Chartism and its Main Trends. The Historical Significance of Chartism

In 1836 a trade and industrial crisis broke out as a result of which thousands of workers became unemployed. In 1836 the Working Men's Association was organized in London by William Lovett, a cabinet-maker from Cornwall. William Lovett and his friends in the London Working Men's Association formulated their demands in a six-point: universal (manhood) suffrage, annual parliaments, vote by (secret) ballot, abolition of the property qualification for MPs, payment of MPs so that low-income representatives could participate in the sessions of parliament, and equal electoral districts which meant an end to the abuses of the existing boroughs.

The demands of the Charter implied a recognition of the equality of the Irish people, which was rejected by the radical Manchester banker, Attwood. Politically the demands of the Chartists stretched back to the radical traditions of the Corresponding Societies of 1792 – 3, and they were proud of their heritage.

Gradually the industrial North became the focus of the whole movement with the main periodical the Northern Star published in Leeds. When the draft Charter was published in 1838 mass meetings of thousands of workers were held. The first Petition for the implementation of the Charter was endorsed by one million two hundred thousand signatures.

There were three trends in the movement. Lovett and his supporters held the opinion that the Charter must be won in alliance with the radical bourgeoisie and only by peaceful methods – education, peaceful persuasion, agitation and petitions to Parliament. This was the party of 'moral force’. Its opponents called it in derision the party of 'rose-water'.

In the course of struggle a revolutionary left wing began to evolve among the Chartists headed by O'Brien, George Harney and Ernest Jones. The three leaders considered that socialism was the only option which the workers should choose and that it could be won in stubborn class struggle.

Meanwhile, the government encouraged by the split in the ranks of the Chartists undertook suppressive measures against the movement. Moreover, the government provoked bloody clashes with the workers in Birmingham. It rejected the Petition for the adoption of the Charter. The Chartist papers were banned. The failure of the first Petition was a direct result of the lack of unity among the Chartists, their unwillingness to organize a general strike though the workers themselves were in a militant spirit to challenge the government.

In this tense period of British social history the English bourgeoisie was set on a course to divert the working class movement from direct action which threatened the interests of the ruling class to a more harmless movement which fully answered the interests of the industrial and trading bourgeoisie.

Nevertheless the overwhelming majority of the working classes resisted the attempts of the bourgeoisie to divert their movement. Moreover, they gained an important victory. In 1840 the workers in Manchester formed a nation-wide political party known as the National Chartist Association. Persons who joined the Chartist organization received a membership card, paid modest dues and joined a local organization in their own district. The Association was not always consistent in its tactics for among its members there were representatives of bourgeois circles whose political views were quite contradictory. This factor could not but exercise a negative influence on the outcome of the movement. Nevertheless it was set to unite the working class and gain political power for the toiling masses.

Many trade unions joined the National Chartist Association. Its membership was more than fifty thousand. In the face of mounting social tension due to a new economic crisis which hit the country in 1841 a second Petition was being drawn. It contained the main demands of the first petition coupled with new items such as wage increase, shorter working hours. In fact, the second Petition was far more radical. Especially important was the fact that the Petition demanded the abolition of capitalist ownership of the land and the industrial means of production.

On May 6, 1842 the new Petition was submitted to Parliament. Affixed to it were nearly three and a half million signatures, that is nearly half of the adult male population of Great Britain. It was carried in a huge chest by 20 persons and accompanied by thousands of demonstrators. The Tory government of 1842 rejected the Petition. The executive committee of the National Chartist Association proclaimed a nation-wide general strike. However, though a wave of mass strikes overwhelmed the country, the main aim was not achieved – there was no general strike and, more important, the Chartist leaders failed to make the Charter the main slogan of the day.

It was at this moment that Peel's Tory government hit hard at the workers. A great number of active participants of the Chartist movement were arrested. Hundreds were sentenced to transportation to the penal colonies in Australia. In this situation the National Chartist Association lost many of its members. The whole movement experienced a serious setback. William Lovett and his supporters — the well-paid workers — deserted the movement.

Scared by the scope of Chartism and understanding the necessity of social change the liberal bourgeoisie intensified its attempts to defuse social tension in the country by introducing free trade. Under such circumstances the government gave in. In 1843 import restrictions on coal and machinery were abolished. The Free trade movement culminated in 1846 when Peel, the prime minister, lent his support to a total repeal of the Corn Laws ( the measures which protected home agriculture from the import of cheap corn ). Free trade was established which gave a powerful fillip to British industry and trade.

