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Labour/Le Travailleur

Chartism and Class Struggle Nicholas Rogers

Volume 19, 1987

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Éditeur(s) Canadian Committee on Labour History

ISSN 0700-3862 (imprimé) 1911-4842 (numérique)

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Citer ce compte rendu Rogers, N. (1987). Compte rendu de [Chartism and Class Struggle]. Labour/Le Travailleur, 19, 143–152.

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Chartism and Class Struggle

Nicholas Rogers

James Epstein and Dorothy Thompson, eds., The Chartist Experience: Studies in Working-Class Radicalism and Culture, 1830-1860 (London: MacMillan 1982). Dorothy Thompson, The Chartists: Popular Politics in the industrial Revolu­ tion (New York: Pantheon 1984). Ivor Wilks, South Wales and the Rising of 1839 (Urbana and Chicago: Univer­ sity of Illinois Press 1984). David V.J, Jones, The Last Rising: The Newport Insurrection of 1839 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1985).

CHARTISM WAS A CAMPAIGN for democratic rights which captured the imag­ ination and support of the working class in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Despite the longevity of its political aims, it was its social character that caught the contemporary eye, differentiating it from earlier radical move­ ments. To Marx and Engels, Chartism was the political embodiment of working-class insurgency in the first industrial nation, presaging social revolu­ tion. From 1838 onwards universal suffrage lost its idealist character and became, in Marx's own words, "the equivalent for political power for the working class of England, where the proletariat forms the large majority of the population, where, in a long, though underground civil war, it has gained a clear consciousness of its position as a class."1 It is upon this formulation, as well as the more condescending portraits of Carlyle, Disraeli, and Mrs. Gas- kell, that much of the debate about Chartism has turned.

' K. Marx and F. Kngels, Articles On Britain (Moscow 1971). 119.

Nicholas Rogers, "Chartism and Class Struggle," Labourite Travail, 19 (Spring 1987), 141-151 143 144 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

