The enfranchisement of the working class, for which Place worked
so unceasingly, could not come--in the ordinary course of things
English--until the middle class had succeeded in their contest with
their feudal masters. By the possession of the vote in 1832, the middle
class became a rival power to the aristocracy; and that power would be
greatly augmented if the middle class should favour the extension of the
franchise to the working class, as many of them were naturally inclined
to do. The Tory policy then was to sow animosity between the middle and
the working classes, which might prevent them acting together. Their
method was to suggest that the middle class, having obtained what they
wanted, cared nothing for the people, notwithstanding that Hume, Leader,
Roebuck, Grote, Mill, Cobden, and Bright, were the great champions of
the franchise for the people, who incurred labour, peril, and obloquy
for them.
Temple Leader said: "Do not be too sure workmen will not turn against
you, do what you may for them. If sheep had votes they would give them
all to the butcher"--as we have seen them do in this generation. The
Tories had spite against the Whigs, who gave the people the first Reform
Bill. Disraeli began to denounce the Whigs, and he soon found ostensible
leaders of the people to help. Chartist speakers were bribed to take up
the cry. The Irish in England, who thought their chances lay in English
difficulty, willingly preached distrust of the middle class, and their
eloquent tongues gave them ascendency among the Chartists, many of
whom honestly believed that spite was a mode of progress, and under the
impression that passion was patriotism, they took money to express it.
The Liberal portion of the middle class had long contributed to the
support of workmen's political societies. But when they found their own
meetings broken up by Chartists, and their Tory adversaries aided at
elections, their subscriptions decreased, and a new charge of hostility
to the working class was founded on that.
This chapter is a statement, not a plea. Considering the superior
information and means of the middle class, they have not shown
themselves so solicitous for the political claims of Labour as they
ought--having regard to their own interests alone. Nor have the Labour
class shown that regard for the rights of the middle class, by which
Labour could have furthered its own advantages. Friendliness between
them is the interest of both.
Who would have thought that if you scratched a Chartist you would find
a Tory agent under his skin? Yet so it proved with many of them. George
Julian Harney was a Republican. In early Chartist days he wore on
Winlaton platforms a Red Cap of Liberty, after the manner of Marat,
and called himself "L'Ami du Peuple," after Marat's famous "Journal of
Blood." Yet he was not the Friend of the People, in the sense we all
thought. He went to America with the reputation of a fiery patriot. It
procured for him a welcome from the Liberals of Boston, and he was given
a clerkship in the State House soon after his arrival. He might have
grown grey in England before a place would have been given him in any
Government department here.* To my astonishment Harney soon began to
write home disparagements of the American people and their Government,
such as we were familiar with from aristocratic pens. When the Bulgarian
massacres were stirring the indignation of English Liberals, he sent
me a pamphlet he had written, in the spirit of Disraeli's "Coffee House
Babble" speech. I wrote to him, saying "it read like the production of
a full-blown Tory." He resented the imputation--when all the time it was
true. He had cast off his Liberal garments, and was naked, and ashamed.
Afterwards he cast off the shame. When I was in Boston, in 1879,
American Liberals expressed to me their disappointment that Mr. Harney
neither associated with them nor lent them any assistance in their
societies, such as they had expected when they welcomed him to their
shores. Yet to the end of his days I remained his personal friend, in
consideration of services in agitations in which we had worked together.
I had helped him when he issued _The Republic_ and had written words in
honour of his first wife, a Mauchline beauty of the Amazon type, whose
heroism was notable. In times of danger she would say to her husband,
"Do what you think to be your duty, and never mind me."
* Sam Bamford, who wrote the "Pass of Death," when Canning
died, was old before we accorded him a seat in a cellar in
Somerset House, copying papers at a few shillings a week. It
was all his Parliamentary friends could procure for him.
I first knew Harney at the time of the Bull Ring Riots in Birmingham in
1839. He was "wanted" by the authorities. I alone knew where he lodged.
He knew he was safe in my hands, and we never ceased to trust each
other. I never change my friendship for a colleague because he changes
his opinions; but I never carry my friendship so far as to change my
convictions for his.
Happily it is now thought a scandal to say that Chartist politicians
took money from Tories to break up Liberal meetings. This shows there
is a feeling against it. But they did take it Thomas Cooper, as well
as Ernest Jones, the two poets of Chartism, were themselves in this
disastrous business.
