Welsh Journals

private charity or small-scale agencies, such as the parish, came to be tackled instead by the state acting not always effectively or coherently through new or reformed institutions staffed by a new race of public servants some of whom, though not all, were outstandingly active and conscientious. While this is by no means a novel framework, nevertheless her book will be most valuable to students in bringing together a great deal of recent work on particular aspects of this process and providing both careful judgements of its value and a high standard of lucidity and accuracy in presentation. Rarely does she nod, although on pp. 82-83 she has slipped up in making John Marshall a M.P. for Leeds before 1832. Illustrative detail is well chosen and discussion of very well worn topics such as the Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law, 1834, combine clarity with just that touch of novelty which stirs the interest of even the most hardened reader of examination papers. Miss Henriques's stance is essentially one of no nonsense and resolute pragmatism. She dismisses the controversies associated with the names of Dicey, Halévy, J. B. Brebner, Oliver MacDonagh, Henry Parris, Mrs. Hart et al. concerning the ideological inspiration of early-nineteenth-century reform as scarcely worthy of attention. Some will want to answer her vigorous polemic (pp. 259-62). Others would wish that she had paid a bit more attention to the politicians whose contribution in some fields has often been underrated. Both Whig Financial Secretaries to the Treasury and Conservative Lords President of the Council in Peel's day were active and important figures in promoting early state initiatives in elementary education, rather more important than the overrated Kay Shuttleworth. Altogether, however, Miss Henriques is to be congratulated. DAVID LARGE Bristol. THE OPTIMISTS: THEMES AND PERSONALITIES IN VICTORIAN LIBERALIsM. By Ian Bradley. Faber & Faber, 1980. Pp. 301. £ 12.50 Dr. Bradley's book begins with the contention that Victorian Liber- alism was a set of ideas and ideals which were specific to the Victorian age. Liberty was the panacea, Cobden, Bright, Mill et al. the prophets, and Gladstone the chosen instrument. Drawing from a wide range of sources both literary and politically historical, Dr. Bradley offers a picture of mid-nineteenth-century Liberals zestfully attacking privilege, promoting competition and 'trusting the people'. The quest to educate the working classes and make them morally fit to govern themselves is one of the most pervasive themes: the less worthy motives are obvious but unstated. The self-interest of the 'enlightened' employers is mentioned rather perfunctorily, and the reader may think it more significant than Dr. Bradley does that the Illingworths, Palmers and Pochins were involved in industrial conflict with their employees by the mid-1880s. The division of the book thematically allows attractive prose to move lightly through the Liberal ranks, which themselves produced so many first-rate writers. Predictably, John Morley, W. T. Stead and T. H. Green emerge most clearly.