Understandably, the tremendous ex­ of class alignments and initiatives, some­ pansion of social history in the past two thing that was to be taken up and devel­ decades has changed the orientation of oped by John Foster in his study of Old­ Chartist studies. The early scholarly treat­ ham,1 albeit from a very different political ment of the movement was emphatically perspective. The recent crop oi books, Fabian in perspective and sought to high­ too, have built on this local dimension. light Chartism's more respectable, con­ although they have not been concerned stitutionalist dimension. Mark Hovell, for simply to generate yet another round of example, emphasized the role of the local studies. As the introduction to Char- rational, self-educated artisans of the Lon­ tist Experience hints, this can degenerate don Working Men's Association who into a local antiquarianism obscuring the helped frame the charter and who lent diverse but national dimensions of Char­ considerable weight to the class- tism. Rather, there has been an attempt to collaborationist ventures of the Birming­ recapture the collective experience of ham Political Union and the Complete Chartism, its culture and ideology, as well Suffrage Movement. In his view it was the as to address problems that arose out of its reckless leadership of Feargus O'Connor promotion of a mass platform for demo­ and his "semi-barbaric" followers from cratic change. Of critical importance to the north that wrecked the unity of the these issues has been the work of social movement by alienating potential middle- historians on popular radicalism and col­ class support. This became the staple lective protest, especially E.P. Thomp­ interpretation ol Chartism, one that son, whose theoretical and methodologi­ hinged upon a dichotomy between an cal formulations on early working-class enlightened London artisan class, propo­ culture and consciousness continue to nents of "moral force," and a "physical inform and engage work on the labour force" contingent of "fustian jackets and movement. unshorn chins" fuelled by hunger and hardship.- It generated sociological One of the problems that has always cliches about leaders and followers as confronted historians of Chartism has well as opening the door to a spasmodic, been an evaluation of the insurrectionary economically reductionist interpretation impulses of 1839. When the "General of Chartism that saw the movement's Convention of the Industrious Classes" momentum and intensity rise and fall with first met in February 1839 to organize a the trade cycle. monster petition to Parliament, there was a good deal of debate about the "ulterior These caricatures came in for some measures" that might be taken should the hard knocks before social history reached charter fail. Much of the language of its current popularity. The shift to the menace was rhetorical, part of a radical local context pioneered by Chartist strategy that harked back to the reform Studies in 1959 belied the erratic, episodic agitations of the early 1830s as well as to view of Chartism and revealed a rich net­ the Peterloo massacre of 1819. Chartists work of community activities sustained by of all persuasions believed in defiant, con­ a hitherto invisible voluntary staff of key stitutional mass action and the right to arm activists.1' It also exposed the complexity themselves against government repres­ sion. But beyond that there was consider­ 1 Mark Hovell, The Chartist Movement (Man­ able disagreement about the sorts of con- chester 1925); for a useful summary of early Chartist historiography, see Dorothy frontationalist strategies that might be Thompson. '"Radicals and Their Historians." adopted and how far Chartists should Literature and History. 5(1977). 104-8. 