When Thomas Cooper came to London he went, as most Chartists of note
did, to see Francis Place. After some conversation Place asked, "Why
did you take money to prevent Liberal meetings being held?" Cooper
vehemently denied it. Place then showed him a cheque which Sir Thomas
Easthope, the banker, had cashed for him. Place said, "You had L109,
so much in gold, so much in silver, and so much in copper, for the
convenience of paying minor patriots." Years after Cooper in his Life
expressed regret that he had denied receiving Tory money.
Mr. Bright, in the House of Commons, June 5th, 1846, told the honourable
member, Mr. Thomas Slingsby Duncombe, that those parties with whom he
was found at public meetings out of doors had been the greatest enemies
of the repeal of the Corn Laws. (Cries of "Name!")
In answer to the cries of "Name" (says a leading article of the _League_
newspaper), we will mention a few only of the most prominent and active
of these:--Feargus O'Connor, Leach, McDowall, Pitkeithly, Nightingale,
O'Brien, Marsden, Bairstow, Cooper, Harney--some of whom, to our
knowledge, and as we are ready to prove, were well paid for their
opposition to the Free Traders. Nor would it be difficult to show
where the money came from. Let one fact suffice. In June, 1841, on
the occasion of a great open-air Anti-Corn Law meeting being held in
Stevenson Square, Manchester (in answer to the taunt of the Duke of
Richmond that no public meeting could be held against the Corn Laws),
the monopolists made a great effort to upset the meeting. Every Chartist
leader of any notoriety was brought to Manchester from places as distant
as Leicester and Sunderland. The most prominent leader and fugleman of
the opposition was Mr. Charles Wilkins, Dr. Sleigh and he moving and
seconding the amendment to the Free Trade resolution. On that very
morning Mr. Wilkins cashed a cheque for L150, drawn by the Duke of
Buckingham at Jones and Lloyd's Bank. At that meeting of 10,000 working
men the Chartists were driven off the ground. Blows being exchanged
and blood spilt in the fray, the aim of the Chartist party to create
confusion was so far gained; and the moral effect of the demonstration
was effectually marred. For more than three years at the beginning
of the agitation every public meeting called by the Free Traders was
subjected to outrages of a similar kind by the followers of O'Connor.*
* The _League_ newspaper, No. 142, vol. iii. p. 625.
A short time ago Mr. Chamberlain made a point of declaring that the
working classes were against Free Trade in Cobden's days. The only
portion of the working class known to oppose Free Trade were the
Chartists. Why they did so, Mr. Chamberlain ought to know. If he does
not, he may learn the reason in these pages. The list of the payments
made to them was published, when it could have been contradicted if
untrue. But no disproof was ever attempted. Even "Honest Tom Duncombe,"
as the Chartists affectionately called him, was known to be in the pay
of the French Emperor, of sinister renown, as documents found in the
Tuileries showed. The Chartists, who became the hired agents of Tory
hostility, did more to delay and discredit the Charter and to create
distrust of the cause of Labour than all outside enemies put together.
Those who censure the middle class for indifference to the Parliamentary
claims of Labour, should bear in mind the provocation they received.
Their meetings were frustrated for years after the Anti-Corn Law
agitation was ended.
In the light of what we know it seems hypocrisy in the Tories to speak
of Chartists with the horror and disdain which they displayed, when all
the while the Chartists were doing their work. It seems also ingratitude
that when questions were raised in Parliament of mitigating the
condition of Chartist prisoners, the Tories never raised a single voice
in their favour.
We know there were Tory Chartists, because they took money from the
Tories to promote their interests. We know it also by the sign that
while they denounced the Whigs they were always silent about the Tories.
Now the Whigs are practically dropped and Liberals are denounced, there
is the same tell-tale silence as to the Tories. Now we see a party
arise so virtuous, philosophic and impartial that no party suits their
fastidious taste, and they will have nothing to do with Liberals or
Tories. When they speak, Liberals are referred to as very unsatisfactory
persons, but no objections are made to Tories. The reticence is still
instructive.
So be it. In art, every man to his taste; in politics, every man
according to his conscience. I only describe species. There is a science
of political horticulture, and it is only by knowing the nature of the
plant that any one can tell what flower or fruit to expect. Yet
there are politicians who go mooning about looking for nectarines on
crab-apple trees. The Old Postillion made no such mistake.