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Household Suffragists of the Whig Birmingham Political Union. Mr. O'Connor also from this time joined the Chartists. At this meeting it was proposed that a Convention of the Working Classes should be summoned, and a National Petition be obtained, and that a National Rent should

be collected to defray the necessary expences. On the 17th of the following September, another meeting at the Palace Yard, London, (the High Bailiff of Westminster in the Chair), 'solemnly adopted' the People's Charter and National Petition and recommended meetings throughout the Country to appoint the delegates to watch over the Charter and Petition when presented to Parliament.' At this meeting one of the resolutions was moved by Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn-Law Rhymer'.

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The delegates so appointed met, on the 4th of February, at the British Coffee House as the General Convention of the Working Classes. The Convention55 members-was elected by show of hands of, it was said, three millions of per450,000 had been assembled at the election on Kersal-Moor, 200,000 at Peep-Greeen, 250,000 at Birmingham, 200,000 at Glasgow, etc.' Enthusiasm rode high; money was subscribed; meetings were multiplied; the Convention sent out its members as missionaries through the country; Chartist Associations sprung up in the manufacturing districts, and elsewhere. On the 13th of May, the Convention, having deposited the petition of 1,280,000 persons with Mr. Attwood, transferred their sittings, for the consideration of 'ulterior measures,' to Birmingham; whence they dispersed themselves to hold simultaneous meetings throughout the country. The Petition was presented to the 'Commons' on the 14th of June, and on the 12th of July 235 members, against 46, refused to consider its prayer. Meanwhile the Whig Ministers had not been forgetful of their old tactics, the foolish conduct of some members of the Convention playing into their hands. Threats of what the People could do were lightly used; whereupon some sections of them began to arm and train themselves; ill-founded reports of the warlike determination of the masses were given in to, and published by, the Convention; which, moreover, had neither fore-looking purpose, nor unanimity, nor capacity for guidance. Arrests were made, for training and drilling; arrests of members of the Convention for 'seditious' speaking. The Calthorpe Street policy was renewed, and a band of London Police, ordered down to Birmingham, while the Convention was sitting there, attacked the people peaceably meeting in the Bull-Ring. Lovett, the Secretary of the Convention, was arrested for signing an address justifying the resistance of the People. And when the Convention met again in London with very reduced numbers, on the 10th of July, it was but to see their Petition mocked at; to decide, on the 16th of July, upon a 'sacred month'-an abstinence from all work for that period, to commence on the 12th of August throughout the country, for the overthrow of the Government; and to substitute, on the 5th of August, one day's holiday for the impracticable month, and to appeal to the unpolitical Trades, to help a manifestation then. On the 14th of September the Convention dissolved, having utterly failed in everything, except the Petition.

On the 6th they removed to the Hall of the Lumber Troop, Bolt Court, Fleet Street.

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The baseless reports of Chartist power and determination still continued, over-living even the deplorable contradiction furnished by Frost's abortive attempt on Newport, on the 4th of November: an attempt induced by a too-ready credence to the bragging exaggerations of others. On the 26th of December a new Convention met in London, with the object of saving Frost and his fellowvictims. But the game was up. All that remained was the popularity of the ever-active O'Connor and the position of his 'Northern Star': both of which should have been turned to account.

Lovett, having come out of prison, founded in 1842 the 'National Association, to commence a general organization. He was joined by most of those who had been most active in the Working Men's Association; and virulently opposed by O'Connor and his party,-a party which had been helped by the 'Star' to keep up the agitation since 1839, but which had changed Chartism to O'Connorism, and almost lost sight of the Suffrage through looking for allotments of unprofitable land. But Lovett was impracticable; and his new association, after obtaining a few hundred members, dwindled into a debating club, and their hall became a dancing academy, let occasionally for unobjectionable public meetings. Lukewarmness among the more sensible of the working men, and aimless violence, not without good intention, among the O'Connorites, just kept alive the name of Chartism till the proclamation of the French Republic, in February 1848, awoke old hopes in England.