1 Asa Briggs, ed.. Chartist Studies (London ' John Foster, Class Struggle and the Indus­ 1959). trial Revolution (London 1974). CHARTISM AND CLASS STRUGGLE 145 move beyond economic sanctions towards on Newport as insurrectionary; but unlike insurrectionary activity. These issues Hovell they do not see the rising as solely deeply divided the convention and part of a master plan hatched by ultras at prompted dissension and equivocal rec­ the convention. In their view the initiative ommendations. In the event, the delegates lay with the iron working and mining dis­ framed a series of ulterior measures but tricts, and like Williams, and indeed called off the most controversial, a gen­ G.D.H. Cole, they emphasize the Welsh eral strike or "sacred month," substituting background to the rebellion. Both Jones in its stead a three-day "national holi­ and Wilks show how the insurrection day." Having moved towards confronta­ grew out of the highly polarized climate tion, the convention, harassed by the of the valleys in which a small group of arrest of its leaders, drew back, only to Anglicized coal owners and ironmasters. witness some militant demonstrations in socially linked to the gentry, presided over the north during the three-day strike and a predominantly Welsh-speaking work months later a massive rising in the val­ force in a fast growing boom and bust leys of South Wales. economy. These first generation proleta­ The march on Newport of the colliers rians enjoyed relatively high wages, but and ironworkers of the South Wales coal­ wages were whittled away by the high field has always been something of a mys­ cost of provisions, truck, and deductions tery. Carried out in the utmost secrecy, it for rent and tools. Industrial relations was a source of considerable contempo­ were also soured by the masters' indiffer­ rary speculation. Some Chartists believed ence to accidents and familial welfare. il was the work of agent* provintiteurs. Strikes were frequent in this raw, frontier William Cardo, the Marylebone delegate society. In 1816, 1822. 1830, and 1832 to the Chartist convention, claimed it was the mining of the whole South Wales coal­ part of a projected general rising field came to a halt, troops were brought organized by a small circle of ultras which in, and the leaders of the miners were included the Polish emigre and member of imprisoned. Efforts to unionize were the London Democratic Association. crushed by employers, giving rise in the Major Beniowski. Mark Hovel! took this Monmouthshire coalfields to the Scotch quite seriously: in his view, "the Newport Cattle movement. The Cattle were Rising was the climax of this secret prepa­ community-based secret organizations ration."' But David Williams, the biog­ which resisted wage reductions, back pay, rapher of John Frost, the leader of the ris­ truck by intimidation, and industrial ing, was more skeptical. He doubted sabotage. Outside the iron district of Frost's revolutionary intentions and he Merthyr Tydfil, itself the scene of open saw the march on Newport as a specifi­ rebellion in 1X31 when crowds wrecked cally Welsh affair. He concluded that it the local Court ot Requests and repos­ was "a great demonstration of strength" to raise Chartist spirits and to pressure the sessed impounded property, "Scotch law" government to release Henry Vincent, the was a major force in the South Wales coal­ West Country orator who had helped field up to and beyond the Newport rising. mobilize the coalfields.''• The Cattle are crucial to the new inter­ pretation of the Newport insurrection The two recent historians of the rising because they help to explain how the drive a wedge between these interpreta­ march of 4 November, involving some tions. Like Hove It they do see the march 5,(KM) ironworkers and colliers from over 30 different communities, could be 1 HOVL'II. The Chartist Movement. 175. organized so efficiently and so secretly. '' David Williams. John Frou: A Smtix hi Not that this was the only network upon Churti\m (London 1939). 189-93. 287-9. which radicals could draw. In an area that 146 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

