could be found for some wise and temperate experiment of the extension of civil rights among such people, if the experience of the past few years does not afford it.

Let us consider the enormous and silent changes which have been going forward among the laboring population. May I use the words to honorable and right honorable gentlemen once used by way of exhortation by Sir Robert Peel, "Elevate your vision"? Let us try and raise our views above the fears, suspicions, jealousies, attacks, and recriminations of this place. Let us look onward to the time of our children and our children's children. Let us think what preparation should be made for them. Is there or is there not a steady movement of the laboring classes, and is or is not that movement onwards and upwards? I do not say you can see it; for, like all great processes, it is unobservable in detail but solid and unassailable in character. It is like those movements of the earth's crust, which science tells us are even now going on in certain portions of the globe, which sailors sail over and the traveler by land treads upon without being conscious of them; but science tells you that the changes are taking place, and that things are not as they were.

Has my right honorable friend ever considered the astonishing phenomena connected with some portion of the conduct of the laboring classes, and especially in the Lancashire distress? Has he considered what an amount of self-denial was exhibited by these men in respect to the American war? Could any man have believed that a conduct so still, so calm, so firm, so energetic, could have planted itself in the minds of a population without becoming a known patent fact through the whole country? And yet when the day of trial came, we saw that noble sympathy on their part with the people of the North; that determination that, be their sufferings what they might, no word should proceed from them that would damage a cause so just. On one side, there was a magnificent moral spectacle; on the other side, there was a great lesson to us all, to teach us that, in their minds, by a process of quiet instillation, opinions and sentiments were gradually forming themselves, of which we for a long time remain unaware, but that,

when at last they make their appearance, are found mature, solid, and irresistible. .

...

You cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side. The great social forces which move on in their might and majesty, and which the tumult of our debates does not for a moment impede or disturb, those great social forces are against you; they are marshaled on our side; and the banner which we now carry, though, perhaps, at some moment it may droop over our sinking heads, yet it soon again will float in the eye of heaven, and it will be borne by the firm hands of the united people of the three kingdoms, perhaps not to an easy but to a certain and to a not distant victory.

As examples of the many measures of a reforming nature carried through parliament in the years immediately following the Reform Bill of 1867, may be taken the bill for the abolition of religious tests at the universities, the bill for free public education, and the bill for legalizing trade unions. The following extracts inIclude a few sections from each of these statutes.

Previous to this time every student, fellow, and lecturer at the universities had been compelled to take certain oaths and conform to certain religious requirements which none but members of the Church of England could conscientiously do. The universities were now by law thrown open to members of all creeds.

abolishing

Whereas, it is expedient that the benefits of the universities 442. Extracts of Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham, and of the colleges and from the law halls now subsisting therein, as places of religion and learning, religious should be rendered freely accessible to the nation :

And whereas, by means of divers restrictions, tests, and disabilities, many of her Majesty's subjects are debarred from the full enjoyment of the same:

And whereas, it is expedient that such restrictions, tests, and disabilities should be removed, under proper safeguards

tests at the universities (1870)

for the maintenance of religious instruction and worship in the said universities and the colleges and halls now subsisting within the same :

No religious No person shall be required, upon taking or to enable him requirement to take any degree (other than a degree in divinity) within the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham, or any of them, or upon exercising or to enable him to exercise any of the rights and privileges which may heretofore have been or may hereafter be exercised by graduates in the said universities or any of them, or in any college subsisting at the time of the passing of this act in any of the said universities, or upon taking or holding, or to enable him to take or hold any office in any of the said universities or any such college as aforesaid, or upon teaching or to enable him to teach within any of the said universities or any such college as aforesaid, or upon opening or to enable him to open a private hall or hostel in any of the said universities for the reception of students, to subscribe any article or formulary of faith, or to make any declaration or take any oath respecting his religious belief or profession, or to conform to any religious observance, or to attend or abstain from attending any form of public worship, or to belong to any specified church, sect, or denomination; nor shall any person be compelled, in any of the said universities or any such college as aforesaid, to attend the public worship of any church, sect, or denomination to which he does not belong.

Education in England was formerly considered principally a matter to be cared for by the church or by private individuals. Nevertheless both church and endowed schools had long received some financial aid from the government. Now a still further step was taken. Compulsory free education was introduced. The two great difficulties - the unwillingness of local authorities to go to the expense of supporting the schools, and religious differences were met in the way shown in the following clauses of the act of 1870.

from the law

There shall be provided for every school district a sufficient 443. Extracts amount of accommodation in public elementary schools (as establishing hereinafter defined) available for all the children resident in free public such district for whose elementary education efficient and suita- schools (1870) ble provision is not otherwise made; and where there is an insufficient amount of such accommodation, in this act referred to as "public school accommodation," the deficiency shall be supplied in the manner provided by this act.

Where the education department, in the manner provided by this act, are satisfied and have given public notice that there is an insufficient amount of public school accommodation for any school district, and the deficiency is not supplied as hereinafter required, a school board shall be formed for such district and shall supply such deficiency, and in case of default by the school board the education department shall cause the duty of such board to be performed in the manner provided by this act.

Every elementary school which is conducted in accordance with the following regulations shall be a public elementary school within the meaning of this act; and every public elementary school shall be conducted in accordance with the following regulations (a copy of which regulations shall be conspicuously put up in every such school); namely, (1) it shall not be required, as a condition of any child being admitted in or continuing in the school, that he shall attend or abstain from attending any Sunday school or any place of religious. worship, or that he shall attend any religious observance or any instruction in religious subjects in the school or elsewhere, from which observance or instruction he may be withdrawn by his parent, or that he shall, if withdrawn by his parent, attend the school on any day exclusively set apart for religious observance by the religious body to which his parent belongs; (2) the time or times during which any religious observance is practiced or instruction in religious subjects is given at any meeting of the school shall be either at the beginning, or at the end, or at the beginning and the end of such meeting.

A full investigation of trade unions was made by a large parliamentary committee during the years 1867-1869.

444. Extracts

from the law legalizing trade unions

(1871)

Officers of trade unions

held to account

The law adopted on its recommendation gave the trade unions a legal right to exist, and, if they were registered, certain other rights similar to those of an insurance company.

The purposes of any trade union shall not, by reason merely that they are in restraint of trade, be deemed to be unlawful so as to render any member of such trade union liable to criminal prosecution for conspiracy or otherwise.

The purposes of any trade union shall not, by reason merely that they are in restraint of trade, be unlawful so as to render void or voidable any agreement or trust. . . .

Any seven or more members of a trade union may, by subscribing their names to the rules of the union, and otherwise complying with the provisions of this act with respect to registry, register such trade union under this act, provided that if any one of the purposes of such trade union be unlawful such registration shall be void.

It shall be lawful for any trade union registered under this act to purchase or take upon lease in the names of the trustees for the time being of such union any land not exceeding one

acre. . . .

Every treasurer or other officer of a trade union registered under this act, at such times as by the rules of such trade union he should render such account as hereinafter mentioned, or, upon being required so to do, shall render to the trustees of the trade union, at a meeting of the trade union, a just and true account of all moneys received and paid by him since he last rendered the like account, and of the balance then remaining in his hands.

A general statement of the receipts, funds, effects, and expenditure of every trade union registered under this act shall be transmitted to the registrar before the first day of June in every year, and shall show fully the assets and liabilities at the date, and the receipts and expenditure during the year preceding the date to which it is made out, of the trade union; and shall show separately the expenditure in respect of the several objects of the trade union.