ABSTRACT
In the course of a century, between 1832 and 1928, five Reform Acts entirely transformed the basis of political representation in Great Britain. County reform was delayed until Liberalism had to face in Socialism a new challenge to its faith in the virtues of private enterprise. The Trade Unions, on which the political movement of the workers had to rely for much of its strength, represented largely the skilled craftsmen; and these were by no means the quite propertyless and rightless proletarians of simplified class-war theory. The class-structure of advanced capitalist society is not simple, but immensely complex; and its complexity is reflected in the internal divisions within the fundamental economic classes. The Reform Act of 1867 carried the first workmen into Parliament; but the Labour Representation League of 1869 had lost its impetus by 1880; and the further Act of 1884 was needed to give the movement renewed life.
