogative in government virtually destroyed, and the principles of democracy enormously extended.[21]