was both religiously and linguistically ble that failed. It proved impossible in divided, pubs, beerhouses, the workplace, harness the militant energy of 1839 to and to a lesser extent, chapels, formed crit­ some larger, national plan. What is more. ical loci of dissent, and one is struck the march on Newport denied ultras the by the rapidity with which Chartism grew symbolic victory for which they had in the coalfield. Paradoxically this was hoped. Their leaders were ill-prepared for not the Chartists' original recruiting the bloody confrontation that accom­ ground in South Wales. People like hrost. panied the attempt to rescue Chartists a draper embroiled in the freemen politics from the Westgate Hotel and their indeci­ of Newport, predictably pitched their ini­ sion at this critical juncture proved fatal. tial appeal to the trades workers and art­ As a result the Newport rising v^as a isans of the more established centres: Car- fiasco, frustrating the more vaguely- mathen, Llanelly. Welshpool. Newtown, formed plans set afoot in Newcastle and Llanidloes. These were the natural seed­ the West Riding. beds for radicalism under the auspices of fcven so, the Newport rising provides the London Working Men's Association. plenty of evidence of grassroots insurrec­ But Vincent's excursions into the indus­ tionary feeling. As Ivor Wilks empha­ trial heartland, backed by Welsh-speaking sizes, some colliers and ironworkers saw lieutenants, proved strikingly successful. the rising as the dawn of a new age. High­ The valleys rallied to the radicals, seeing lighting the testimony of Zephaniah Wil­ political power as a means of industrial liams, the radical publican from Blaina. action against the local "aristocracy" of he argues that the march on Newport was iron and coat. By 1839 there were at least the first step towards the creation of a 50 lodges in the coalfield and over 2x000 workers' republic in South Wales, to be committed Chartists. It was this upsurge followed by the capture of other towns of activity, sharpened by the rhetoric ot along the River Usk and the Severn ulterior measures and a sense of imminent estuary. How general a project this was class confrontation, thai prompted (he remains a matter of some dispute. David South Wales bourgeoisie to mount aeuun- Jones is a good deal more circumspect teroffensive. cracking down on popular about this evidence, stressing the diversity meetings, recruiting specials, requesting of plans and the divergence between inten­ '.oops, and arresting Vincent and other tions and execution. Underscoring Frost's Chartist leaders tor their inflammatory late resumption of leadership, he is more s[>ceches. inclined to see the rising as part of a larger British plan, the launching pad for the Class tensions in the South Wales popular rebellion. At the same time. coalfield were at fever pitch before the Jones, like Wilks, emphasizes the crucial National Petition was presented lo Parlia­ importance of local factors. The Newport ment; and as the convention struggled to rising belonged to a tradition of regional find a strategy that would sustain the unity revolt in South Wales and to a "culture of of the movement and popular pressure alienation, sedition and violent protest" upon the state. South Wales was moving (207) that grew out of this religious and in an insurrectionary direction. Both linguistically divided industrial society. Wilks and Jones stress the popular Workers demanded an end to political insurgency of the valleys and the inability oppression, to the concentration of politi­ of John Frost to contain it. All that Frost cal and economic power which denied could do was to try to coordinate the them bargaining rights in the coalfield. In imminent revolt in South Wales with simi­ concrete terms this meant some control lar projects in England, or at least with over the workplace as well as better condi­ those aired by "Jacobin" Chartists in the tions. Whether workers aspired to take final days of the convention. It was a gam­ CHARTISM AND CLASS STRUGGLE 147 over the means of production remains a guished it from earlier radical campaigns. moot point. Jones denies it, but Wilks The central chapters of the book are does believe such a demand was seriously devoted to who the Chartists were and to contemplated, citing a resolution of the the organizations they created and it is Garndii'faith lodge that "the Works do not here that her immense scholarship shines belong to the present proprietors, but to through. Rejecting the transitionalist the Workmen, and that they would very interpretation of Neil Smelser and others shortly have them." (Jones 208; Wilks who saw Chartism as principally a move­ 115) ment of declining outworkers displaced by These differences aside, both Jones industrialization, Thompson shows that and Wilks see the Newport rising as gen­ Chartism appealed to both artisans and erated from below, and only loosely con­ factory operatives as well as a smattering nected to the insurrectionary plans ol the of small traders, professionals, and even ultras of the convention. Their books rural crafts workers and labourers. Nor illustrate clearly the centrifugal character was it exclusively male. As a community- of early Chartism and the extreme diffi­ based movement, women were active in culty that its leaders faced in bringing early Chartist political societies and dem­ unity to this fledgling political movement onstrations, although not as feminists. in its first confrontationalist phase. Women were more preoccupied with the Bedeviled by internal differences and by a Poor Law and the low level of wages than government that never lost its nerve, the with female suffrage. Those that were momentum of the mass platform was lost. married, writes Thompson, "did not sec The three-day strike was enforced only in their interests as being in opposition to the north and west' and only in Wales did those of their husbands — or if they did. the secret arming of 183°- actually lead to they did not see any solution to such con­ an insurrection. The physical-torce vari­ flict in political action." (126) ety of Chartism failed to force conces­ As for the local leaders themselves, sions from above through defiant, con­ Dorothy Thompson is able to show that stitutional agitation; nor was it able to pro­ they came from many walks of working- voke the government into extreme forms class life and were not confined to the art­ of counterinsurgency. In retreat, it also isan "elite" as is conventionally believed. failed to prevent the South Wales valleys Nor were they necessarily small from pursuing their own war with the business-owners or shopkeepers. Indeed, ironmasters. through her command o( local sources she The failure of 1839 led Chartists to is able to show the varied trajectory of regroup, and it is this rebuilding of the their lives and the fine line that separated movement that forms one of the salient the small self-employed trader from the themes of the two other books under wage-earner. Booksellers, publicans, and review. This is especially the ease with shopkeepers may have regularly assumed Dorothy Thompson's long-awaited office in local associations, but this was authoritative study. While the major only because of the economic constraints moments of mass agitation are by no and potential victimization by employers means neglected, the principal emphasis which prevented workers from assuming a is upon the voluntary staff of the move­ more active role. Even so. Chartist lectur­ ment, the committed workers who gave ers and officers of the National Charter Chartism the staying power that distin- Association often began life as wage- earners, in the north as textile workers in ; Robert Sykes. "Physical-Force Chartism; particular, and they, like the small traders. The Cotton District and the Chartist Crisis of remained loyal to their working-class 1834." Imernuriontil Review "fSiieitil Hi^rorv. roots. .lOliySS). 207-36. 148 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

