Photo by Russell & Sons
H.R.H. THE DUCHESS OF YORK
Another ingredient in happiness is physical comfort. We are all much better fed than we were, better housed, better clad; all along the line the standard of comfort has been advanced. The huge barracks in which the working-classes of the great cities now live are not pretty, but consider how much more comfortable they are than the old court of tumble-down cottages with a street about four feet wide. The new barracks are fully provided with water, they are kept in a sanitary condition as good as any palace of prince or peer, they are light and airy. Go into any of the old courts—there are a few still at Westminster—and see for yourselves the dirty, dilapidated dens in which the people formerly lived. Then, while you think of the advanced standard of comfort, remember the cheap bread, the cheap tea, the cheap meat, the cheap butter, cheese, bacon, eggs, fruit, which are now offered to the working-man. Not only have his wages gone up, but their purchasing power has advanced as well. If instead of eighteen shillings a week he now gets thirty, and if a shilling now could buy twice as much as a shilling sixty years ago, the standard of comfort for this man and his family has been advanced indeed.
This standard of comfort, this increase in solid happiness, has by long custom and usage become the right of the people. They consider it as much their right as any of the liberties secured by Act of Parliament. This new right constitutes a danger, because a national disaster might run food up to famine prices, and then we should see, what we have not seen for a long time, the tigerish side of the Anglo-Saxon.
THE JUBILEE PROCESSION (1887) LEAVING BUCKINGHAM PALACE
Photo by Hughes & Mullins
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN IN JUBILEE DRESS, 1887
We have learned that the old revolutionary cry has quite died away and is almost forgotten. This also is partly the result of the increased comfort. At the same time the advance of democratic ideas has been most marked. Slowly but surely, the whole power in the country has passed into the hands of the Commons. The dominant idea at the present moment of our people is that the country must be governed for them and by them. This would have seemed a most terrible thing sixty years ago. That we should be governed by working-men! Incredible! It is, however, the fact; we are governed by the people. Only, what the prophets did not understand, the governing power is delegated by the people to representatives, who are not, as a rule, working-men; one or two working-men are in the House and doing well. The people, however, are very chary of electing one of themselves; they prefer to send to the House as their representatives such men as John Morley and James Bryce, scholars and students, responsible persons, whom they know and can trust; they will not send demagogues and wind-bags and political adventurers. You have seen how they treat the House of Lords; so long as it gives no trouble it may remain, but only on condition that it is recruited from new families. If it were to obstruct any really popular movement—which the House will not do—we should see what would happen. Meantime, the people look abroad and judge for themselves. They observe that the great colonies are all Republics, and are doing well under republican institutions. If we were not doing well under our institutions, it is quite certain that the revolutionary cry would be heard again.