The Genesis of Parliamentary Reform. By George Stead Veitch. With
an Introduction by Ramsay Muir. (Constable and Co. 10s. 6d_ net.)—The subject of Parliamentary Reform is very much to the fore at the present moment, and Mr. Veitch's study of an earlier phase in its history is consequently of particular interest The period which he covers is roughly the latter half of the eighteenth century, and he throws much new light upon the growth of the reform movement in Great Britain during those years. He shows that the campaign had reached considerable dimensions before the outbreak of the French Revolution, which, though in some respects it gave a stimulus to the reformers, led eventually to the temporary suppression of the movement by the persecution of the Government. The chief grounds for this per- secution were the fears entertained owing to the fact that the reformers were known to have been in correspondence with the French political clubs. Perhaps the most interesting of Mr. Veitch's chapters is that in which he examines this correspondence and proves that it ended in 1792, before the French clubs had become extremist in their views, and, moreover, that "nothing could well be more harmless than the vague and high-flown sentiments exchanged during the period of French constitutional- ism." None the less, the prejudice against the revolution which was so deeply felt in England was fatal to the efforts of the eighteenth-century reformers, though doubtless they were the intellectual parents of the Reform Bill of 1832. Mr. Veitch's careful and elaborate work, with its very full references and bibliography, deserves attentive study.
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