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Reformed House Of Commons: The hereditary landowners dominated the House of Lords, then almost as powerful as the House of Commons. Through the system of bor-augh representation (which until 1832 excluded nost of the big new industrial towns but brought nembership of the Commons to men virtually lominated by landowners for tiny villages), they :ould sway the Commons as well. More than i fourth of the Commons' members were peers or ions of peers, and many others were "placemen," he recipients of royal or aristocratic patronage. Jntil 1834 cabinets invariably included a ma-ority of peers, usually holding the most lucra-ive patronage-dispensing posts.
The proceedings of the House of Commons are regulated by the speaker, who is elected by the entire membership of the house. Though he is usually a former party politician, he acts as a nonpartisan chairman. The speaker retains his Commons seat after election to the chair, and usually is unopposed by his major party opponents at elections.
The reformed House of Commons showed almost as much aristocratic content as the old. The changes made by the act in individual qualification for the vote had even less effect, increasing the total electorate by roughly 50% to about 800,000-or 1 in 30 of the population. The act was characteristic of the Whig reforms of these years—moderate, undoctrinaire, concerned to improve institutions but not to replace them, and designed to adjust mildly the balance and emphasis of social interests as between county and town, north and south, farming and industry. |
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