Reform act

The Representation of the peoples’ act 1832 (commonly known as the reform act, 1832) introduced
some revolutionary changes in the representative system and franchise system of England. In the
constitutional history of England, it proved to be an event of significant act because it shook up the roots
of ancient conventions. Reform was not a new idea when the first bill was presented to the British
Parliament in 1831. The electoral system had remained virtually unchanged since 1680, by contrast to a
country whose economy, class system and political methods had changed at time to time. The British
Parliamentary system was in essence what it had been when Edward I established it 1275. The system of
election and the distribution of members had not been altered for hundreds of years. The principal
reason for the great change in the orientation of the country was the Industrial Revolution, which had
created a new economy and caused the emergency of new cities.

As a result of industrial revolution many cities such as Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and
Birmingham, which has became popular as industrial centers, had no representatives of their own to the
British Parliament. On the other hand there were many towns such as old Serum, once important to
send members to the parliament. These towns were known as Rotten Boroughs.

At that time in Britain the right to vote was only open to land owners. It means that almost
95% of the total population had no right in political matters of their countries. The Vote was done by
country hands in an open, vote a process that made it, essay for a landlord to see which of his tenants
had betrayed him and treat them according. So, through the reform bill it was demanded for a fear
distribution of representations and also a change in the voting process.

The reform act 1832 has been called the “Modern Magna Karta” by famous historian
Trevelyan. He points out that it brought about a constitutional revolution in England. It shifted the
political power from the Aristocracy to the middle classes and thereby proved the way for democracy.
The evils of rotten boroughs were done away with the adequate representation to the town which had
immerged as a result of revolution. In this way the British people accomplish a kind of revolution that
laid the foundation of modern British. It was a more genuine revolution than that which occurred in
France in 1830. If did not dethrone a dynasty but it destroyed the semi feudal monopoly of the British
Government. The Reform Act of 1832 had same significant effects on the politics of England. These are
as follows.

Merits:-

1. As a result of this Reform Act the political power slipped into the hand of the middle class in the
town and the rural areas. The landlords continued maintain their supremacy in the countryside.

2. This act enhances the total number of voters. From now on one percent out of every twenty four of
the total population came to possess the right to vote. As a result the total number of the voters at that
time reached the figure of five lakhs.
3. Landlords were compelled to co-operate with the middle class people due to their decreased
influence. Now it also becomes essential for them to look after the interest of the voters.

4. This Act adversely affected the powers and rights of the king and the nobles. It also made clear that
the power of the king had no significance in compares to the powers of the House of Commons. In any
case of conflict the king was forced to support according to the wishes of the prime minister.

5. The principal of change was approved by the politicians and due to this act the real democracy was
established in England.

6. It increased the significance of the House of Commons as it was organized on democratic principles.
Hence it became a representative body of the people.

7. This Act changed the outlook of the Tories and the reformists began to assemble in the Whig Party
which came to be known as Liberal Party.

DEMERITS

The British Political landscape was modernized and enriched by the Reform Act, 1832. People were
educated and became ware about their political right and they were inspired to register their votes
annually. Still the Act suffered from some limitations. These are as follows,

(i) The reform act did very little for the development of the working class people. The Act stated
that to get the right vote a voter was required to possess the property worth of $ 10,000, a heavy
amount for working class at that time.

(ii) The entire adult was not given the right of franchise. Laborers, farmers and women were
deprived of the right of vote.

(iii) This act did not make any arrangement for secret ballot system

(iv) This act also failed to remove the corruption and bribery. It remained a problem as Sir Thomas
May observed, “It was soon evident that as more votes had been created more votes were to be sold.

In spite of all its merits and demerits this act was a great achievement as the Tories described it a
revolutionary step. The Reform act of 1832 transferred the political power from the landlord Aristocracy
to the middle classes and thus alters the center of gravity of political power in England. Although it did
not established democracy in the real sense in England but it prepared the way for it and took a long
step in the directionn.

Hardy and wessex

When Hardy's novels were first published in a uniform edition, in the 1890's, the title given to the series
was "The Wessex Novels". And when the final and definitive edition of his work was assembled, in 1912,
that edition was known as "the Wessex Edition". If one were to go to southwest England on vacation,
one would be bombarded with tourist material about the Wessex countryside. This term, Wessex, has
become so common and been so closely associated with Thomas Hardy's works, that we can easily
forget that Hardy invented the term--or at least resurrected the term from centuries of obscurity.

