Jeniffer electronic book

In the interest of domestic harmony they have identified
complacent social subserviency with the virtue of loyalty, and have
erected compromise into an ultimate principle of political action.
The landed aristocracy and gentry of England have been obliged to face
only one serious crisis--the prolonged crisis occasioned by the
transformation of Great Britain from an agricultural to an industrial
community. The way the English privileged classes preserved their
political leadership during a period, in which land was ceasing to be
the source of Great Britain's economic prosperity, is an extraordinary
illustration of their political tact and social prestige. But it must be
added that their leadership has been preserved more in name than in
substance. The aristocracy managed to keep its prestige and its apparent
power during the course of the industrial revolution, but only on
condition of the abandonment of the substance thereof. The nobility and
the gentry became the privileged servants of the rising middle class.


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