Ten Chapters on Social Reform - 1868 Author:Edward Sullivan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. THE WORKING CLASSES. Real necessity for Reform: True condition of the Working Classes : Existing facilities for securing the Franchise. ... more »Viewed by the light of common sense, the necessity for Reform was really a question of veracity, not of sentiment -- it depended on these two questions. 1. Had the unenfranchised classes so advanced in education and intelligence since the Reform Act of 1832j that it was desirable for the public good, that they should be entrusted with the Franchise ? 2. Did the present Law exclude them from it ? I say to be entrusted, because the arguments of those who maintain it is a right, instead of a trust, are, in my opinion, an insult to our common sense. To treat the franchise as a right, is to make it a thing of no value, to pitch it into the gutter as it were, for every passer by to pick up. It is no compliment to the operatives to class them with the roughs, the drunkards, the ignorant, the idle, with the bad citizens in fact. If it is right the operative class should be enfranchised, it is not because they are operatives, or because they arenumerous; but because they are supposed to be intelligent, educated, and good citizens, able and anxious to exercise the trust committed to them for the good of the community. " II y' a des choses que tout le monde dit parcequ' ils ont £t6 dites uue fois. " One of these things that all the world repeats is the extraordinary social progress of the unenfranchised classes during the last thirty years ; for the last two years it has been in everybody's mouth; but nobody could give a reason for the faith that was in him. All questions on this subject in the House of Commons were persistently snubbed by the friends of the working classes; and all returns that had for their object any enqu...« less