Hardy's first use of the term "Wessex" to indicate the southwestern region of England came in chapter
50 of the serialized version of Far from the Madding Crowd. Hardy had already written four and
published three novels. In none of those novels had he called Dorset and the surrounding counties
Wessex.

Yet so strong was the impression which this semi-real, semi-mythical region left upon his readers, that
Hardy took up the term from that point on, and used it more and more frequently in all his future novels
and stories. In fact, Wessex appears in the first sentence of Hardy's next novel, The Hand of Ethelberta.
When it came time to revise his earlier novels for new editions, Hardy incorporated allusions to Wessex,
or to the fictional towns and villages of Wessex, into his revisions. For this reason, when we read Hardy's
complete works, we get the sense of a fully-laid out plan, of a fictional universe which was created
whole and into which the various characters and their stories merely had to be inserted. When we study
the manuscripts and serial versions of the novels, however, we find that Wessex--far from being a
complete and organic creation, was a strategy which Hardy employed to secure his place in the literary
marketplace.

In his 1895 preface to Far from the Madding Crowd (written more than 20 years after the novel's
publication), Hardy writes about his creation of the world of Wessex. He claims that the chief purpose
behind "Wessex" was to "lend unity" to the "series of novels" which he projected. Well, in 1874, when
Far from the Madding Crowd was published, it is unlikely that Hardy anticipated a series of novels. It was
only a year or two before he began writing Far from the Madding Crowd that Hardy had left his career in
architecture. As he was writing the novel, he wrote to his editor, Leslie Stephen, that his only goal was to
be considered a good hand at a serial--this is hardly the confidence of a young author planning a series
of local novels.

What seems far more likely is that in Far from the Madding Crowd, Hardy had discovered something
wonderful--that the region, the people, and the customs which he best knew were very little known
(and therefore fascinating) to the world outside Dorset. He mentions in that preface that he needed a
large canvas for his fictional world, but he also mentions that "the region designated was known but
vaguely;" even educated people did not know where it was located. Despite some ups and downs in the
next twenty years, Hardy learned to exploit his unique knowledge of a world removed from the fast
pace of Victorian England.

Dorset, the actual county which is the center of Hardy's fictional world, was an ideal candidate for
mythologizing. Until the middle of the twentieth century, Dorset was one of the least populated
counties of England, and also one of the poorest. Although the railroad crossed through Dorset on its
way to Cornwall, the first actual railroad stop in Dorset came relatively late, in 1847, when Hardy was a
young boy. For this reason, not only did the outside world not know much of Dorset; Dorset knew very
little of the outside world. That sense of insularity is seen most clearly in Far from the Madding Crowd
and also in Hardy's second novel, Under the Greenwood Tree.

In the very important "General Preface to the Novels and Poems" which Hardy wrote in 1912, he made
the parallel between Greek literature and his own work. He wrote "I considered that our magnificent
heritage from the Greeks in dramatic literature found sufficient room for a large proportion of its action
in an extent of their country not much larger than the half-dozen counties here reunited under the old
name of Wessex". So Hardy was creating his own microcosm, a dream world which, among the
educated middle classes for whom he was writing, might just as well have been on the moon.

But if Hardy had stopped there, and had continued to write novels which recorded a static, isolated
world, he would probably be remembered today as little more than a pastoral novelist. Instead, Hardy
used Wessex as a sort of reflector of serious issues affecting and changing the whole of England: the
problems of social class, the impact of the modern sciences upon conventional religion and philosophy,
the devastation of rural communities by changing technologies, the double sexual standard that was just
as pervasive in sleepy Wessex as in the capitals of Europe. It turns out that while Wessex may be "far
from the madding crowd," it is neither so innocent nor so peaceful as we may wish it to be. Even in the
first few pages of Far from the Madding Crowd, Gabriel's sheep go tumbling over the cliff to their death.
That scene is an indicator that Gray's idea of rustics living a sequestered and trouble-free existence is
not only patronizing, but simply untrue.

Forces both within and outside Wessex are conspiring to make the sort of stable social context
portrayed in Far from the Madding Crowd more and more difficult to sustain. Hardy's readers and
reviewers wanted him always to portray the idyllic, gently comic, and beautifully nostalgic world of
Weatherbury again and again in each new novel. However, in such later novels as The Return of the
Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, The Woodlanders, and Tess of the d'Urbervilles, while the beauty
remains, the complexity of this world increases. The paradise of Wessex has more than a few snakes
lurking about.