Excerpt from A History of Labour

There may be no doubt that the present age is of the great ages of the world. We who now live have experienced disasters more serious than those of preceding generations. We have also had offered to us as compensation opportunities that do not frequently recur. It is for us to move the world forward or backward. Belonging to such an age, I make no apology for endeavouring to see, by a consideration of the past, what are our tendencies and whither they are leading.

As Carlyle once said, "Not on Ilion's or Latium's plains, on far other plains and places henceforth can noble deeds be now done. Not on Ilion's plains, how much less in Mayfair's drawing rooms! Not in victory over poor brother French or Phrygians, but in victory over Frost-jotuns, Marsh-giants, over demons of Discord, Idleness, Injustice, Unreason, and Chaos come again. None of the old Epics is longer possible." We have arrived at a time when the masses definitely and undoubtedly matter, when it is no longer a question of the Have-nots reaching out their hands for the possessions of the Haves. The conscience of mankind has at length realized the truth of what the Encyclopædists declared, that mankind was composed not of some men, but of all men. With that realization the story of all men - the masses - becomes not merely invested with interest, but of importance.

When Eden wrote his history toward the end of the eighteenth century, he wrote with his eye mainly on the Poor Law.

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