ABSTRACT
After 1880 the social scene was dominated by two major forces – the bourgeois ascendancy and the thrust of labour. As a result of the former phenomenon there was a shift in the balance of power at the top. From the latter change came a modification in the power structure of society, because of the new relationship between the workers and the governing class. This transformation was in fact slow, and one should not exaggerate its extent, but it was real and above all full of consequence for the future.
