ABSTRACT
Cranborne gave ground quite early on when he offered his "confession of faith on the subject of the working-classes". In the final paragraph of this article entitled "The Change of Ministry", he saw that the public apathy is profound had effectively left parliamentary reform to be decided by "a score or so of influential politicians of various schools". With that all important reservation, household suffrage came up almost at once; although Carnarvon was overruled when he proposed it, accompanied by "Conservative" safe-guards. The Toryism that rejected Sir Robert Peel possessed a cohesion remarkable before the advent of the late Victorian mass parties. In Britain's evolving constitution the monarchy had "speaking practically died" and "a large tinge of democracy" was present, which with the passing of the bill would efface aristocracy in a matter of years from the national scene it had dominated for so long.
