520 
Jones — Cha rtism. 
and other vagaries. No one, except the Chartists, has asked 
for it, and they will rest satisfied with nothing short of the 
whole. The middle classes are content, and so are nineteen - 
twentieths of the working people; but this will be of no avail 
against indistinct terrors, ignorant uneasiness, and speculative, 
not social, policy. A sanitary bill would, in five years, confer 
more blessing and obliterate more Chartism than universal 
suffrage in half a century; but the world, when ill at ease, flies 
always to politics, and omits the statistics of the chimney-corner, 
where all a man’s comfort or discomfort lies. ” 1 There is a good 
deal of wisdom in this comment but no one now thinks of call¬ 
ing the movement for the “ enlargement of the franchise ” which 
so fundamentally reconstructed English government, a “ vagary. ” 
To the argument of this extract it is only fair to append the 
Chartists’ answer which might assume the form of a ques¬ 
tion: What chance of success would a sanitation bill or any 
other radical measure of reform have had in the old aristocratic 
Parliament supported by a restricted suffrage? 
The violence of the French Revolution ended Chartism by 
opening the eyes of the more conservative and reasonable classes 
of England to the dangers toward which extremists were lead¬ 
ing agitation. It precipitated the division of society into two 
classes; on the one hand, those who felt they had more to gain 
than to lose by the maintenance of the existing order, and, on 
the other, such as believed they could improve their fortunes by 
revolution. As soon as this destination was clearly drawn 
Chartism was at an end. 
Chartism introduced the masses to the larger issues of social 
and political life, and it is not to be wondered at if they blund¬ 
ered after the fashion of a player learning a new game. It must 
not be forgotten also that many criminal and violent men and 
many demagogues preyed upon the Chartist movement. We 
should discriminate their acts from the acts and opinions of the 
majority. A few turbulent Physical Force leaders engineered 
the farce of 1848; the majority staid quietly at home. A view 
of Chartism to some degree sympathetic, is necessary to enable 
1 Hodder, “ Life, etc.” p. 393. 
