Читать книгу Bygones Worth Remembering (Vol. 1&2) - George Jacob Holyoake - Страница 15

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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.1 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."

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 £109, 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 £150, 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.2

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.

1. 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.

2. The League newspaper, No. 142, vol. iii. p. 625.