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I!Lim Hill HW Dh;tna.'.!ih 3: ;... GiIl::!I! Librar) 646~ I!lim Hill HW ~ill rua ~ Ii ~ (JIPE-PUNE 005464 A Short History of the British Working Class Movement A Short History of the Bri tish Working Class Movement 1789-1925 by G. D. H. Cole Volume It. 1848-1900 LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN AND UNWIN LIMITED & THE LABOUR PUBLISHING COMPANY LIMITED , x • F~·?- Pvblislte4 1926• .......... .. GUAT 811J7.... n TId WBlftJ1lUllll ....... "ft., t.OJlDO • .&a'D ~L PREFACE I HAD intended to complete in this second volume my short survey of the history of the British Working-class Movement. But, as soon as I began to reduce to order my accumulated material, I saw that it would be impossible to do this without making the second volume nearly twice as long as the first. It seemed, more­ over, that there was a natural break in the story just about the end of the century. The Victorian age appeared to be a chapter com­ plete in itself, and deserving to be dealt with as a rounded whole. I therefore decided to make a second break about 1900, and to complete my study in three volumes instead of two. Just as, in the first volume, I was trying to present a coherent account of the successive waves of working-class revolt against the new economic and social conditions created by the Industrial Revolution, so here I have attempted to present a picture of the new working-class movements which, from about 1850 onwards, based themselves on an acceptance of Industrialism, and an attempt to make the best of the new structure of economic society. For a time this acceptance was to a great extent an acceptance, not only of Industrialism, but also of that individualist Capitalism in which the new industrial order was first embodied. Later, it found expression in a Sociali~m which, hostile to Capitalism, was no less definitely based on accepting Industrialism as the basis of social organisation. • In my first volume I had to stress the unity of the entire Working­ class Movement-the common basis and the close actual connec­ tion of the early experiments in Trade Unionism, in Co-operation, and in Radical political reform. Here, in dealing with the Vic­ torian era, I have rather to lay stress on the division of the workers' movement into a number of distinct and separate expressions. Co-operation and Trade Unionism drifted apart; independent working-class political action was for a time submerged. The v vi PREFACE various working-class movements, pursuing strictly limited aims, rarely felt the need for united effort or community of policy. Dut, as the .. Golden Age" of Victorian Capitalism passe. away and gives place to the new age of Imperialism and international eco­ nomic rivalries, we shall see the aims and attitude of the working­ class movements gradually changing, and the idea of united organisation again emerging side by side with the re-emergence of a wider, anti-capitalist aim. As in the previous volume, I have aimed only at an outline .tudy, and have excluded footnotes and references to lOurces. I wish to emphasise the point that the books mentioned at the end of each section are no more than a few selected reference. for further reading, confined for the most part to works which are easily accessible. In this volume, they fail at a good many points to cover the ground, for there are still many uncharted tracta in the history of the workers during the Victorian era. There is no study at all of working-class politics during this period, and no adequate account of Trade Union development. I have been driven, there­ fore, to a considerable use of old newspapers, pamphlets and reports. Especially have I drawn largely on the valuable collection of books and papers originally made by George Howell, and now housed in London at the Bishopsgate Institute. G. D. H. Cou. OXFORD,1926• CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE PRErACB V I. INTRODUCTORY. II I. The Second Phase. 2. The .. Golden Age." II. TmuFr AND ABSTINENCB • I. Self-help in the Victorian Era. 2. Tile Co-operative Movement. 3. The Friendly Societies. III. TRADB UNIONISM RE-MADB S3 I. Trade Unionism, 183S-18so. 2. The New Model-The Engineers and the Cotton Operatives. 3. The Builders. 4. The Miners. IV. POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 77 I. The London Trades Council and the" Junta." 2. Working-class Politics in the 'Sixties. 3. The International Working Men's Association. V. THB LABOUR LAVIS, 1864-1871 • 93 I. Master and Servant-Trade Union Conferences. 2. The Sheffield Outrages and the Royal Commission. 3. The Labour Laws of 1871. VI. THE LABOUR LAws (co"tim,ed}-TRADB UNIONISM IN THE 'SEVENTIES III I. Labour Representation to 1874. 