Читать книгу Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Various - Страница 9

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One of the most important political movements of the present century was the Chartist agitation in Great Britain. This agitation began in 1838. It was an effort of the under man in England to gain his rights. In the retrospect, it seems to us astonishing that such rights as those that were then claimed by the common people of England should ever have been denied to the citizens of any free country. The period covered by the excitement was about ten years in duration, and during that period great and salutary reforms were effected, but they were not thorough, and to this day the under man in Great Britain is mocked with the semblance of political liberty, the substance of which he does not enjoy; the same is true in America.

The name Chartist arose from an article called the "People's Charter," which was prepared by the famous Daniel O'Connell. The document contained six propositions, follows:

(1) We demand Universal Suffrage—by which was meant rather Manhood Suffrage than what is now known as universal suffrage, meaning the ballot in the hands of both sexes. This the Chartists did not demand.

(2) We demand an Annual Parliament—by which was meant the election of a new House of Commons each year by the people.

(3) We demand the right to Vote by Ballot—by which was meant the right of the people to employ a secret ballot at the elections instead of the method viva voce.

(4) We demand the abolition of the Property Qualification now requisite as a condition of eligibility to Membership in the House of Commons.

(5) We demand that the Members of Parliament shall be paid a salary for their services.

(6) We demand the Division of the Country into Equal Electoral Districts—by which was meant an equality of population, as against mere territorial extent.

To the reader of to-day it must appear a matter of astonishment that the representatives of the working classes of Great Britain should have been called upon, at a time within the memory of men still living, to advance and advocate political principles so self-evident and common-sense as those declared in the Charter, and his wonder must be raised to amazement when he is told that the whole governing power of Great Britain, the King, the Ministry, the House of Lords, the House of Commons, the Tories as a party, the Whigs as a party, and—all party divisions aside—the great Middle Class of Englishmen set themselves in horrified antagonism to the Charter and its advocates, as though the former were the most incendiary document in the world and the latter a rabble of radicals gathered from the purlieus of the French Revolution.

The reason for the outbreak of the Chartist reform was the fact that the Reform Bill of 1832 had proved a signal failure. For six years the English Middle Classes had sought by the agency of that act to gain their rights, but they had sought in vain. The people now began to follow popular leaders, who always arise under such conditions. One of these, by the name of Thorn, a bankrupt brewer and half madman, who called himself Sir William Courtenay, appeared in Canterbury. He said that he was a Knight of Malta and King of Jerusalem—this when he was only a knight of malt and a king of shreds and patches. Delusion broke out on every hand. One great leader was Feargus O'Connor. Another was Thomas Cooper, a poet, and a third was the orator Henry Vincent, afterward well known in America.

The agitation for reform spread far and wide. The people seemed to be about to rise en masse. The powers of British society were shaken and alarmed. The authorities put out their hands and the Chartist meetings in many places were broken up. The leading spirits were seized and thrown into prison for nothing. Three of the agitators were sent to the penal colonies, for no other offence than the delivery of democratic speeches. For several years the movement was in abeyance, but in 1848, in the month of April, the agitation broke out afresh and rose to a formidable climax. A great meeting was appointed for the Kensington common, and there, on the tenth of the month just named, a monster demonstration was held. A petition had meanwhile been drawn up, praying for reform, and was signed by nearly two million Englishmen!

After this the Chartist agitation ebbed away. The movement was said to be a failure; but it failed, not because of the political principles on which it was founded, but because those principles had in the meantime been acknowledged and applied. At least three of the six articles of the Chartist charter were soon adopted by Parliament. The principle of Manhood Suffrage is virtually a part of the English Constitution. The right of voting by Secret Ballot, deposited in a ballot-box, has also been acknowledged as a part of the modus operandi of all British elections. In like manner the Property Qualification formerly imposed on candidates for Parliament, against which the Chartists so vehemently and justly declaimed, has long since been abolished.