Complaints were made, and not without reason, of the working of the poor-law; of the terrible severity of our criminal code; of the hardships and sufferings of the younger members of the working classes, especially in the factories; of the ignorance of a large portion of the people, in itself as prolific a cause of mischief and crime as any other.

But, though committees and commissions were appointed by Parliament to investigate the condition of the kingdom in respect of these matters, a feeling was growing up that no effectual remedy would be applied till the constitution of the House of Commons itself were reformed, so as to make it a more real representation of the people than it could as yet be considered.

And a farther stimulus to this wish for such a Parliamentary reform was supplied by the distress which a combination of circumstances spread among almost all classes in the years immediately following the conclusion of the second treaty of peace.[178] The harvests of the years 1816 and 1817 were unusually deficient, and this pressed heavily on the farmers and landed proprietors.

The merchants and manufacturers, who, while every part of the Continent was disturbed or threatened by the operations of contending armies, had practically enjoyed almost a monopoly of the trade of the world, found their profits reduced, by the new competition to which the re-establishment of peace exposed them, to a point which compelled them to a severe reduction of expenditure.

The uncertainty felt as to the results to be brought about by the inevitable repeal of the Bank Act of 1797, and the return to cash payments--results which it was impossible to estimate correctly beforehand--had a tendency to augment the distress, by the general feeling of uneasiness and distrust which it created.