The picture that is presented is of a Fabian condemnation as the reckless democratic, participatory working-class demagogue of the north and is situated movement whose heartland was the manu­ within the mainstream of Chartism. Not facturing communities of the north. that O'Connor's financial independence, Indeed, Chartism is seen as qualitatively energy, and charisma made him a dictato­ different from the the other single-issue rial leader. Dorothy Thompson, like Eps­ campaigns of the post-Reform era, tein," insists that he owed his leadership to embodying in political terms "the total popular consent. Notwithstanding his gen­ experience of the working people of Brit­ tlemanly style of leadership, reminiscent ain." (I) Correspondingly, Thompson and of Henry Hunt, he did assert the need for some of her fellow contributors lo Char­ permanent, independent organizations in tist Experience reject attempts to com­ the pursuit of working-class political partmentalize working-class history in power. Consequently he allowed the ways that would diminish the Chartist Northern Star to become the real mouth­ achievement. Robert Sykes, for example, piece of the movement and a vital commu­ shows that Chartism had strong ties with nicative medium at a time when it was the fledgling union movement, especially illegal for political societies to correspond among ihc skilled trades threatened by with one another under the Seditious industrialization. This was as true ol the Meetings Act of 1817. Certainly there north as it was of London and is nowhere was always a tension between his per­ better illustrated than in the so-called Plug sonalized style of leadership and the Plot Riots of 1842, when half a million grassroots quest for a delegated democ­ workers struck for between three to five racy, although it was never a debilitating weeks in support of the Charter, catego­ one. rically linking political rights with a pro­ test against wage reductions. Similarly the But Dorothy Thompson is not simply Irish presence proved no impediment to interested in reassessing the quality of Chartist unity. Despite the well known Chartist leadership, nor in mapping the rivalry between Daniel O'Connell and scale and geographical range of Chartist Feargus O'Connor, Chartism drew con­ activity (over 900 localities arc cited in her structively on the Irish revolutionary tradi­ appendix). Like James Hpstein, Hileen tion and at critical junctures became allied Yeo, and others, she is centrally con­ with specifically Irish demands, the repeal cerned to show how Chartism developed of the Irish Coercion Act and union with an alternative culture. Modelled on Britain. To be sure, the recruitment of Methodist organizational structures, with cheap Irish labour into English factories class meetings and itinerant lecturers, placed strains upon Anglo-Irish amity, but members of the National Charter Associa­ it was offset by the identification of set­ tion, the backbone of the movement dur­ tled Irish communities with the labour ing the 1840s, sought as much democracy movement. Ethnic differences were never as was compatible with the law. Chartist so divisive as to override class loyalties. churches and mutual associations became critical sites of working-class self- sufficiency and cooperation. James Ep­ The new history of Chartism suggests stein shows how Nottingham's Democralic that the movement surmounted sec­ Chapel provided a wide range of social tionalism. It also argues that the well- activities for the 20 to 30 Chartist associa­ publicized quarrels of its leaders have tions in the area: a day and Sunday school been exaggerated, especially when one where children were taught about the considers the institutional growth and resilience of Chartism after the dramatic but acrimonious debates of 1839. Within " James Lpstcin, The I.ion of Freedom (Lon­ this context O'Connor is rescued from don ls>82). CHARTISM AND CLASS STRUGGLE 149 expropriators of the people's rights and for example, can no longer be seen as a liberties; a teetotal society; a glee club; a personal quirk of O'Connor or as a reading room and library; and Sunday ser­ socially regressive retreat from political vices emphasizing the equality of all radicalism, but as an integral part of the believers. Chartist democracy, it is Chartist programme, providing a viable stressed, was counter-hegemonic in style alternative and partial solution to urban and practice, expressing a quest for over-competition and unemployment, one working-class self-provision, a labour within the mainstream of radical land pol­ theory of value that challenged liberal icy since Paine and Cobbett. orthodoxies, and the right to full political At the same time the emphasis upon citizenship (for men) and access to free, Chartism's alternative culture does har­ universal education. In Thompson and bour some nagging problems. Rven in Yeo. in particular, the struggle for a Nottingham, the only town to elect a genuinely democratic practice embodying Chartist to Parliament, the cultural organi­ social values antithetical to industrial zations of the movement were quite short­ capitalism, was as important as the six lived, declining after 1845. Similarly in points of the charter. It was this vision of Halifax, where Chartism survived into the collective control that died with Chartism. 1850s, a strong community-based move­ Chartist democracy was subversive. It would have transformed the institutions of ment entered a tactical alliance with the state and certainly altered the trajec­ middle-class radicalism which inevitably tory of industrial capitalism. Chartist compromised the integrity of its own cells democracy bore no relation to its of opposition. If this is the record of two twentieth-century namesake which served major Chartist strongholds, what hap­ principally to protect existing working- pened elsewhere? To what extent was class institutions within a more corporatist Chartism able to build a strong opposition framework. "There is in fact a strong case culture, and what relationship did this for saying," Dorothy Thompson con­ local quest lor self-sufficiency have to cludes. "'thai for all iheirpoverly and long Chartism's formal political programme'.' It hours of work, (he men and women of the seems paradoxical that the very decade of earl> industrial districts which produced Chartism's cultural growth should also Chartism had more say in many important have been the decade of its decline as a aspects of their lives than their more pros­ national movement. perous descendants." (336) These issues are addressed in part by John Belchem, who clearly believes that We have, then, a new countercultural too much emphasis upon the countercul­ interpretation of Chartism, one that delib­ ture of Chartist branch life may detract erately eschews a Whiggish reading of its from the central importance of the mass contribution to democracy and rejects the platform. Chartism was, after all, a move­ conventional interpretation of the move­ ment aiming to mobilize the masses ment as volatile, erratic, and fuelled by against the state and in his view the col­ hunger and hardship. This has brought lapse of the mass platform in 1848 left it substantial gains, assigning popular highly susceptible to liberal penetration agency a critical role in the making of the and compromise. The insistence that movement and affording a more balanced Chartism was quintessentially a radical treatment of its political leadership. At the movement whose genealogy stretched same time it has served to make some of back to the anti-court agitations of the eigh­ the twists and turns in Chartist strategy teenth century is also made by Gareth more explicable and has helped to situate Stedman Jones. Drawing upon recent its more regenerative experiments within developments in structuralist linguistics. the mainstream. The Chartist Land Plan, he insists that Chartism must be discur- 150 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

