World history; World history -- Juvenile literature
In England, where the members of Parliament were still elected
according to a Royal Decree of the year 1265, and where a large number
of recently created industrial centres were without representation,
they brought about the passing of the Reform Bill of the year
1832, which changed the electoral system and gave the class of the
factory-owners more influence upon the legislative body. This however
caused great discontent among the millions of factory workers, who were
left without any voice in the government. They too began an agitation
for the right to vote. They put their demands down in a document
which came to be known as the “People’s Charter.” The debates about
this charter grew more and more violent. They had not yet come to an
end when the revolutions of the year 1848 broke out. Frightened by
the threat of a new outbreak of Jacobinism and violence, the English
government placed the Duke of Wellington, who was now in his eightieth
year, at the head of the army, and called for Volunteers. London was
placed in a state of siege and preparations were made to suppress the
coming revolution.
But the Chartist movement killed itself through bad leadership and no
acts of violence took place. The new class of wealthy factory owners,
(I dislike the word “bourgeoisie” which has been used to death by the
apostles of a new social order,) slowly increased its hold upon the
government, and the conditions of industrial life in the large cities
continued to transform vast acres of pasture and wheat-land into dreary
slums, which guard the approach of every modern European town.
EMANCIPATION
THE GENERAL INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY DID NOT BRING ABOUT THE
ERA OF HAPPINESS AND PROSPERITY WHICH HAD BEEN PREDICTED BY THE
GENERATION WHICH SAW THE STAGE COACH REPLACED BY THE RAILROAD.
SEVERAL REMEDIES WERE SUGGESTED BUT NONE OF THESE QUITE SOLVED THE
PROBLEM
In the year 1831, just before the passing of the first Reform Bill
Jeremy Bentham, the great English student of legislative methods and
the most practical political reformer of that day, wrote to a friend:
“The way to be comfortable is to make others comfortable. The way to
make others comfortable is to appear to love them. The way to appear
to love them is to love them in reality.” Jeremy was an honest man. He
said what he believed to be true. His opinions were shared by thousands
of his countrymen. They felt responsible for the happiness of their
less fortunate neighbours and they tried their very best to help them.
And Heaven knows it was time that something be done!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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