Then again some efforts were made to resuscitate the movement. Another "National Convention' met in London, under the auspices of O'Connor, to superintend another Petition. Almost every fault of the first Convention was repeated, Blustering talk led to foolish riots. The Petition with 5,700,000 signatures' 1 (afterwards reduced to 2,000,000, including 'fictitious') was presented on the 10th of April; and on the 17th the Convention dissolved to meet again on the 1st of May, as a National Assembly,' to carry the Charter. But all was now confusion. Even the elections (by show of hands) without principle or method: 3000 men electing three members for London, 100,000 at Halifax' electing one. The Assembly simply exhibited its incapacity, and then merged into the "National Charter Association,' which pursued the same course: gathering tu multous crowds of purposeless men, doing little to teach, and nothing to organize, unable even to command regular subscriptions, and mustering throughout the country only some 5000 paying members after the ten years' turmoil. Those of the Chartists still anxious in 1848, to make some attempt at organization found themselves joined by but a few hundreds, by them feebly, and for a little while. Men no longer rallied around the Chartist banner: some few only when it was

To use the words of Richard Carlisle to Feargus O'Connor, in October, 1839, just before the Newport catastrophe,-the 'Northern Star' (and not only the Star) 'most outrageously exaggerated the popular feeling. Every beer-house was a Chartist Legislature, a minor or local convention, and every expression a resolution to be printed in the Northern Star, the end of which was nothing done. Fellows who take things so easy as to smoke tobacco in their political meetings will never be found to be fighting men nor moral-force Reformers, Carlile's Political Register.

iSee O'Connor's Speech on Kennington Common.

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dragged in the dirt. Chartism has gone down in the whirlpool of its own folly. What escapes the wreck? A handful of men clinging yet to a forlorn hope, that a Conference among themselves, or a new Convention, may reëstablish the party: some few believers in the impossible, waiting for Opportunity to come back.

II.

WHAT REMAINS?

Such are the broad outward facts of Chartism: not without significance, which he who runs may read. In 1839, 1,280,000 men had made up their minds as to the one thing first and immediately needful for their salvation. They take ten years to talk about it; and at the end of that probation some four in a thousand are advanced enough to think it may be possible by shouting a little louder to get the Government to give way. Go to Jericho'! politely returns the Government: 'a citadel garrisoned by privileged Reform electors does not topple down at mere sound. So blow your own trumpets as long as you like.'-Something worse than this: for they say a million and a half of men petitioned for equal rights in Cartwright's time, so far back as 1819. Twenty years later, as we saw, it was a million and a quarter. Ten years later still it is two millions, with some deductions for 'fictitious names'; and, disappointed patriotism being intensified to a white heat, five thousand of the petitioners pay some pence a week toward obtaining a plan of action, to realize the thirty years' conviction. Disappointed intense patriotism purified to an active body of 5000, only asks for a plan of some sort; and gets none. Why, the FreeholdLand scheme, to buy up all England at £40 an acre, out of the savings of the serfs and factory-slaves, looks like a promising affair, in comparison with the chances of Chartist victory.

Meetings of a quarter of a million men swearing lustily to do or die, drilling and training and flourishing of arms,-and ending in a Newport insurrection and a Tenth of April! A sacred month for all England,—and not a tenth of England observing the one day's holiday! A million and a quarter shouting around us to-day,-and, when we would merely call over their names, some five thousand are all that can be found, by dint of ten years' advertizing and sending round of numerous unimpeachable bellmen! Is Chartism then a voice, and nothing more? the mere passionate outcry, and latterly the vituperative complaint, of trampled slaves, just roused enough to acknowledge that they ought to be men, and slinking back for fear they should be taken at their word. For Chartist, must we read, in our next Dictionary, nothing but empty braggart? Matters little now to weigh in exactest scales the incompetence of leaders against the apathy of those 'insatiable wild beasts,' the steady plodding serfs who eschewed politics and looked to trades-unions for at least some personal benefit, or the unsteady whose dissipated habits (there is political dissipation also) unfitted them for patriotic endeavours. To apportion to each his exact amount of blame would serve us little here. Enough, and more than enough, that leaders, led and unled, have been all at fault. From first to last Chartism has never had a real intention—that is to say, a clear resolve, to Act; and con

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sequently it has never made even an endeavour at the organization which is necessary for successful action. There has been, as in the National Union of the Working Classes,' and sometimes since, organization for mutual instruction; there have been not unfrequent efforts to broadcast political knowledge among the People; there have been well-tried arrangements for getting together so many thousand throats to bawl-'the Charter and no Surrender': but from first to last there has been no serious striving to create and weld together a popular power with a determined object, determined means of obtaining it, and determination to act accordingly at whatever risk. The elements of success have been left out of view. Nothing else.

