For the long march teems with adventure and spirited enterprise; and, noting mistakes and failures in the past, we may surely and wisely, and yet with greater daring and finer courage, pursue the road, not unmindful of the charge committed to us in the centuries left behind.
J.C.
HAMPSTEAD, _September, 1911._ CONTENTS INTRODUCTION The British Influence--"Government of the People, by the People, for the People"-- The Foundations of Democracy--British Democracy Experimental not Doctrinaire--Education to Democracy CHAPTER I THE EARLY STRUGGLES AGAINST THE ABSOLUTISM OF THE CROWN The Great Churchmen--Archbishop Anselm and Norman Autocracy--Thomas a Becket and Henry II .-- Stephen Langton and John--The Great Charter CHAPTER II THE BEGINNING OF PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION Democracy and Representative Government--Representative Theory First found in Ecclesiastical Assemblies--The Misrule of Henry III .-- Simon of Montfort, Leader of the National Party--Edward I.'s Model Parliament, 1295--The Nobility Predominant in Parliament--The Medieval National Assemblies--The Electors of the Middle Ages--Payment of Parliamentary Representatives--The Political Position of Women in the Middle Ages--No Theory of Democracy in the Middle Ages CHAPTER III POPULAR INSURRECTION IN ENGLAND General Results of Popular Risings--William FitzOsbert, 1196--The Peasant Revolt and its Leaders, 1381--Jack Cade, Captain of Kent, 1450--The Norfolk Rising under Ket, 1549 CHAPTER IV THE STRUGGLE RENEWED AGAINST THE CROWN Parliament under the Tudors--Victory of Parliament over the Stuarts--The Democratic Protest: Lilburne--Winstanley and "The Diggers"-- The Restoration CHAPTER V CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT--ARISTOCRACY TRIUMPHANT Government by Aristocrats--Civil and Religious Liberty--Growth of Cabinet Rule--Walpole's rule--The Change in the House of Lords--"Wilkes and Liberty" CHAPTER VI THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEA The Witness of the Middle Ages--The "Social Contract" Theory--Thomas Hobbes--John Locke--Rousseau and French Revolution--American Independence--Thomas Paine--Major Cartwright and the "Radical Reformers"-- Thomas Spence--Practical Politics and Democratic Ideals CHAPTER VII PARLIAMENTARY REFORM AND THE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF THE PEOPLE The Industrial Revolution--The Need for Parliamentary Reform--Manufacturing Centres Unrepresented in Parliament--The Passage of the Great Reform Bill--The Working Class still Unrepresented--Chartism--The Hyde Park Railings, 1866--Household Suffrage--Working-class Representation in Parliament--Removal of Religious Disabilities: Catholics, Jews and Freethinkers--The Enfranchisement of Women CHAPTER VIII DEMOCRACY AT WORK Local Government--The Workman in the House of Commons--Working-class Leaders in Parliament--The Present Position of the House of Lords--The Popularity of the Crown--The Democratic Ideals: Socialism and Social Reform--Land Reform and the Single Tax CHAPTER IX THE WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENT: ITS STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS East and West--Tyranny under Democratic Forms--The Obvious Dangers--Party Government--Bureaucracy--Working-Class Ascendancy--On Behalf of Democracy LIST OF PLATES KING JOHN GRANTING MAGNA CHARTA MAGNA CHARTA--A FACSIMILE OF THE ORIGINAL IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM SIR JOHN ELIOT JOHN HAMPDEN THE GORDON RIOTS THE RIGHT HON.

JOHN BURNS, M.P.
THE RIGHT HON.

D.LLOYD GEORGE, M.P.
THE PASSING OF THE PARLIAMENT BILL IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRACY INTRODUCTION THE BRITISH INFLUENCE Our business here is to give some plain account of the movement towards democracy in England, only touching incidentally on the progress of that movement in other parts of the world.

Mainly through British influences the movement has become world wide; and the desire for national self-government, and the adoption of the political instruments of democracy--popular enfranchisement and the rule of elected representatives--are still the aspirations of civilised man in East and West.

The knowledge that these forms of democratic government have by no means at all times and in all places proved successful does not check the movement.