sively constructed by means ot a non- that began with Marx and Engels' defini­ referential analysis ot its public language. tion of Chartism as the politics ol the first It is misleading, he contends, to decode proletariat. Chartism as a class movement by assum­ One may begin to probe this interpre­ ing a relatively direct relationship between tation by asking whether language can be social being and social consciousness. so categorically distanced from social ref­ mediated by experience. This neglects the erents as Stedman Jones conceives. One way in which language itself orders and may readily acknowledge that formal lan­ refracts experience. Once this is recog­ guage structures have a low coefficient of nized. Stedman Jones continues, a new historical mobility, responding slowly to interpretation of Chartism emerges. changes in economic and political struc­ Rather than seeing Charlism as an expres­ tures. One may also agree that language sion of working-class consciousness, does not reflect experience in an unprob- Chartism should be cast as a radical move­ lematic way. But one might legitimately ment which |Uxtaposcd the "people," the claim that it language mediates experi­ "productive classes," against the ence, the forms it takes are conditioned by privileged minority monopolizing politi­ social practice. Linguists recognize this in cal power. As such it did not offer a class the distinction between the denotative and critique of early industrial capitalism. the connolative. between the formal and State oppression, not employer exploit­ associative meaning of words. Indeed ation, was the source ol injustice and the even some structuralists now hesitate to nodal point of Chartism's analysis. Once define discourses in terms of closed sys­ the state began to distance itself from the tems of fixed meanings."' constellation of forces privileged by the Reform Bill of \H32, which was aimed at Stedman Jones appears to allow for stabilizing capitalism and immobilizing this in his discussion of the changing discontent by judicious concessions of meaning of the "people" in radical dis­ social reform. Chartism's credibility course and in the way the new entrepre­ crumbled. Its decline may be dated from neurial class was located within the ambit the early 1840s. claims Stedman Jones, ol privilege as "millocrat," "cotton lord." not from 1 K48 and its aftermath, and was and "steam aristocracy." Yet he will not attributable to the inapposite character of allow this to undermine his insistence its political language. upon the non-referential character of lan­ guage. insisting that struggles over mean­ Thus Stedman Jones not only rejects ing only become critical when they the Thompsoniiin definition of Chartism. cumulatively displace the prevailing dis­ he calls into question a whole generation course itself. of scholarship which has sought to exam­ In fact the changing inflections of rad­ ine early popular movements in terms of ical discourse could be marshalled to illus­ class struggle. For class itself, Stedman trate the magnetic force of class in the Jones argues, is a discursive practice, hav­ transformation of popular democratic ing no onlological reality outside its ideology. This is how Edward Thompson 1 articulation in discourse.' Historians who handled the problem of language in The think otherwise have often been misled Making of the English Working Class, into making easy derivations of political showing how John Gast reevaluated Pain- from social forces, a reductionist fallacy ite radicalism and conventional political economy in the labour struggles ol the ' for a more explicit statement of the theoreti­ cal presuppositions of the essa>, see the extended \ersion and introduction in (kireth '" Lrnesto Laelau and C'hantal Moutle, Stedman Jones. /.uiigutif>t'\ <>/ Clow Hegemony unit Soi ioli.\! StmU'f>x (London (Cambridge IW3) 198?). 111-4. CHARTISM AND CLASS STRUGGLE 151