History, giving the meaning of thirty years' Chartism (so long existing, though unnamed), will say-It was the utterance of a general want, a people's protest: nothing more. Very necessary the protest; but to stop thereLet us hope that so much of the business is at last well nigh done with, and that men will soon advise together with what mode of action their protest shall be followed up. Thirty years continual word-pouring and vociferation of a million and a quarter of men may surely be judged sufficient prologue to the work they declare necessary. Spare five quiet, serious minutes to consider whether it is not time to leave off promising and to begin performing; to finish your threats, and to do. Think of one generation of 'especially practical' Englishmen, and logical, hard-headed, economical Scotchmen, wasting their whole lives in merely telling each other what they are going to do. Five minutes may perhaps be enough for bemoaning such a loss of energies and forswearing further bluster. Begin now to prepare for work.

The Chartist movement' is as good as dead. It would have been successful if a Whig Jericho could have been shaken by trumpets. But the experiment is unsuccessful, a failure manifest to all. The very brazenest of the wind-instruments are wearing out,-absolutely soundless from long use, not to say abuse. But the discontent and the occasion for discontent, which gave rise to Chartism, remain still as of old unsatisfied, and the preparation for a remedy, the preparation only, prescribed by Chartism, is yet untried.

While we have been talking, Time has gone on to the threshold of a new Reform Bill. The game of 1832 is to be played over again; and undoubtedly with the same result if the People will, as then, be content with protesting. Nay, it seems not unlikely, in their present distracted state, that when the last moment of the contest between the middle-class and the aristocracy shall be at hand, the foolish generosity of the uncombined People will step in, as in 1832, to carry this new Reform,' to lift the rest of the shop-keepers into their thrones, and to retire on the morrow to some new Calthorpe Street, to read over again the moral of popular folly.

How is this to be prevented?' Only by setting earnestly to work, beginning even from the beginning: for there is just nothing done yet. One might almost say, worse than nothing. There is not one effective political association in the Country. You can not find five hundred,--no, not one hundred men prepared to act together to obtain even the preliminary of the RepublicUniversal Suffrage. There is but one way to action:-to begin anew in every

place, to organize local associations of men understanding what they aim at, determined to devote their lives to its attainment, and therefore associating,— in order more effectively to propagandize and to advise as to the best methods of procedure. But you have yet to make men understand the object. Chartism has not done this. It has held debate of wrongs; but it has not taught remedies, only the preparation for remedying. It has spoken of rights; but has not shown to what they may lead, nor to what they should lead. We need now, not merely Chartist, but Republican Associations.

You would, then, oppose the present Chartist Associations?' Not so: but I would form Republican Asssociations of the best men among them; and so in time, I hope, supersede the present associations, by a more vital, a furtherpurposed, and a more powerful organization. No repetition, nor modification, of the old methods of Chartist agitation or action, can avail us anything. They may be tried for thirty generations, and they will not change the Government or regenerate the People. The Freehold-Land scheme may enfranchise us after many centuries; but Chartism-in any shape in which it has hitherto shown itself-never. And if an altogether new organization is to be commenced, what can it be but Republican? Taking the enduring principle of the Charter as its first object, the foundation upon which to build.

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HE readers of the English Republic' have had laid before them-1, the confession of the republican faith; 2, an exposition of the principles of that faith; and 3, a plan of organization for republican propagandism. I am aware that this is not all. To embrace the creed, to be able thoroughly to explain its every article, to be filled with such zeal and to be so wisely active that our preaching draws the whole nation to our side,—this is not enough. It is necessary that the party to be formed should understand not only the theory of republicanism, but how to put republican principles into practice. We must learn through what measures our faith may work, our hopes be consummated. We must aim not only at creating a power, but at endowing that power with intelligence. I would not be the creator of a political Frankenstein, a power

At pages 8-9 of the English Republic, in the Address of the Central European Democratic Committee to the Peoples. At page 54.

b At page 10.

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