Queen Victoria's reign of sixty-three years--the longest in English
history--was remarkable in many ways.
The chief political events were:
1. The establishment of the practical supremacy of the House of
Commons, shown by the fact that the Sovereign was now obliged to
give up the power of removing the Prime Minister or members of his
Cabinet without the consent of the House, or of retaining them
contrary to its desire.
2. The broadening of the basis of suffrage and the extension of the
principle of local self-government.
3. The abolition of the requirement of property qualification for
Parliamentary candidates; the admission of Jews to Parliament; and
the overthrow of the Spoils System.
4. The repeals of the Corn Laws; the adoption of the Free-Trade
policy; and the Emancipation of Labor.
5. The Small Agricultural Holdings Act; the Irish Land Acts; the
abolition of Church rates; and the disestablishment of the Irish
branch of the Church of England.
6. The arbitration of the Alabama case.
7. The progress of transportation and of the rapid transmission of
intelligence was marked by the extension of railways to all parts
of hte British Isles and to many other parts of the Empire; the
introduction of the telegraph and the telephone; the laying of the
Atlantic cable; the introduction of penny postage; the rise of
cheap newspapers, of photography, of wireless telegraphy, and of
the use of electricity to drive street cars and machinery.
8. The progress of education was marked by the establishment of
practically free elementary schools, free libraries, and the
abolition of religious tests in the universities.
9. The progress of science and philosophy was shown by the
introduction of painless and also of antiseptic surgery, the use of
the German X ray, and the rise and spread of the Darwinian theory
of Evolution.
10. Other events having far-reaching results were the terrible Irish
famine, the Opium War, the Crimean War, the rebellion in India,
the Trent affair, the war in the Sudan, and the great Boer War.
11. Finally, we see the important work accomplished in India, Egypt,
and other parts of Africa; the acquisition of the control of the
Suez Canal; and the great expansion of the power of the Empire in
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.