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A Chartist meeting demanding universal suffrage - many of the men carry guns or pitchforks Organise against the Tebbit Bill with the new broadsheet from the Mobilising Committee for Trade Rights. 10p plus post from MCDTUR, 28 Middle Lane, under a strong escort, refusing to fire upon people of that town.' It also became clear that the Chartists had not built up their strength enough in the trade unions. Dr. M'Douall observed (Northern Star, August 21, 1842): 'the trades are not wholly with us.' . In Sheffield Harney complained (Sheffield and Rotheram Independent, August 27, 1842): 'In some trades there might be a majority of Chartists, but the acting and leading men, the committee-men and the secretaries, and the speakers of trades, were not Chartists.' Opposition But the strike failed above all because although Chartists led the strike movement and the Chartist Conference and Executive declared for it, some leading Chartists, particularly the editor of the Northern Star, opposed it and others, notably the foremost Chartist leader O'Connor, gave it no more than forma support, having no intention of conducting a struggle for power.

Moreover the Chartist party was not organised to conduct such a struggle.

Among the Chartists loading or supportiug the strike movement who were later to become members of the Society of Fraternal Democrats or the Democratic Committee for Poland's Regeneration (in effect a sub-committse of the society: the restoration of a united and independent Poland was a great revolutionary cause of the day) were, as well as Dr. M'Douall, who was prominent in the Chartist Executive, Robert Wild of Mottram, David Morrison, who was a delegate at both the Chartist conference and assembly of trades' delegates, Christopher Doyle, who became a member of the Chartist Executive in 1844, and Thomas Cooper.

Cooper proposed the resolution seconded by Engels at a meeting held in London in August 1845 that 'a public meeting of the democrats of all naMOBI tions, residing in London, be called to consider the propriety of forming an Association for the purpose of meeting each other at certain times' (Northera Star, August 23, 1840), chairing the founding meeting of the fraternal Democrats that was held soon afterwards.

Wild and Cooper were sentenced to two years in prison. Dr. M'Douall went abroad to avoid being arrested. Morrison and Doyle were found 'guilty' of two 'charges' but did not receive prison sentences.

National unions

Following the strike, Chartists, including men who were to : become Fraternal Democrats, took the lead in building national trades' unions, notably the Miners' Association of Great Britain and IreFENCE YE MMITTEL İDE UNION RIGHTS land, founded at Wakefield, on November 7, 1842.

They also took the lead in founding in 1845 the National Association of United Trades, which sought to unite all the unions. It was a fore. runner of the Trades' Union Congress, although it aimed to be something more than a TUC.

Approved

In a letter from the Miners of Durham and Northumberland of which William Daniells (who became a Fraternal Democrat in March 1847) was as chairman a co-signatory, to the conference held in London to prepare the formation of the National Association (Northern Star, March 29, 1845), it was stated that although it was impossible for them to be represented because of the protracted strike in the two counties and their poverty, 'nevertheless, the Miners of these two counties most heartily approve of a Consolidated Union of all Trades, being convinced that, until such a union is effected, single Trades may struggle with oppression in vain, and we hereby pledge ourselves to use our utmost exertions to carry out so desirable an object.' Political power After the February 1848 revolution in France the Fraternal Democrat James Goulden, Manchester district secretary of the National Association, was one of those who took the initiative in setting up an early Labour Party, "The Northern Trades' Association for obtaining political and social reforms' composed of trades collectively and individual members, which aimed, its chairman, the Chartist J.W. Parker, explained, to show the necessity of the working classes obtaining political power, and of the trades' unions uniting together for that purpose.' The outbreak of the February Revolution found the Chartist body once more unprepared. At the great demonstration on Kennington Common on April 10 Harney observed that (Times, Apr.11, 1848), 'The Government had taken military precautions against their own people, for proposing to hold a public meeting and procession, of so murderous a character, that if the French had landed at Dover, and were in full march for the metropolis, they could not have been more extensive or complete.' Civil war According to the Bradford Observer of April 13, 1848, although actual hostilities had not broken out, it was 'hardly a figure speech to say, that England at present is in a condition of civil war' However soon afterwards important steps were taken towards the construction of a party with both the leaders and the type of organisation needed for a successful struggle for power. The Chartist party was re-organised in Mar bs the National Assembis which was called by the Chartist National Convention which met on April 4.

