ABSTRACT
The basis of the enduring success of the Victorian political system was its adaptability, its capacity for self-reform, for strengthening itself by becoming ever more representative of the population as a whole. Sometimes, as with the Reform Acts of 1832, 1867, and 1884-5, such reform was enacted by statute; but reform also proceeded continuously through changes in the conduct and conventions of government and politics. Did the late-Victorians seek then to create a 'democracy' in Britain after the passing of the Second Reform Act in 1867? In his speech introducing the measure Disraeli had hoped that it would 'never be the fate of this country to live under a democracy'. But his proposals had been drastically amended during the passage of the bill through the Commons; and opponents such as Robert Lowe were sure that it was ultra-democratic in tendency, and that a new breed of Jacobin working-class leaders must soon emerge who would begin by seeking the confiscation of property and end by throwing the country into anarchy. Many others - including Lord Derby, Prime Minister until February 1868 - simply hoped for the best. It was, he admitted in a famous phrase, 'a leap in the dark'; but not, he trusted, a leap into darkness. 1
