Abstract

This essay analyses the political thought of James Fitzjames Stephen (1829-1894), barrister, journalist, and law member of the legislative council of British India from 1869 to 1872. Stephen was aware that the extension of the electoral franchise to working-class males was an unavoidable historical process, but at the same time he feared the consequences of democratic developments in Britain. Assuming the colony as a model for the government of the metropole, Stephen drew inspiration from his Indian experience to suggest the constitutional strategies to rectify the Reform Act of 1867.