ABSTRACT
This, of all the periods into which the story of the century divides itself, shows most complication and obscurity of motive, and is, therefore, most difficult of summary description. There are five major quantities to be kept in view, in the general course of political and economic life: (1) the first great Factory and Mines Acts, and the commencement of serious health administration; (2) the new Poor Law; (3) the commercial crisis of 1839, the Irish potato famine of 1845-46, and the commercial crisis of 1847; (4) the commingled agitation of Trade Unionism, Owenism, and Chartism, and (5) the Free Trade movement. We shall see that, despite a great harvest of reforms, the new Parliament did not win the confidence of the masses; that the country was brought again to the verge of revolution; and that the agitation then suddenly expired. Was it merely that the people were satisfied with cheap food and expanding trade? How are we to account at once for the power developed by the labour organizations, and its collapse?
