Progress to democracy in the last one hundred years is visible not only in the enlarged number of enfranchised citizens, but in the general admission that every extension of the franchise has been to the public good; not only in the fact that men of all classes and trades now have their representatives in Parliament, but in the very wide acknowledgment that women without votes cannot get that attention by members of the House of Commons that is given to male electors.

That the majority of electors have expressed a decided opinion that the power of the House of Lords should be curtailed, as the power of the monarchy has been curtailed, and that the decisions of the House of Commons are only to be corrected by the House of Commons, is evidence that under our obviously imperfect Parliamentary system the will of the electors does get registered on the Statute Book.
EDUCATION TO DEMOCRACY Apart from the direct political education to democracy, it is well to note the other agencies that have been at work, preparing men and women for the responsible task of national self-government.
In the Middle Ages the religious guilds and the trade guilds, managed by their own members, gave men and women a training in democratic government.
The parish, too, was a commune, and its affairs and finances were administered by duly elected officers.[2] But the guilds, with their numerous almshouses and hospitals, were all suppressed early in Edward VI.'s reign, and their funds confiscated.

As for the parish, it was shorn of all its property, save the parish church, in the same reign, and its old self-governing life dwindled away to the election of churchwardens.
It was not till the beginning of the nineteenth century that the working classes, by the formation of trade unions, once more took up the task of education in self-government.

From that time onward, through trade unions, co-operative societies, and friendly societies, with their annual conferences and congresses, a steady training in democracy has been achieved; and our Labour Party of to-day, with its Members of Parliament, its members of county and district councils, and its Justices of the Peace, would hardly have been possible but for this training.

Other agencies may be mentioned.