60 REFORM AND DEMOCRACY 



personality and principles between Canning 

 and his friends on one side and the ultra-Tory 

 element led by the Duke of Wellington on 

 the other, hastened this event. In 1830 the 

 Whigs, headed by Earl Grey, assumed the 

 reins of power and entered upon a famous era 

 of internal reform. Domestic politics on both 

 sides of the Atlantic assumed an absorbing im 

 portance, and the diplomatic relations became 

 cordially calm. 



The far-reaching transformation, industrial, 

 social, and political, that marked the decade 

 of the thirties in the United Kingdom had its 

 culmination rather than its inception under 

 the regime of the Whigs. The forces making 

 for change became very manifest immediately 

 upon the restoration of peace in 1815. A sud 

 den shift from the condition of general European 

 war to that of universal peace was necessarily 

 accompanied by a vast displacement and read 

 justment in the field of trade and industry. 

 British commerce and manufactures had flour 

 ished greatly during the war, thanks to the 

 immunity of the United Kingdom from the rav 

 ages of contending armies, and to her unques 

 tioned control of the sea. With peace the 

 peoples of the Continent resumed their normal 



