es_, Jan. 16, 1911. The best account of the
adoption of the Parliament Bill is A. L. P. Dennis,
The Parliament Act of 1911, in _American Political
Science Review_, May and Aug., 1912. For other
references see p. 115. On the National Insurance
Act see E. Porritt The British National Insurance
Act, in _Political Science Quarterly_, June, 1912;
A. Gigot, La nouvelle loi anglaise sur l'assurance
nationale, in _Le Correspondant_, May 10, 1912; O.
Clark, The National Insurance Act of 1911 (London,
1912); and A. S. C. Carr, W. H. Stuart, and J. H.
Taylor, National Insurance (London, 1912). The text
of the Insurance Act is printed in _Bulletin of the
United States Bureau of Labor_, No. 102
(Washington, 1912).]

VII. THE PARTIES OF TO-DAY (p. 162)

*169. Significance of "Liberal" and "Conservative."*--Of the four
political parties of Great Britain to-day one, the Irish Nationalist,
is localized in Ireland and has for its essential purpose the
attainment of the single end of Irish Home Rule;[230] another, the
Labor party, is composed all but exclusively of workingmen, mainly
members of trade-unions, and exists to promote the interests of the
laboring masses; while the two older and more powerful ones, the
Liberal and the Conservative or Unionist, are broadly national in
their constituencies and well-nigh universal in the range of their
principles and policies. It is essential to observe, however, that
while the programme of the Nationalists is, at least to a certain
point, perfectly precise, and that of the Laborites is hardly less so,
there is no longer, despite the heat of recurring electoral and
parliamentary combats, much that is fundamental or permanent in the
demarcation which sets off the two major parties the one against the
other. Even the names "Liberal" and "Conservative" denote in reality
much less than might be supposed. During the generation which began
with the Reform Act of 1832 the Liberals, indeed, extended the
franchise to the middle classes, reformed the poor law, overhauled the
criminal law, introduced a new and more satisfactory scheme of
municipal administration, instituted public provision for elementar