ABSTRACT
That Britain escaped revolution during these difficult decades when both the economy and the social structure were under the strain of major changes was due, at least in part, to the fact that Parliament did, however reluctantly, attempt by legislation to ameliorate some of the consequences. Little of the new legislation was popular and much of it was pushed through by convinced minority opinion in the teeth of bitter opposition. Moreover the ship of state escaped capsizing quite as much because of the self-righting nature of the economy and the adaptability of the officers and crew as because of the legislative course that it followed. Nevertheless what was done charted the passage to the more stable and prosperous decades of the heyday of Victorian Britain.
