The Reform Bill

By 1830 Britain had been struck by a severe economic crisis. Factories were closing down, unemployment increased rapidly and the wages of workers fell. Economic distress quickly led to a demand for Parliamentary Reform.

The members of the Parliament did not represent the bulk of the inhabitants of the places for which they sat. The Reform Bill had really two sides. One regulated the franchise, giving the vote to tenant farmers in the counties and to the town middle class. The Bill passed into law on June 7, 1832. It increased the electorate only from 220.000 to 670.000 in a population of 14.000.000, but its other consequences can hardly be exaggerated.

First, by placing political power in the hands of the industrial capitalists and their middle class followers it created a mass basis for the Liberal Party, which dominated politics throughout the middle of the 19-th century.

Second, the Reform Bill altered the political balance between the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the Crown. The Commons gained at the expense of the Lords because they were now able to claim to be the representatives of the people against a clique of aristocrats. The Crown lost the last of its means of direct interference in Parliamentary politics. From this time the influence of the Crown, though often considerable, had to be exercised secretly, through its private contacts with politicians.

The third consequence of passing of the Reform Bill was unintended and indirect. The workers who had done most of the fighting soon realized, that they had been excluded from all the benefits, and the Poor Law Act of 1834 convinced them that the Government was indifferent to their needs. It is not accidental that the years immediately after 1832 were marked by a disgusted turning away of the masses from parliamentary politics to revolutionary Trade Unionism, or that they proceeded to build up in the Chartist Movement, the first independent political party of the working class.

The Chartist Movement was a powerful protest organization that urged the immediate adoption of the “People's Charter”, which would have transformed Britain into a political democracy. It was also expected to improve living standards.

The “People's Charter” was drafted in 1838. The Chartists' six main demands were:

universal male suffrage (votes for all men);

equal electoral districts;

abolition of the requirement that members of Parliament be property owners;

payment for the Members of Parliament;

annual general elections and secret ballot.

Millions of workers signed Charter petitions in 1839, 1842 and 1848, and some Chartist demonstrations turned into riots. Many of the leaders of the movement were arrested. The Charter had been rejected by the House of Commons three times, and the rejection of the third petition in 1848 brought an end to the movement.

I. Answer the following questions:

1. What led to a demand for Parliamentary Reform?

2. What did the Reform Bill regularize?

3. When did the Bill pass into law?

4. What consequences had the Reform Act?

5. What was the Chartist Movement?

6. What did the Chartists demand?

II. Suggest Ukrainian equivalents:

Economic distress, constituency, to gain at the expense of, abolition, consequences, to be indifferent, to be excluded from all the benefits, to improve living standards, annual general elections, signatures, to be rejected, powerful protest, main demands, property owners, representatives, direct interference, to urge immediate adoption, to exaggerate, considerable influence.