The Chartists openly supported the Irish national-liberation movement. After the death of O'Connell, who headed the 'repealers' in Ireland (they demanded the repeal of the Act of Union of 1801), a new revolutionary leadership evolved which maintained close contacts with the Chartists in England. This new trend in the liberation movement in Ireland was called 'Young Ireland' and was headed bу John Mitchell. It called for national regeneration of the country in the spirit of the best democratic traditions of the past. In 1846 England again was hit by another crisis which made thousands of workers destitute. Under such circumstances the executive committee of the National Chartist Association started a new round of agitation for the third National Petition. Most positive was the fact that the demands of the former petitions were supplemented by demands of freeing Ireland from the English yoke. Moreover, Chartist organizations were formed in the towns of Ireland and Irish clubs in English industrial centres actively participated in English working class activities. The revolutionary spirit in the country was enhanced by the revolution in France in 1848. The Chartists wholeheartedly welcomed it and, moreover, the demand to proclaim Britain a republic was included into the demands of the third Petition which was endorsed by about two million signatures.

In 1848 Chartism gradually lost its revolutionary fervour. Militant left-wingers went on agitating and calling for action, however, the movement on the whole had spent itself. The worst consequences of the economic crisis were over and from 1852, with short intervals England enjoyed a considerable economic upsurge. This made it possible for the bourgeoisie to consolidate its grip on the masses.

The main reason for the defeat of the Chartists was the harmful influence of the supporters of peaceful evolutionary actions and concilidation with the bourgeoisie. Receiving enormous profits, the English bourgeoisie could bribe certain sections of the working class, the so-called labour aristocracy, and through it exercise influence on the working class movement as a whole.

Nevertheless, Chartism made a deep impression on the working class in England. For nearly twenty years after 1837, Chartism was a name to evoke thewildest hopes of the labouring classes and the worst fears of the bourgeoisie. Certainly no other movement before the rise of the modern labour movement at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries had anything like the mass following of Chartism. It was the first attempt to build an independent political party representing the interests of the labouring and unprivileged classes of the nation.

Chartism played a great historical role and forced the bourgeoisie to make certain concessions, reforms for the sake of avoiding new great upheavals; the ten-hour working day, the more liberal factory legislation, the Parliamentary Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884 were clearly a result of this heroic effort of British working class struggle.

6.6. Britain in the fifties of the 19^th century. Britain the 'workshop of the world'

By the middle of the 19th century Britain established her industrial superiority in the world as well as her dominant position in world trade. England increased the number of its cotton-spinning and weaving factories from 1932 to 2483 during the 50s and 60s of the 19th century. By this time the English cotton industry had 30 million mechanical spindles or six times as many as France or the United States of America and twenty times more than Prussia. By 1870 England's urban population reached 66 per cent of the total population of the country.

The British government tried to enhance the idea of Britain's industrial supremacy by organizing the first world exhibition in 1851. The Great Exhibition as it was called included show-pieces of industrial progress from many nations; but chief among them were things made in Britain — the 'workshop of the world'.

Free trade was the natural aim of the strongest trading nation, and this policy was implemented far and wide.

An important aspect of this policy was the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 to reduce the high cost of imported wheat. In general import duties were reduced on 750 articles. The manufacturers gained by repeal not through the cheapening of food, which had been their main argument when trying to win popular support, but by a larger flow of imports and a steadily expanding market for their goods. Nothing now stood between the British manufacturer and the markets of the world.

The strengthening of the capitalist state machine continued in this period. From 1837 to 1901 Queen Victoria reigned in England. Despite all the respect and reverence enjoyed by the Queen actual power was concentrated in the cabinet of ministers responsible to Parliament which expressed the interests of the ruling classes. After 1848 the Whigs represented by the newly-emerged Liberal party — a party of the industrial and trading bourgeoisie — were in power almost without interruption for over twenty years. The Tories had been seriously weakened by the repeal of the Corn Laws, (which was a blow at the landlords and gentry who comprised the nucleus of the Tory party. The Tory party was revived and re­united in 1867 when the Conservative party was formed no longer primarily as a party of the landowners but as the party of the new power of finance capital.

The expansion of the vast colonial empire, the conquest of new markets were in the focus of British foreign policy. India and the Far East were of special importance. British expansion continued in India which was regarded as the most precious jewel in the British Crown. The English colonizers used the carrot and stick policy: they enjoyed the support of an army of sepoys (native soldiers driven by hunger and privation to serve in the British army) trained by English officers, they bribed the small princes and landowners. Railways were built deep into the country to foster the penetration of cheap English goods and take back cotton and other raw materials. Thus in the 19th century India was flooded with cheap English factory-made fabrics. The devastating effect of this influx of English goods into India brought with it grave consequences. Millions of weavers ruined by English competition starved to death.

The people of India never yielded to British oppression. When the country was split revolts took place in different parts of its territory. However, when all India was conquered by the British a national liberation movement flared up. This revolt is known in British history books as the Indian Mutiny or the mutiny of the sepoys, but in India as the First Indian War of Independence. All India was involved in a mass uprising in 1857 — 9). Even Delhi was seized by the rebels and the British administration was overthrown. The main forces of the uprising were comprised of peasants and artisans who were poorly equipped and badly organized. Moreover the feudal lords bribed by the colonizers betrayed their own people. Britain with all its technical might suppressed the uprising with medieval cruelty. The main forces of the sepoys were blocked in Delhi which was recaptured in September 1857. The mutineers were not simply executed; they were tied to the cannons and then blown to pieces by the firing guns. The unrest continued well until 1859 when it was finally crushed. India was reduced to the status of an imperial province of the British crown.

