ench
Revolution, along with some much more far-reaching propositions.
Between the years 1820 and 1830, however, a moderate reform of
Parliament had been advocated by the leaders of the Whig party. In
1830 this party rather unexpectedly obtained a majority in Parliament,
for the first time for a long while, and the ministry immediately
introduced a reform bill. It proposed to take away the right of
separate representation from fifty-six towns, and to reduce the number
of representatives from two to one in thirty-one others; to transfer
these representatives to the more populous towns and counties; to
extend the franchise to a somewhat larger number and to equalize it;
and finally to introduce lists of voters, to keep the polls open for
only two days, and to correct a number of such minor abuses. There was
a bitter contest in Parliament and in the country at large on the
proposed change, and the measure was only carried after it had been
rejected by one House of Commons, passed by a new House elected as a
test of the question, then defeated by the House of Lords, and only
passed by them when submitted a second time with the threat by the
ministry of requiring the king to create enough new peers to pass it,
if the existing members refused to do so. Its passage was finally
secured in 1832. It was carried by pressure from below through all its
stages. The king signed it reluctantly because it had been sent to him
by Parliament, the House of Lords passed it under threats from the
ministry, who based their power on the House of Commons. This body in
turn had to be reconstructed by a new election before it would agree
to it, and there is no doubt that the voters as well as Parliament
itself were much influenced by the cry of "the Bill, the whole Bill,
and nothing but the Bill," raised by mobs, associations, and meetings,
consisting largely of the masses of the people who possessed no votes
at all. In the last resort, therefore, it was a victory won by the
masses, and, little as they profited by it immediately, it proved to
be the turning point, the first step from aristocracy toward
democracy.

In 1867 a second Reform Bill was passed, mainly on the lines of the
first, but giving what amounted to almost universal suffrage to the
inhabitants of the town constituencies, which included the great body
of the workingmen. Finally, in 1884 and 1885, the third Reform Bill
was passed which extended the right of voting to agricultural la