kind of influence noblemen and gentlemen were most likely to
possess. In these circumstances such political parties as there were
were naturally tools in the hands of the upper classes.

In the nineteenth century with an ever greater diffusion of
wealth and a continual increase in political selfconsciousness this
situation was likely to become less secure. Indeed the Reform Bill
of 1832 was, in part, a recognition of this fact; its object was to
enfranchise a class, the 'middle class', which could no longer be
excluded from all political power. It is important, however, not to
exaggerate the change which the bill caused in the social structure
of British politics. After the bill both the parties changed their
names: ' Conservative' took the place of ' Tory' and ' Liberal'
more slowly displaced ' Whig'; and it would be convenient to
assume that the use of new names meant a shift in the social centre
of gravity of politics. But this is not necessarily so. A ' Conserva-
tive' after the Reform Bill was likely to have the same social back-
ground as a ' Tory' had had before it. There was more sense of
social contrast in the use of the words ' Whig' and ' Liberal'. But
contemporary usage was not consistent. Both words are sometimes
used on different occasions to describe the same statesman, and the
implications of the words seem to have differed in different parts
of the country. Meanwhile for another thirty years or so after the
bill of 1832 the key to power in many constituencies still lay in the
hands of members of the old aristocratic classes. As a result those
classes continued to monopolise both the government of the
country and the leadership of any party that had any chance to
assume power.

The first effective attack on this monopoly after the Reform
Bill was the attack on the Corn Laws between 1838 and 1846.
Since the aristocracy were supposed to be responsible for these
laws the attack on them was not only an attempt to get rid of them,
it was also intended to be a general assault on the aristocracy. It
was very ably conducted and sharply pressed home, and it had the
significant characteristic that it was in its way a religious move-
ment. From the very beginning Cobden saw that its best chance
of success was that a 'moral and even a religious spirit' should be
'infused' into the subject, and he consciously modelled his cam-
paign on the anti-slavery movement. It is indeed significant that
so shrewd a judge as Cobden should believe that this was the note

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