thing can well be more certain than the fact that the Hyde
Park riot, as it was called, convinced Her Majesty's ministers of the
necessity of an immediate adoption of the reform principle."[82] Disraeli,
who in 1859 had proposed reform without getting any support, now saw that a
great opportunity had come for a constructive Conservative policy, and
boldly insisted to his party that Parliamentary Reform was a necessity.
"You cannot establish a party of mere resistance to change, for change is
inevitable in a progressive country," he told his followers.

All through the autumn and winter great demonstrations took place in the
large towns and cities of the country in support of the demand for the
enfranchisement of the workman, and when Parliament met in February, 1867,
a Reform Bill was promised in the Queen's Speech. To Lord Derby the measure
was frankly a "leap in the dark," and one or two Conservative ministers
(including Cranborne, afterwards Lord Salisbury) left the Government in
disgust. But the Conservatives generally chuckled at "dishing the Whigs,"
and the Bill, with considerable revision, was passed through both Houses of
Parliament by August.

HOUSEHOLD SUFFRAGE

By the Reform Bill of 1867 all male householders in boroughs were
enfranchised, and all male lodgers who paid L10 a year for unfurnished
rooms. The town workman was enfranchised by this Act as the middle-class
man had been enfranchised by the Act of 1832, and the electorate was
increased from about 100,000 to 2,000,000. An amendment that women should
not be excluded from the franchise was moved by John Stuart Mill, and
defeated. Some redistribution of seats took place under the Act of 1867,
eleven boroughs were disfranchised, thirty-five with less than 10,000
inhabitants were made single-member constituencies, and additional
representation was given to Chelsea, Hackney, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester,
Salford, Glasgow, Birmingham, Dundee, and Merthyr. "Thus was _Household
Suffrage_ brought in in the boroughs, and a great step was made towards
democracy, for it was plain that the middle-class county constituencies
could not last very much longer now that all workmen who happened to live
in boroughs had their votes."[83]

The third Reform Act, giving household suffrage to the country districts,
was passed by Gladstone in 1884, and it was followed by a Redistribution of
Seats Act in 1885. By these two Acts the agricultural labourer was
enfranchised, a se