Democracy from the Industrial Revolution to the Present the opening of the 19th century democracy did not prevail in any coun try in the world, and only England, France and the United States had made any notable progress in that direction. Even these modest advances seemed destined to be crushed and the old order restored after 1815 through the sinister influence of Metternich, the able and alert statesman of the old regime, who had extended his reactionary system throughout continental Europe by 1823. But in that year he received his initial reverse in Great Britain's challenge to the intervention of the reaction aries in the South American revolutions. This action of Great Britain was not so much motivated by an abstract love of liberty and revolution, for these were scarcely more pleas ing to her Tory ministry than to Metternich, but was rather led to this course by the fact that her trading interests, so greatly increased by the industrial revolution, were more likely to be advanced by the freedom of the Spanish American republics than through the return of Spanish control. The industrial revolution thus gave the old regime its first serious rebuff and from that time on it has caused it con tinually to retreat until to-day it retains only a precarious hold on those mid-European states where Metternich had most thoroughly established his system. This greatest trans formation of all phases of life in the history of mankind, which hal been known since Arnold Toynbee's time as the ((Industrial came first in England between 1750 and 1825 and was passed along to the Continent, reaching France between 1825 and 1840, Germany from 1840 onward, but espe daily after 1870, Austria about the same time, and scarcely touching Russia until the last decade of the 19th century. In addition to its great series of mechanical inventions, it tremendously accelerated the process begun by the com mercial revolution, namely, the increase of the bourgeoisie or middle class, to which the world owes most of the great advances in civilization and liberalism. This class, motivated in part by sentiments of enlightened humanity and in part by selfish class interests, carried the day against the autocracy of the old regime and made it possible for the proletariat, which was also created by the industrial revolution, to consolidate the positions already won for it by the bourgeoisie and to begin the struggle for the final realization of democracy in the true sense of the word. The battle for political and social democracy, then, in the last century has centred about three successive tasks : (1) the elimination of the vestiges of the old regime— the heritage of the Middle Ages; (2) the estab lishment of the liberal regime of the lent and •(3) the attack upon the supremacy of the bourgeoisie by the proleta riat, beginning about the middle of the 19th century. All of these forces were created or set in motion by the industrial revolution and attention may be turned to the manner in which they have been realized in the leading countries of the Western world. Most of the achievements in these directions have consisted in the extension of the suffrage, the increase in the importance of the popular or legislative branch of the government as compared with the executive, the extension of representative institutions, a broadening of the conception of the scope and functions of government, and the drafting of written constitutions which acknowledge and guarantee these progressive achievements. As important as political and social democracy is economic democracy, or the equal right of all classes to such action as is necessary to advance and safeguard their material interests. At the beginning of the 19th century economic democracy was as far from realization as political democracy and the advances made since that time have been most notable. In 1800 most of the extensive re strictive economic regulations which had been enacted during the two previous centuries operated in favor of the vested interests of the squirearchy. With the growth of the political power of the bourgeoisie after the industrial revolution went the abolition of most of the old restrictions on economic activities and there was instituted the reign of laissez-faire which gave the middle class manufacturers and merchants unrestricted opportunity for the de velopment of their great industrial enterprises and for the enjoyment of the ((blessings' of the freedom of contract. This individualistic movement was most thorough-going in Eng land, where it was chiefly associated with the work of Cobden, Bright, Mill and Gladstone, but no European country entirely escaped its influence. Laissez-faire, however, gave eco nomic liberty only to the upper middle classes and it is to the development of trade-unionism that one must look for the movement which has been, up to the present time, the mose effective instrument for advancing economic democracy among the laboring classes.
