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 vindication of the Chartist point of view, this is due partly to the fact that the Chartists had no social policy in the sense that they had a political platform, and partly to the obvious truth that it is harder to reconstitute society than it is to reform the political machinery of a progressive community. Yet even here Chartism may claim to have initiated many movements which are still with us, both in Britain and on the Continent. Accordingly we shall take a much truer view of the place of Chartism in history, if we disregard the superficial judgments of despairing agitators and contemptuous enemies, and look rather at the wider ways in which Chartism has made its influence felt upon succeeding generations. From this point of view Chartism deserves a much more respectful consideration than it has generally received. Hard as it is to study it in isolation from the other tendencies with which it was brought into close relations, either helpful or hurtful, it is not impossible to dissect out the Chartist nerve and trace its ramifications into regions of the body politic which, though apparently out of relation to Chartism, were yet unconsciously amenable to its stimulus. Let us work out this point of view in somewhat greater detail.

We may begin with political Chartism, for though Chartism was in essence a social movement, yet, for the greater part of its active existence, it limited its immediate purpose to the carrying out of a purely political programme. Here the consummation of its policy was only deferred for a season. Its restricted platform of political reform, though denounced as revolutionary at the time, was afterwards substantially adopted by the British State without any conscious revolutionary purpose or perceptible revolutionary effect. Before all the Chartist leaders had passed away, most of the famous Six Points became the law of the land. A beginning was made in 1858, the year of the final Chartist collapse, by the abolition of the property qualification for members of Parliament. Next followed vote by ballot, established in 1872. More tardily came the accomplishment of a third point, when in 1911 members of the House of Commons voted themselves pay for their services. If the other three points have not been carried out in their entirety, substantial progress has been effected towards their fulfilment. Two great strides were made in the direction of universal suffrage by the Reform Acts of 1867 and 1885, which extended the right of voting to every adult male householder, and to some limited categories