Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/406

 of money has helped the sons of to-day to rise to positions hitherto undreamt of in a country of slowly dying feudalism and haunting tradition. The possession of wealth can force position and power, gaining for a man of obscure origin the entrance to that sphere of society where he would be, for there is no committee of ladies of quality to bar his entrance to an exclusive society as prevailed at Almack's a hundred years ago. A modern Englishman of any birth, class, or occupation can represent his fellows in the House of Commons and rise to the House of Lords, he can have a seat in the Cabinet and attend the highest social functions in the land. There is hardly a local committee throughout the country without its working man representative; on borough council and county council he sits side by side with the local grocer, the lord of the manor, or the hereditary peer. They are elected by the same community, they speak on the same subjects, they vote on the same amendments. At home they read the same newspapers, the same books are within their reach, they dress in the same clothes, they play the same games, they eat the same food. Never was any social revolution more silent, more swift and resistless.