In England the middle class secured their first great triumph over the old order in the Parliamentary Reform Bill of 1832 and in the Municipal Reform Act of 1835. These reforms destroyed the mediaeval system of election and representation which had persisted in England until that time and gave political recognition to the dislocation of economic interests and population caused by the industrial revolution. They were scarcely a direct victory for democ racy, as they did not carry with them an en franchisement of the masses, but they did con stitute an indirect triumph in that they brought into power the bourgeoisie who immediately proceeded to clear away many of the most formidable obstacles to the ultimate realization of democracy. The democratic movement of this period — Chartism — proved a pathetic fail ure, but essentially all of the Chartist demands have since been realized, a significant testimony to the progress of democracy in England. The first important direct step in the actual realiza tion of political democracy in England came in Disraeli's Borough Franchise Bill of 1867 which brought something approaching universal man hood suffrage to the residents of boroughs. A
similar extension of the franchise to the work ing classes in the country by Gladstone's bill of 1884, for all practical purposes, made in Eng land a political democracy. The process has been carried to completion by the sweeping Franchise Act of February 1918 which brought universal suffrage to males and introduced on a very liberal scale the principle of woman suffrage, thus making England's electorate the most inclusive and democratic of that of any modern nation. Fortunately, England, two centuries before, had established the supremacy of Parliament and when the people secured the vote they were able to use it to influence the policies of the government and secure for them-. selves the substance as well as the form of political and social democracy. The grip of the people upon the legislative power in Great Britain was made more extensive and more certain by the Parliament Bill of 1911 which finally assured the supremacy of the House of Commons. Beginning with the Elementary Education Act of 1870, the people have been able in part to transform England into a social as well •as a political democracy. Especially rapid has been the progress in this direction under the Liberal domination since 1905, as is abimdantly testified by the remarkable series of reform measures passed since that time. Among the most conspicuous of these have been the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1906, the Education Act of 1906, the Small Holdings Act of 1907, the Old Age Pensions Act of 190% the Labor acts of 19(S9 and 1913, the Lloyd George Budget of 1909-10, the Na tional Insurance Act of 1912 and the Franchise and Education Acts of 191& These are a con vincing demonstration of the fact that the English proletariat has now gained for itself the position held in 1815 by the Tory squirearchy and in 1848 by the bourgeoisie liberals. Economic democracy in England has been realized through the abolition of the various restrictions upon the freedom of economic activity which existed in 1800. This was accomplished through the efforts of the middle class and the proletariat. Especially significant has been the development of trade unionism. This was first legalized through the activities of Francis Place and Joseph Hume in 1824-25. It has received further legislative encouragement by the laws of 1871-76, 1906 and 1913, and, in spite of some recent adverse court decisions, the right of trade unions to organize and act seems firmly established in England. In spite of a titular monarch and aristocracy, England is at the present day, per haps, the most democratic of the great modern nations.
In France the ultra-conservative squirearchy, led by the arch-reactionary Charles X, made a most daring and determined effort, between 1815 and 1830, to restore the old regime. The futility of the attempt to revive in France the order of things which had existed before 1789 was demonstrated by the Revolution of 1830 which sent into final oblivion the autocracy and corruption of Bourbon absolutism. The bour geoisie liberals, strengthened by the effects of the industrial revolution, came into power with the Orleanist monarchy of 1830 to 1848. Louis Philippe, however, refused to square his policies with the growth of liberalism and met, in 1848, the fate which Charles X had encountered in 1830. The new Republican government de veloped a fatal split over its policies and the Bonapartist adventurer, by the aid of this division among Republicans and Socialists and the romantic lustre of his name, was able to establish a temporary autocracy. But during its brief period of power the Provisional Gov ernment of 1848 secured for France the enact ment of a universal male suffrage law, which has been retained almost entirely unchanged down to the present day. This gave France the double honor of being the nation which origi nated the practice of universal manhood suffrage in 1789 and also the first powerful na tion to adopt as a permanent political institu tion the practice of universal manhood suffrage. Like his predecessors, Charles X and Louis Philippe, Louis Napoleon was unable to resist the growing forces of democracy and liberalism which were being continually aug mented by the effects of the industrial revolution and the growth of the bourgeoisie, and even before he was swept off the throne by the debacle of 1870 he had been compelled to relinquish most of the attributes of autocracy and to establish a liberal constitutional mon archy. The attempts to return to monarchy between 1871 and 1879 failed utterly, and with the accession of President Grevy in 1879 it was definitely established that the constitution of 1875 would be interpreted to mean that France was to be henceforth a Parliamentary Republic. Gathering impetus in the decade of the eighties, through the vigorous leadership of Jules Ferry, the Republic gained sufficient strength to be able to withstand the onslaughts of monarchists and clericals in the Boulanger episode and the Dreyfus affair and emerged from the latter stronger than ever. Under the Third Republic the French proletariat has increased in political power until the progressive democratic element is to-day as firmly entrenched in its control of political policies as the bourgeoisie were in 1840. Their power has been given objective expres sion in a series of social reform acts which rival England's achievement in this field. In France, economic democracy was advanced by the law of 1864, giving workingmen the right to combine for strikes, and by that of 1884, granting general freedom of organization to the working-class. The attempt of the gov ernment employees, however, to establish their right to strike in 1909 and 1910 failed almost completely. In France, as in England, democ racy is to-day a realized fact.