Discuss the types of reform and regulation which prevented England significant social unrest the nineteenth century.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary. England realized more than the other nations of Europe that compromise and social regulation were necessary to prevent revolution. England was distinct from the rest of Europe in several respects. It was geographically isolated and therefore had not endured the ravages of the Napoleonic Wars to the same extent as had continental Europe. It had a longer tradition of moderate politics achieved with a Parliament and a constitution that made compromise possible. It also had a significantly more industrialized and commercialized economy, while other nations in Europe were struggling to end mercantilist economies and develop industrial systems. Although the French physiocrats had initially proposed the ideas of laissez-faire relations between the government and the economy, it was the English who made this idea work in practical terms. Smith's criticism of mercantilism in Wealth of Nations was an early forerunner of this concept, and the entrepreneurial spirit in England, combined with a Whig tradition of maintaining civil rights, advocated for separation of the two. Undoubtedly, the American Revolution also served as an example. England's early industrialization created a burgeoning social crisis in terms of poverty, urbanization, slums, crime, and other issues that English politicians and thinkers recognized could give rise to the popular dissatisfaction and violence seen in the French Revolution. They were willing to provide moderate compromise to avert revolution. Examples are best seen in the Poor Laws and Corn Laws of the early nineteenth century.