Excerpt from A History of Labour The spirit of the past still lived when the Duke of Wellington told the unreformed Parliament that it was of all human institutions the most perfect, yet the years, few in number, which stretch between that pronounce ment of dying Toryism and this day have brought about a shifting of the political centre of gravity, have raised the leaders of working-class thought and Opinion to a position of authority in the State, have changed the environment of the home and the factory life led by the masses, and have increased both the prosperity and, to a lesser degree, the intelligence of the people, not only in this country, but in civilized states generally. But though these latter days are pregnant with interest and change we should derive a false impression of the stately movements of the Inevitable if we solely regarded the history of the masses in that period which I have in this book called the Present. That era was led up to. It was prepared for. Man did not Spring fully equipped into the arena of life. He slowly learnt his way through struggles innumerable and strife and misery and his own unconquerable spirit. Those long ages we must not forget. They are the ages of the Past. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.