Note 82 — Chapter VII

The Government, however, took the Hyde Park disturbance with extreme seriousness. "Nothing can well be more certain than the fact that the Hyde Park riot, as it was called, convinced Her Majesty's ministers of the necessity of an immediate adoption of the reform principle."[82] Disraeli, who in 1859 had proposed reform without getting any support, now saw that a great opportunity had come for a constructive Conservative policy, and boldly insisted to his party that Parliamentary Reform was a necessity. "You cannot establish a party of mere resistance to change, for change is inevitable in a progressive country," he told his followers.