R. K. WEBB. The British Working Class Reader 1790-1848: Literacy and Social Tension. Pp. ix, 192. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1955. (Distributed by Columbia University Press.) $3.00
| Author | R.G. Cowherd |
| Published date | 01 March 1956 |
| Date | 01 March 1956 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/000271625630400157 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
177
mentary
sovereignty
at
the
close
of
the
seventeenth
century.
With
respect
to
the
omnicompetence
of
parliament
in
the
later
Middle
Ages,
Mr.
Gough
amplifies
the
evidence
brought
for-
ward
in
such
works
as
those
of
W.
S.
Holdsworth,
T.
F.
T.
Plucknett,
S.
B.
Chrimes,
and
Miss
Faith
Thompson
to.
show
that
there
was
a
great
deal
of
con-
scious
law
making
by
medieval
parliaments
and
that
even
the
Magna
Charta
was
not
sacrosanct.
On
the
other
hand,
he
mar-
shals
ample
evidence
proving
that
&dquo;sov-
ereignty&dquo;
in
the
Austinian
sense
was
an
idea
alien
to
medieval
thought
and
that
there
were
concepts
of
&dquo;fundamental
law&dquo;
or
&dquo;laws&dquo;
by
which
the
actions
of
kings,
courts,
and
parliaments
were
presumed
to
be
bound;
even
though
there
was
no
clear
cut
and
precise
method
of
binding
them
thereto.
It
is
in- this
connection
that
Mr.
Gough
seems
to
have
overstated
his
case.
This
reviewer
is
not
conscious
of
having
been
taught
by
Professor
McIlwain
that
judicial
review
found
a
place
in
the
early
English
constitution.
He
was,
however.
taught
that
to
the
extent
that
this
prob-
lem
of
binding
parliament
(whether
as
a
court
or
a
legislature)
was
grappled
with
at
all
it
was
grappled
with
by
the
judges.
It
was
they
who
in
effect
sometimes
voided
statutes,
at
least
in
part,
by
failing
to
in-
terpret
them
strictly.
It
was
they
who
ignored
the
commands
of
parliament
on
those
rare
occasions
when
parliament
seemed
to
force
an
individual
(or
a
cor-
poration)
to
be
a
judge
in
his
own
cause
or
to
do
something
manifestly
absurd.
Mr.
Gough
and
Mr.
McIlwain
are
not
so
far
apart
either
in
the
Middle
Ages
or
the
seventeenth
century.
On
the
later
period,
Mr.
Gough
should
be
read
as
a
corrective
to
the
sharp
antithesis
of
royal
versus
parliamentary
sovereignty
presented
by
the
classic
Whig
historians
and
by
S.
R.
Gardiner.
This
short
study
presents
one
of
the
best
and
clearest
accounts
available
of
the
development
of
the
doctrine
of
par-
liamentary
sovereignty.
In
doing
so,
it
re-
minds
us
of
a
truth
we
are
now
too
often
inclined
to
forget,
namely
that
it is
not
constitutions
or
&dquo;fundamental
laws&dquo;
per se,
whether
written
or
unwritten
which
count.
It
is
the
will
to
abide
by
them
and
the
clear
understanding
of
their
historic
tradi-
tions
which
is
the
guarantee
against
tyr-
anny.
Mr.
Gough’s
work
should
make
a
significant
contribution
to
that
understand
ing
on
both
sides
of
the
Atlantic.
HOLDEN
FURBER
University
of
Pennsylvania
R.
K.
WEBB.
The
British
Working
Class
Reader
1790-1848:
Literacy
and
Social
Tension.
Pp.
ix,
192.
London:
George
Allen
and
Unwin,
1955.
(Distributed
by
Columbia
University
Press.)
$3.00.
The
title
of
this
book,
as
Mr.
Webb
ex-
plains
in
his
Foreword,
pertains
to
the
first
chapter
which
deals
with
the
working
class
reading
public.
After
struggling
with
sparse
statistics
on
education,
the
author
estimates
that
three-fourths
of
the
working
people
were
literate
by
the
middle
of
the
nineteenth
century.
The
rest
of
the
book
concerns
&dquo;the
challenge
which
the
literate
working
class
presents
to
its
betters&dquo;
and
is
more
adequately
described
by
its
sub-
title,
Literacy.and
Social
Tension.
Mr.
Webb
has
studied
primarily
the
so-
cial
tensions
of
the
1830’s,
the
agricultural
disturbances,
the
breaking
of
machinery,
the
agitation
against
the
New
Poor
Law,
and
the
rise
of
the
trade
unions.
Relying
mainly
upon
the
papers
of
Francis
Place
and
the
materials
of
the
Society
for
the
Diffusion
of
Useful
Knowledge,
he
has
carefully
studied
the
middle
class
efforts
to
educate
and
reform
the
working
classes.
He
concludes,
however,
that
these
attempts
failed
because
the
ruling
classes
did
not
understand
the
masses
(p.
161).
Social
history
in
the
Marxian
vein
of
class
warfare
imposes
a
severe
methodol-
ogy,
more
severe
than
Mr.
Webb
has
employed.
It
requires,
in
this
instance
a
systematic
treatment
of
the
statistics
of
education.
It
requires
also
a
careful
defi-
nition
of
social
groups.
When
speaking
of
the
working
class,
he
is
not
always
clear
whether
he
means
urban
or
rural
labor,
the
artisan
or
factory
worker.
Occasionally
he
lapses
from
the
theme
of
class
warfare
to
show
a
coincidence
between
the
artisans
and
the
lower
middle
classes.
If
he
had
studied
Chartism
and
the
factory
move-
ment,
he
might
have
found
a
greater
co-
incidence
of
these
classes
as
well
as
sev-
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