of the people. Political parties vie with one another to produce the programme which shall promise most to the toiling millions of the country. Three principal causes have contributed to this condition. Two generations have lived under a system of compulsory education, and, as a natural consequence, their standard of life is higher and the number of their material wants greater than the standard of life and the daily wants of their predecessors. Seven millions of adult men now exercise political power, where in the early days of last century less than a million voted. The sight of inordinate wealth side by side with disgraceful poverty, the sufferings of women and children, and the hard conditions of labour in many of the occupations and trades of the country have combined to develop in all classes of the community a social conscience and a social spirit unmatched in any previous period of British history.
The result of the working of these three things—education, the popular vote, and the social spirit—is seen in the popular institutions of the country. It has reflected itself most clearly perhaps in legislation and administration. Since the enactment of the Municipal Corporations Act, and of kindred Acts of Parliament, the increase in municipal enterprise, with its corresponding and inevitable