Soon after the election of the Naional Assembly the Bradford Observer of April 27, 1848, described the situation in this way:

Good Friday was nevet celebrated by the working classes of England as it was in this 1848.. Instead of repairing to church to pray to be preserved 'from foreign enemies and domestic divisions,' as the Queen and her Council had commanded, they assembled on the moors and commons over the length and breadth of the land, and their talk was of arms and war! They virtually repudiated their allegiance to 'the powers that be,' by choosing delegates to represent them in a National Assembly!' The nature of the organisation of the National Charter Association adopted by the National Assembly, which met on May 1, was succinctly: described by Ernest Jones at a meeting held in Leicester on June 5 Leicester Chronicle, June 10,1848) It 'consisted in the division of the country into districts, which again were to be divided into localities, and these into wards of 100 each, sub-divided into classes of 10: each division and sub-division having a secretary or leader, and thus forming a chain for the conveyance of orders or arrangements from the executive in London: so that with great facility. without any previous public notice, and yet without secrecy. any number of men might at any time be taken to any given point, and concentrated there' Moving a resolution in the National Assembly on May 12 recommending himself with me. thern Star, May 13, 1848), Ernest Jones said: 'When they had got 5,000,000 people enrolled among their number, they then task was the physical try.

the following day for the Assembly's dissolution, Ernest Jones said (Northern Star, May 20, 1848):

'Let them enrol their names in the books, now the test and the sign membership; let every man ho prepared and he could tell them that the Charter would very quickly be made law of the land.

The following, day meeting convened by a bill requesting 'members of sections and national guards' to attend (Halifax Guardian, May 21, 1848), to which (Bradford Observer, i May 25, 1848) 'bodies of men came ... in miitary order the various cries of the commanders of these bodies ... as they took up their positions on the ground with mechanical regularity' having 'a strange effect' was attended by perhaps 20,000 (Observer) or 30,000 (Guardian) people estinates reaching as high as 100,000.

There seems little doubt that if the whole country had been up to the mark of Bradford the government could have been defeated.

In London, the Fraternal Democrat Thomas Frost, a Chartist leader at Croydon, later described how (Forty Years' Recollections, p. 145);

"The new organisation well stood the test applied to its capabilities on the evening of May 29, when, without any public notification, vast assemblages took place on Clerkenwell Green and Stepney whence processions moved towards the City by routes converging on Smithfield. Uniting on that area, the whole force marched down Snow Hill, along Holborn and Oxford Street, down Regent Street, and through Pall Mall, the Strand, Fleet Street, and Ludgate Hill, into Finsbury Square, where they dispersed. The number of men who marched in that procession was estimated at 80,000. Blackaby, who assisted in the demonstration, told me that he looked back and forward as they tramped along Fleet Street six abreast, and could see neither the head nor the rear of the enormous column, whose sudden and unexpected appearance inspired fear and misgiving both in the City and among the dwellers at the West End.' Speaking in Manchester on June 6, Ernest Jones said (Manchester Guardian, Juñe 10, 1848):

"The same measure of nominal reform, if carried the middle classes, would not be the same labour was the nie Fi ciple, and therefore labourers must be the culine class The Diurapt of the people was secure, if they adopted the scheme of organisation, resolved upon by the national assembly. They knew that five or six regiments were on their way home from murdering the Aighans and Sikhs, to murder the English, but they knew also that the soldiers were be. ginning to mutiny. There was a mutiny last week at Woolwich, and another at Windsor Castle, in which the officers were obliged to yield to the men.' Dr. M'Douall said at a meeting in Ashton-underter Guardian several 30, Lyne on July 10 (Manches1848), that regiments have already revolted, and there is no fear from them. The whole of the troops stationed at Woolwich have in one night revolted; and I tell you that there is a committee now sitting at the Horse Guards of men belonging to the Horse Guards, to consider their grievances.' In the event, the Chartists were not given time to build up their organisation. The government arrested Ernest Jones, Dr. M'Douall, John West and other Chartist leaders, decapitating the movement.

Soon afterwards capitalism entered a long period of expansion in Britain and the kind of opportunity which had arisen in 1842 and 1848 did not present itself again until the General Strike of 1926, when, the lessons of Chartism not having. been learnt, no principled and capable eadership existing which commanded wide support in the working class and its mass organisations, the opportunity was again lost.

In an address issued on July 4, 1848 (Northern Star, July 8, 1848) + after the bloody defeat the workers in Paris in the June days and after the arrests of Chartist leaders in Britain had begun, the Fraternal Democrats affirmed:

'The flag of the Red Republic is the flag of the Proletarians throughout Europe. The time has gone by when the masses migh have been conciliated by political phrases rights.

nominal political Millions of working men il France, England, and Germany, now understand that the best of paper constitutions cannot include all the Rights of Man, nor the most important of those rights. The red flag, struc down in the Faubourg Saint Antoine, is not. conquered. The faith of whic that flag is the symbol, is not confined toParis, bu ives and grows it every hive of human industry; and not one, nor fifty defeats, will prevent the triumph of that faith.

In spite of treason, massacre, proscription, and calumny -'Labour's battle once begun, Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son, Tho baffled now shall yet be won."

We have to ensure tha when the next big crisis comes up the battle is mor which means that before the eleventt boa. a successful surger =s » atta is s *300g

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Socialist Organiser no. 100 Elptember 16 1982 Page 12

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