Further Reforms under the New System

Great interest naturally centred in the new body elected under the Reform Act in the autumn of 1832, and, as was to have been expected, the new voters sent up a large majority for the Whig ministers. The old Whig party, now counting the Radicals among their numbers, took the name Liberals, and the Tories, realizing the great unpopularity of their party name, began to call themselves the Conservatives. Perhaps the most interesting case of membership in the new body was that of William Ewart Gladstone. Gladstone began his long career of sixty years in parliament as a Tory, representing one of the few remaining pocket boroughs controlled by the duke of Newcastle.

This victory of the Liberals ushered in a series of remarkable reforms that began the social and administrative regeneration of England. Greatest from the humanitarian point of view was the abolition of slavery. In 1807 the slave trade had been done away with in the British colonies;' and in consequence the condition of the planters in the West Indies had steadily deteriorated. The fact that slavery had. ceased to be profitable rendered it easier for the teachings of Wilberforce, Clarkson, and others to be embodied in law'; and in 1833 the whole system, as far as Great Britain was concerned, was abolished. The government appropriated £20,000,000 to compensate slave owners for their losses and allowed them in the way of service three-fourths of the slave's time for twelve years. The compensation was inadequate, as the losses of the slave owners amounted to about £50,000,000, while the service arrangement proved to be of little value. In the same year a bill which was passed for the relief of children in factories began the history of factory legislation.

Equally important were the great administrative reforms which substituted order and system for the confusion and inefficiency that had hitherto characterized methods of local government. In 1834 an amendment to the poor law thoroughly revised an unfortunate measure of 1795, which had overburdened the parishes and increased the number of paupers. Control of the poor was taken away from the parish and given to a group of parishes called the Union, which elected a board of men entirely independent of the old justices of the peace. This act deprived the parish of its last important function and the local aristocracy of an important duty. In 1835 came the Municipal Corporations Act, which created a uniform system of government for the corporate towns of Great Britain, abolished the system of government in the hands of a few men, which had prevailed up to this time, and provided for popular control by the tax-payers. This reform of the municipalities was followed more than fifty years afterward by the reform of the counties in 1888 and of the parishes in 1894. In 1836 registration of births, marriages, and deaths was taken out of the hands of the church and given to a new body of government officials. In 1833 the government undertook to extend education, chiefly among the poor, by a grant of £20,000 for private schools. This attempt to encourage education was the first in a long series of measures organizing a public school system in Great Britain.

Many minor reforms were carried through. Prisons and asylums were improved ; whipping posts and pillories were abolished; the postal service was simplified and extended ; postage stamps were introduced in 1840, and postage was reduced to a penny, that is, two cents. In 1836 the stamp duty on newspapers was lowered; in 1855 it was got rid of altogether, and in consequence the circulation of newspapers increased enormously, and many new papers were established.

Accession of Queen Victoria

In 1837 William IV died, and the next heir to the throne was his niece, Victoria, the daughter of the duke of Kent, at this time but eighteen years of age.

FIRST ADHESIVE POSTAGE STAMP.

The stamp is black, the cancellation mark red. So well was the design executed that it was retained for more than thirty years, though after 1840 the stamp was printed in red and the cancellation mark in black.

To her long reign of nearly sixty-four years has been fitly given the name of the Victorian Era. Though many of the measures that began the transformation of "Old England" had already been adopted, yet their application and extension coincided with the life of the queen. The Victorian Era, therefore, was a period of transition, during which Great Britain and the British empire of to-day were created. That Great Britain was able to pass through this great period of her history without serious drawback or disturbance is in no small degree due to Queen Victoria. Her personality, her high regard for all that was right and honorable, her example as a wife and mother, her rigid respect for all constitutional forms, and her conscientious performance of her duties as sovereign rendered her a factor of unmistakable influence in the life and government of the British people. Trained and guided during her early years by the Whig minister, Lord Melbourne, and afterward (1840-1861), aided and advised by her husband, Albert of Saxe-Coburg, the prince consort, she developed a remarkable knowledge of the principles and practices of constitutional government, and displayed a judgment in the exercise of the royal prerogatives that was rare in a British sovereign.

General Character of the Victorian Era

Under Queen Victoria the growth of democracy, the improvement of social and economic conditions, and the expansion of the kingdom into the empire went steadily on. Cabinet government became firmly established; the extension of the suffrage, desired by the Radicals and the Chartists, was finally effected; free trade was introduced; the Irish question entered a new phase under new and able leaders; the growth of commerce brought Great Britain into contact with the far East, and the possession of India and the trade routes thither quickened the rivalry with Russia and complicated foreign diplomacy; increase in the size and importance of the colonies led to the adoption of a new colonial policy and eventually to the great issue of colonial federation; while in matters of legislation at home, the safety, welfare, and happiness of the middle and working classes gained an ever increasing amount of attention. As the years went on, Great Britain withdrew more and more from Continental affairs. With the accession of Victoria, Hanover was separated from the English crown and given to Ernest Augustus, the youngest son of George III. Thus Great Britain was saved from all entanglement in German politics, and from all responsibility for Hanover during the great wars of 1866 and 1870, whereby German unity was effected.

General Survey of Parties and Ministers under Victoria

The Whig ministry of Lord Melbourne was in office when Victoria came to the throne, and, in the main, the Whigs or Liberals remained the leading party till 1874. The Conservatives won in the elections of 1841, and Peel was prime minister till 1846. His advocacy of free trade, however, divided the Conservative party into the protectionist or old Conservatives, led by Derby and Disraeli, and the free trade or liberal Conservatives, led by Aberdeen and Gladstone. This break in the party gave power into the hands of the Liberals, under Lord John Russell, in 1847; but disputes between Russell and Palmerston, the foreign minister, weakened their control, and in 1852 the Conservatives returned to power for a brief space, with Derby as the head of the government. In 1853, however, the free trade Conservatives joined the Liberals, overthrew Derby, and placed in power a Liberal ministry under Aberdeen. This government remained in control till 1855, when Aberdeen resigned, owing to the discontent aroused by his unsatisfactory conduct of the Crimean war, and Palmerston took his place with another Liberal ministry. Foreign troubles drove Palmerston from office, and a short Derby-Disraeli ministry marked the supremacy of the Conservatives in 1858-1859. Palmerston regained power in 1859 and retained it till his death in 1865, when Russell became minister for a year. With the alternating ministries, first of Disraeli (1866-1868, 1875-1880) and Gladstone (1869-1874, 1885), then of Gladstone (January-July, 1886, 1892-1894) and Salisbury (1885-1886, 1886-1892, 1894- 1902), a new party era began, and new issues and new programmes came to the front.

After 1841, cabinet and parliamentary government became firmly established. The queen gave up all right of appointing ministries and always selected the man who could command a majority in the House of Commons. She demanded, however, that her ministers keep her fully informed of all that was being done, and that they should not change a measure after it had received the royal sanction. The rise of the prime minister within the cabinet gave -unity to the entire cabinet, which thenceforth was invariably selected from one party and always resigned as a whole when the majority was against it. When supported by a majority in the House of Commons, the ministry wielded practically absolute power, and the prime minister was the head of the government.