ABSTRACT
The chapter claims that ‘Chartists and Social Reformers were, therefore, the truest Conservatives’ because they sought justice for all classes, whereas the present capitalist economic system was ‘alone responsible for the volcanic explosions of revolutionary violence, which are the natural reaction in such cases, and which bury in undistinguishable and indiscriminate ruin, alike the good and the evil’. The millions are never led by a political economist. In such quarters Mr. Cobden would be beaten outright by Mr. Feargus O’Connor, and Lord John Manners would probably drive them both out from the field. It is to be found in the necessarily opposing views which these parties take of society from the differing positions in which society has placed them. It is not to be concealed that Parliamentary Reform would be but the avant courier of Social Reforms, but these latter would be gradually introduced in accordance with the gradual growth of public opinion.