On the basis of its gains in India, Britain continued to extend its empire in Asia and the Far East. In 1852—3 southern Burma was annexed and joined to India. The seizure of Singapore in 1819 provided excellent facilities for the British fleet to extend its naval operations in the Pacific. Together with Gibraltar and Aden which was seized in 1839 it formed a strategic safeguard system to protect British trade and colonial interests in India, South-East Asia and the Far East. It was in this period that Britain opened up China gaining access to the huge Chinese market.

British colonial expansion and the consolidation of British interests in the Middle East inevitably led to a clash between England and Russia. The desintegration of the Turkish Empire, the struggle of the Slavs and other peoples for their independence against Turkish yoke raised the question of the future of these territories. If Russia moved south and defeated Turkey, she might secure her ancient dream of Constantinople and way out into the Mediterranean which was a threat to Britain's control of the approaches to the Suez Canal and to her links with India. Other European powers, France and Austria included, were also involved. However, Britain and Russia were the main antagonists. The Crimean War of 1853—6 ended in a severe defeat of tsarist Russia. Britain and France gained access to the Turkish market. However, the main result of the war was the neutralization of the Black Sea. Russia was forbidden to fortify any harbours on the Black Sea or to keep any warships there.

Meanwhile, Britain went on extending its colonial empire. She possessed two kinds of colonies: colonies proper and the so-called dominions. In the former like India where there was a large native population the status of the inhabitants was that of slaves and British colonial rule was absolute. In the latter like Canada, Australia, New Zealand with a sparse native population which was either exterminated or driven into reservations and the lands were taken over by white settlers self-government and dominion status were granted to the settlers. The British bourgeoisie remembered well the drastic consequences of the American War of Independence and did not want a similar repetition in any of the white colonies.

After the American revolution English convicts were deported to Australia and it was used as a convict colony well into the 19th century. The discovery of gold in 1851 attracted many settlers and stimulated the rapid development of the country. By 1890 there were six colonies in Australia, all of which had acquired self-government. In1901 the British Parliament recognized the Commonwealth of Australia. Large sheep-breeding farms were set up and the country became a major exporter of wool and meat. Industry began to develop too especially in the last.

The British gained control of New Zealand in 1840. In New Zealand the local Maori population attempted to resist when their land was taken away from them. The English sent an army of 20,000 which for three whole years exterminated the Maori people. In a short time the number of Maori dwindled from 80,000 to 30,000. Eventually the white settlers dominated the country. The settlement obtained a large measure of self-government in 1853.

In Canada which abounded in forests the owners hired workers to fell the trees for timber — a major item of Canada's exports. Large grain-producing farms emerged too and later industry began to develop. However, trouble between English and French residents of Canada and disputes over the boundary of the USA and Canada caused the English Parliament to send Lord Durham to investigate the situation. In his report (1839) he recommended more self-government. As a result, the Dominion of Canada was formed in 1867. It became a federal state with 9 provinces and received a two-house parliament, a cabinet and a governor-general who represented England.

The 1850s and 1860s were years of growing antagonism between England and Ireland. Beginning with the 17th century the lands in Ireland belonged to the English landlords. The bulk of the Irish peasants were turned into tenant farmers. The position of the Irish peasants was desperate. The spirit of rebellion became widespread in the country. However, the liberation movement in the country was dominated by petty bourgeois revolutionaries, the Fenians (the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood), who advocated conspiracy and terrorist activities.

British governments became seriously interested in Africa only when other European powers did, particularly France, Germany and Italy. Much of the exploration of Africa was left to private individuals: missionaries and businessmen. David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary explored much of east-central Africa. Cecil Rhodes, explorer, businessman and settler, aimed to establish a great empire for Britain in Africa and to build a railroad from Cairo to the Cape. Rhode’s enterprise secured Rhodesia. British influence was extended to Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda through private companies. In the 1890s arrangements were made between the European powers over the partition of Africa. Britain and France came to an amicable understanding over territories. The century ended in war, the outcome of continual friction between the Boer (Dutch) and British peoples living in South Africa. The Boers wanted their two inland states, the Transvaal and Orange Free State, to have complete independence. The British should have won a quick victory, but the war dragged on. It was hugely expensive and very embarrassing for Britain. The Boers portrayed the British as agressors, and this view won international support. Peace was concluded in 1902. Self government was conferred on the Transvaal in 1906 and on the Orange Free State in 1907, they had their own tarrif system. But the antagonism between Boers and Britons continued. The Boer war had developed Boer nationalism.

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