eli has very truly said, "His
Grace precipitated a revolution which might have been delayed for half a
century, and need never have occurred in so aggravated a form." The
Duke, though a great general, lacked knowledge of England. He began by
dismissing William Huskisson from his Cabinet, who was not only its
ablest member, but perhaps the single man among the Tories who
thoroughly comprehended the industrial age. Huskisson's issue was that
the franchise of the intolerably corrupt East Retford should be given to
Leeds or Manchester. Having got rid of Huskisson, the Duke declared
imperiously that he would concede nothing to the disfranchised
industrial magnates, nor to the vast cities in which they lived. A
dissolution of Parliament followed and in the election the Tories were
defeated. Although Wellington may not have been a sagacious statesman,
he was a capable soldier and he knew when he could and when he could not
physically fight. On this occasion, to again quote Disraeli, "He rather
fled than retired." He induced his friends to absent themselves from the
House of Lords and permit the Reform Bill to become law. Thus the
English Tories, by their experiment with the Duke of Wellington, lost
their boroughs and with them their political preeminence, but at least
they saved themselves, their families, and the rest of their property.
As a class they have survived to this day, although shorn of much of the
influence which they might very probably have retained had they solved
more correctly the problem of 1830. In sum, they were not altogether
impervious to the exigencies of their environment. The French Revolution
is the classic example of the annihilation of a rigid organism, and it
is an example the more worthy of our attention as it throws into
terrible relief the process by which an intellectually inflexible race
may convert the courts of law which should protect their decline into
the most awful engine for their destruction.

The essence of feudalism was a gradation of rank, in the nature of
caste, based upon fear. The clergy were privileged because the laity
believed that they could work miracles, and could dispense something
more vital even than life and death. The nobility were privileged
because they were resistless in war. Therefore, the nobility could
impose all sorts of burdens upon those who were unarmed. During the
interval in which society centralized and acquired more and more a
modern economic form, the di