It was a natural result of the long war that among the internal political questions the problem of electoral reform forced itself with fundamental power into the foreground. Many considered that the reform of the vote was more important than any other reform, and many believed that the war lent the demand of the populace irresistible force and internal justification, many hoped that the social peace which was of such importance during the war could be attained by a quick reform, but everyone pressed for the extension of the voting rights.
I recognized from the very beginning that this reform was now inevitable, and that an extension which only satisfied the demands of the artisans among the Labour Party would not be sufficient, and that those enormous masses which bled for us in the theatres of war and which laboured for the nation at home would have to be included in the new measures. When election reforms had been passed or promised in England, Prussia, Roumania and Italy, and when we were dependent upon the support of the masses, it was impossible to evade the reform that had been promised so often.
The Government took up an attitude of severe refusal. Nevertheless, it would have been the only correct and the only conservative policy to act in advance of the pressure that was being exerted and to solve the question by the display of the Government's own initiative as long as it was still powerful.
The question of land reform also arose together with
