ABSTRACT
On February 28, 1884, Gladstone introduced the long-awaited Franchise Bill into the House of Commons. Calculated as it was to increase the electorate from three to five millions, it seemed to justify all the Radical patience which had been exercised since 1880, and the more so since the Prime Minister was pledged to follow up Franchise Extension in 1884 with Radical Redistribution in 1885. At every meeting Liberal speakers obtained their best effects when reciting the sorry legislative history of the Lords throughout the century. The “people” needed no special whipping-up against the Peers after hearing the story of their consistent opposition to bestowing full citizenship upon Dissenters, Catholics, and Jews, their inalterable enmity to Parliamentary Reform, Vote by Ballot and changes in the Land System, and their unending obstruction of all manner of “progress” from fair rents in Ireland to University and Marriage Law Reform throughout the United Kingdom.
