Democracy: How Far Was Britain A Democracy By 1918

How far was Britain a democracy by 1918

Britain was partially becoming a democracy by 1918, this was from more people gaining the vote from the new reform acts and representation of the Peoples Act. The British population also had more choice when voting from the emergence of the 3 party system which included Labour, Liberals and Conservative parties. Access to information was another reason why Britain was becoming more of a democracy as the growth of the railways meant that newspapers were more available and that the public could keep up to date with all political news. Participation of the public meant that the public had the opportunity to become a MP from MP's now being paid which gave a greater representation of the peoples wants.Finally
This Act made it possible for voters to be able to cast there vote in private uninfluenced. This stopped the rich landowners being able to Bribe voters to vote for a desired MP. Willis tells us us the effect the Ballot Act had when he says “ The Ballot Act did much to reduce the violence and street theatre associated with elections. It probably also stopped employers and landlords threatening their workers and tenants, although some doubts remained about how secretly the votes were counted and it did not stop bribery”. The corrupt and Legal practices Act in 1883 also made voting more fair. It did this by introducing fines and prison sentencing for those who exceeded the expenses list. Also the increase in the amount of voters made it harder for people to use bribery as a way of getting votes, but in smaller towns votes were still influenced as they were usually dominated by one or two employers. Voting was also Unfair as we see with the House of Lords as they had too much power so it was unfair and also political power was undue. Finally plural voting was a huge problem as people could vote more than once if they had properties in different counties. This is especially shown by McCord when describing how people were able to do plural voting when he says “After 1884, it was still possible for a voter to a mass plural votes by acquiring several
This is especially shown by women under 30 still not having the vote even though the reason they gained the vote was from the war effort and how the government felt they should have this responsibility from their great effort, but the thing was most of the women that were putting so much effort into the war were not given the vote in the end because they were usually the younger women in their 20's. Women could also only vote if they were property owners or had a husband who had a property that met the requirements, as well as women having a degree from a university had the vote. This meant that the wealthier and more educated women were given the vote instead of the working class that were a great help towards the war effort. Finally the domination of the Conservatives and Liberals had in the House of Lords, left the working class once again without proper representation. The Lordship were not properly decided but were just passed down and was more of a birth right than of what you earned and deserved. Pugh describes of how the working class men still found it hard to vote when he says “If working men lived in lodgings, went on poor relief or moved house (as they often did to follow work opportunities), the they often lost their right to vote. Further, there were practical problems that made it difficult for working men to use their newly acquired votes.