1820s." Such an analysis could be relations which had mushroomed in the extended into the Chartist era. for while- coalfield. It was a primitive, impassioned some Chartists continued to view revolt that cannot easily be accommodated capitalism as a system of unequal with Stcdman Jones' theoretical perspec­ exchange, one uncovers, at the height of tive the general strike of 1842. rather different bven so, Stcdman Jones' essay is a critiques of industrial capitalism, with stimulating, provocative intervention. It strategies for combating over-production. has highlighted the weaknesses of the excessive competition, and the unreg­ orthodox economic interpretation of Char­ ulated extension of machinery In the tism's decline, calling for a revaluation cotton districts, as Robert Sykes and Mick ol its political premises, specifically its Jenkins have shown,'- political democ­ notion of the state as a naked instrument racy was linked to a more forthright con­ of class oppression, a perception that demnation of employer exploitation. addressed the Whigs' initial assault on Stcdman Jones is thus inattentive to working-class interests but foundered the plural voices of Chartism and tends to under more liberal regimes. At a more underplay, in the 1842 crisis, the inter­ general level it has forced historians to dependence of political and economic- reconsider the relationship between lan­ demands. He also ignores the polysemic guage. politics, and class. Does politics character of Chartist language. In an era produce consciousness or consciousness in which political and economic power politics? Or less categorically, for neither were closely intermeshed. in which fac­ Stcdman Jones nor the Thompsonians tory owners presided as magistrates and ascribe to an economically reductionist Poor Law guardians and controlled local notion of class, what weight should be police forces, the critique of political assigned to the political realm in the for­ privilege could quite easily generate mation of class interests and identities? richer, more associative meanings. The The question is likely to engage social his­ point is nowhere clearer than in the South torians for some years to come. It also has Wales coalfield, where democratic a political agenda, for in Britain at least. rhetoric was translated, through a chain of those who argue lor a non-referential defi­ equivalences in a deeply divided society. nition o\' language also call into question to a total rejection of industrial the belief that a left-wing politics must be capitalism. The Newport rising may have built within the existing labour movement. been quasi-millennial, but it did call into Was the "Forward March of Labour" question the whole system ot productive always an article oi faith?

" E.P. Thompson, The Making <>j' ihe English Working Clan (London 1963). chap. 16; sec also lorwerth Proihero, Artisans and Politics in Larlx Ninrternth-Centurx London (h'olkstone, Kent 1979). '-' Mick Jenkins. The General Strike of 1842 (London 1980). chaps. 6 and 7. 152 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL economic and industrial democracy An International Journal

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