taken with the consent, apparently at the suggestion, of the prime minister, Lord Melbourne, who thought his position insecure and wished to retire from it, though the king, who disliked Melbourne, was glad of the excuse. The incident affords an interesting example of constitutional practice. The leader of the opposite party, Sir Robert Peel, was in Rome at the moment. He returned to England at once, formally accepted responsibility for the king's action, organized a cabinet, and attempted to go on with the government, though hopeless of the result. The appeal to the country in the dissolution of parliament which followed shortly increased the conservative vote in the house, but still left the party in a decided minority. Peel presented to parliament an attractive programme of reform, but the hostile majority would have none of it, and after a courageous struggle of four months since his appointment he was obliged to tell the king that he must recall his opponents to office. The action throughout was entirely in harmony with the interpretation of the constitution which then prevailed, and still prevails in theory, but it is not likely that any king will repeat the attempt, or that any minister could now sustain himself in a similar situation so long as Peel did.

The action of Queen Victoria in 1839, in refusing to allow the ladies of her bedchamber to be changed by the incoming ministry, by which she maintained Lord Melbourne in office for two years after he had resigned, is hardly a case of the same kind. The queen was acting not from political motives but because she believed she was improperly required to make a personal sacrifice; the question was a new one which had never occurred as an issue before; and Sir Robert Peel was not anxiqus, from the uncertain party temper of the house, to take office. By the time he had obtained a secure majority in 1841, the queen had concluded that she ought to yield the point. The publication of Queen Victoria's letters gives many interesting glimpses of the relation of the sovereign to the government during the middle portion of

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the century. The support which the queen gave to Sir Robert Peel during his efforts for tariff reform must have been a great encouragement to him. In 1853, when Lord Aberdeen was trying to form a ministry, the queen wrote him saying she hoped Mr. Gladstone would be made chancellor of the exchequer and Lord St. Leonards lord chancellor. In spite of this request, Aberdeen tried to get Mr. Graham to take the exchequer and Lord St. Leonards was not continued as chancellor. Particularly instructive are the accounts given in the letters, especially at the beginning of 1855, of the difficulties encountered and the methods employed by British statesmen in forming a cabinet.

The memorandum which the queen sent in 1850 to the minister for foreign affairs, Lord Palmerston, through the prime minister, throws great light on the sovereign's relation to the formation of government policy. Lord Palmerston was inclined to conduct the business of his department in an independent and somewhat arbitrary way, and the memorandum read: "The queen requires, first, that Lord Palmerston will distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the queen may know as distinctly to what she is giving her royal sanction. Secondly, having once given her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the minister. Such an act she must consider as failing in sincerity towards the crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her constitutional rights of dismissing that minister. She expects to be kept informed of what passes between him and the foreign ministers, before important decisions are taken, based upon that intercourse; to receive the foreign despatches in good time; and to have the drafts for her approval, sent to her in sufficient time to make herself acquainted with their contents, before they must be sent off." What the queen demands is clearly not a voice in shaping the ministerial policy. The most that she implies in this direction is a possible withholding of consent. What she demands from the minister is complete and trustworthy

information. In 1851 Lord Palmerston was dismissed from office because he had officially expressed views regarding the coup d'état in Paris in variance with the policy adopted by the cabinet and sanctioned by the queen. In the period between 1832 and the present time there has unquestionably been a great increase of the power and widening of the activities of the executive, but this change has been to the advantage of the cabinet and not of the sovereign. For this reason, because of the supposed complete subordination of the cabinet to parliamentary control, the change has excited no opposition and no constitutional criticism.

In the history of political parties the period which followed the reform bill was one of a loosening of party ties and of unusual disorganization. A radical wing of the whig party had already formed, and grew in strength. Sir Robert Peel's repeal of the corn laws split the tory party also, as the majority refused to follow him and the smaller body who did, known as the Peelites, acted for some years by themselves. The disintegration of the older parties is shown also by the gradual disuse in this period of the names whig and tory and the substitution for them of the new names liberal and conservative, with a restricted and special meaning attached to the still occasionally used terms whig and tory. As a result of this condition of things, the decade from 1850 to 1860 is a time of coalition ministries, mostly short-lived and displaying the inevitable weakness of coalition governments, that almost every question of policy which arises is regarded by different sections of the cabinet from a different point of view. About 1859 the Peelites, whose ablest member was Gladstone, definitely identified themselves with the liberal party. Following this, unless we except the rise of the Irish home rule party to parliamentary influence in the late.seventies, there was nearly a quarter of a century of more normal party relationships and party governments, though party bonds were then more elastic

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than now, especially, as is the case in all countries, in the liberal party.

It was twenty years after the passage of the reform bill of 1832 before there was a serious attempt to make further changes of the same kind. In 1852 and again in 1854, Lord John Russell introduced new reform bills, the first time as prime minister and the second as a member of the cabinet and leader of the house of commons, but neither measure was pressed to a test vote. In 1859, Disraeli, chancellor of the exchequer in Lord Derby's conservative cabinet, brought in another, which was rejected and the ministry, going to the country on the issue, was defeated and gave way to the liberals, who held office until 1866. In 1860 Lord John Russell, now foreign secretary, made his third attempt, but the bill was finally withdrawn through the pressure of other business, and in 1866 the ministry of Earl Russell, formerly Lord John Russell, was defeated on another reform bill and resigned. The liberal party was at that time so divided within its own ranks upon details of the question that it could not perfect and carry a measure. None of these proposed bills had been accompanied by any very strong popular demand, but, on the defeat of the last bill, the public, especially the working classes, made it clear that a demand for reform had risen which must be satisfied. The result was the reform bill of 1867, "the second reform bill," introduced by Mr. Disraeli, again chancellor of the exchequer.

A conservative cabinet was in office under the earl of Derby, but the liberal party, when acting together, had a strong majority in the house of commons. In these circumstances Disraeli proposed that the reform bill should be made a non-partisan measure, and it was really carried by a combination of both parties. The liberals were, however, strong enough to make the bill over to suit themselves, and Disraeli wise enough to allow most of the conservative

safeguards which he had embodied in his first proposals to be thrown out. The bill passed was a liberal party bill, though it probably could not have been carried without conservative votes, and certainly it would have been rejected by the house of lords if it had not been the government measure of a conservative cabinet.

The second reform bill was framed upon the same lines as the first. The qualifications required of electors were decidedly lowered, especially of voters in the boroughs, but the tests were of the same kind, virtually property qualifications. In the boroughs occupiers of houses were enfranchised, and occupiers of lodgings paying a rental of ten pounds. In the counties those able to meet a twelve pound occupation requirement were added to existing voters. About a million new voters were created by the act, not quite doubling the previous number, but the step towards democracy was a longer one than this ratio would imply, for the main increase was from the artisan class in the boroughs. The percentage of increase in the borough vote of the country was 134, and in some towns the old number of voters was multiplied by three. Agricultural laborers were still without the vote, and all laborers in towns which were not parliamentary boroughs. In the redistribution of seats which accompanied the act, fifty-two were taken from the smaller boroughs and given to eleven new boroughs, to a few old boroughs in increased representation, and to the counties.

One incidental effect of this bill was not foreseen and would not have been desired. It led to closer party organization and even to something like machine methods. By an amendment made by the house of lords and accepted by the commons, a limited proportional representation was introduced. In five boroughs and seven counties, electing three members each, the elector was not allowed to vote for more than two. The provision accomplished its purpose in most cases, but in Birmingham, under the lead of Joseph Chamberlain, by 7 A. and S., 532-537; Robertson, Statutes, 425-426, first edition.