ABSTRACT
‘Mother’s come ‘ome’ said the policeman to an onlooker who asked why the Royal Standard was flying on Buckingham Palace. At home there was a feeling of steady progress. Industries, especially the heavy ones depending on our rich supply of coal and iron, had steadily developed, and many of the worst social results of the Industrial Revolution had been cured. Every year brought news of new inventions. Signor Marconi’s wireless system was already in operation between Poldhu in Cornwall and Newfoundland. The old Queen’s death was a great shock: people spoke of the end of the ‘Victorian era’. But it did not really end; it lasted till 1914, though life became freer and gayer when her son, Edward VII, came to the throne. The German Empire was only thirty years old at the turn of the century. The Empire had made great progress in industry and was now the rival of Britain in world trade.
