Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/368

348 in the year 1834 no less than 4,920 convicts were shipped off for life.

The philanthropy of the time and the individual effort that preceded legislation had first secured the abolition of the slave trade, and then slavery itself in the English Colonies, a proof of the growing interest taken in the oppressed and afflicted by those in positions of power. But the most important step of all, in the light of modern events with regard to the rise of Democracy, was the passing of the Reform Bill, the salient points of which it will be well to repeat. Through the hot nights of July, 1832, the Commons debated on this far-reaching measure, which secured to the middle classes a voice in the government of their country. Perhaps none saw the future of the British working man more clearly than Macaulay: "Your great objection to this Bill," he said, "is that it will not be final. I ask you whether you think that any Reform Bill which you can frame will be final. I believe that it will last during that time for which alone we ought at present to think of legislating. Another generation may find in the new representative system faults such as we find in the old