2. The Labour Laws of 187S. 3. The Nine Hours Movement-Joseph Arch. 4. The Factory Acts-The Plimsoll Line. vii viii CONTENTS CHAP. PACK VII. THB GRBAT DBPRESSION • • 133 I. The Coming of Imperialism. 2. Conciliation and Arbitration-The II Lib-Lab.... VIII. SOCIALISM AND TIl! DOCK STIUXB • 147 I. The Return of Socialism. 2. The Trade Union Revival. 3. The London Dock Strike. IX. INDBPBNDBNT LABoUR I. The Independent Labour Party. 2. Trade Unionism in the 'Ninetiel. 3. The Labour Representation Committee. X. Tm CONDITION or TIl! WORKERS IN TIll SECOND HALr or TIl! NINETEENTH CENTURY 187 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY I. THE SECOND PHASE 2. THE" GOLDEN ACE .. A SHORT HISTORY II I THE SECOND PHASE - THE first volume of this study carried the record of the British Working-class Movement to the year 1848. This seemed a con­ venient stopping-place because the Chartist failure of that year marked a decisive change in the character of the movement. There was a deep significance in the fact that the" year of revolu­ tions " in Europe produced in this country no more than a feeble and half-hearted demonstration on Kennington Common. Up to that point, the story of the British workers is one of successive waves of revolt against the rising capitalist order. Against the developing strength of the new employing class one wave after another was shattered in vain. The Corresponding Societies echoed the stirring cries of the French Revolution; the Luddites broke the hated new machines, only to be broken in their tum. The working-class Radicals threatened revolution as the alternative to Manhood Suffrage, and were put off with a Reform Act which seated their masters firmly in power. The great" Trades Union," under Owen's millennial guidance, vainly tried to strike its way to the Co-operative Commonwealth. And finally the Chartists, reviving the old cry of Manhood Suffrage as the slogan of a movement based on economic distress, found themselves beaten off the field of propaganda by the Anti-Com Law League, and reduced to an impotent sect out of tune with the new spirit of the times. Revolt failed. Vainly did the workers kick against the pricks of the new order, which was all the time steadily and swiftly growing in power. Again and again they tried to organise a separate movement of theiJ: own, and to enforce their will upon the country. There are tv;o outstanding reasons for their failure, either sufficient in itself. In the first place, they could not know what they wanted, or at any rate how to set about the getting of what they wanted. Their movements were, for the most part, reactions of starvation .. u A SHORT HISTORY and despair, rather than constructive attempts at economic reorganisation. A few leaders, like Owen, could see visions of the Socialist future; a few realists, like Place, tried to instal reformism and the Liberal-Labour alliance long before their time. But most even of the leaders were either, like O'Connor, devoid of any policy at all, or, like Cobbett, harking back to the old days before the coming of the monster, steam, with his insatiable call for human sacrifice. After all these leaders the procession of misery followed blindly. The wretched slaves of steam caught a glimpse, no doubt, of Owen's vision; but they were far more deeply stirred when Cobbett, or even O'Connor, seemed to beckon them back to the land from which they had been driven. Helpless in the grip of the new industrialism which they hated the more because they did not understand it, they were ready to throw in their lot with any movement which was at least a movement of revolt. But, gradually, failure made them tired. A new generation arose, born amid the smoke and noise and filth of the spreading factory towns, and accepting wage-labour at the machine as its appointed lot. The call of the fields had grown fainter i the clanking and puffing of the engines had deadened their ears. They had grown only too prepared to accept the new order as inevitable, and to make the best of it. It was, indeed, impossible for the working class of the early nineteenth century to devise a policy at once practical and con· structive. They were too weak. The machine was steadily dispensing with the old craftsmen's skill, and enrolling women and children as machine-minders to beat down the wages of the men. The cheapness of goods which was the gift of the machines made a return to the old order impracticable; and in the new order children and mothers waged war perforce against fathers to beat down the standard of life. Cobbett and O'Connor were, in fact, radical reactionaries; and Ow~n, who saw the true remedy in the co-operative control of the new industrial forces, was compelled to be Utopian because he was calling on the workers to attempt a task far beyond their strength.
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