ABSTRACT
In Parliament Joseph Hume had urged Household Suffrage, Ballot, Triennial Parliaments, and More Equal Electoral Districts in a motion of June,1849, which corresponded largely with the programme which the National Reform Association was to adopt. The Reform agitation of 1849–1852 was conducted under the style of a “Financial and Parliamentary Reform Movement” for reasons which are worth a little investigation. Supported by an agitation outside which made it likely that a new unstamped Press might soon make its appearance, Milner Gibson had his first success when Lord John Russell conceded him a Newspaper Stamp Committee in 1851. Against newspaper duties Radicals had moved effectively when dubbing them “Taxes on Knowledge” and ascribing to them the dense and dangerous ignorance of the masses. Universal education at the public expense was brought nearer by illustrating from the alarming percentages of the unschooled under the existing system what perilous moral, and political “errors” might take root throughout the lower strata of the population.
