Excerpt from Readings in English Social History From Contemporary Literature, Vol. 1 IT is a truism that every great political upheaval is followed by a keener and livelier interest on the part of statesmen and the people generally in the social and industrial ques tions, that, phoenix-like, arise and demand settlement. The upheaval caused by the war has focussed the atten tion of the country upon the necessity for improving the social conditions of the people; and for many years to come legislation in the main will have to deal with the better ment of the conditions of life in its broadest and fullest aspect. 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.