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WHILE
the Tories, the Whigs, the Peelites—in fact, all the parties we have
hitherto commented upon—belong more or less to the past, the Free Traders
(the men of the Manchester School, the Parliamentary and financial
reformers) are the official representatives of modern English society,
the representatives of that England which rules the market of the world.
They represent the party of the self-conscious bourgeoisie, of industrial
capital striving to make available its social power as a political power
as well, and to eradicate the last arrogant remnants of feudal society.
This party is led on by the most active and most energetic portion of the
English bourgeoisie—the manufacturers.
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Karl Marx
(1818-63) |
What they demand is the complete and undisguised ascendancy
of the bourgeoisie, the open, official subjection of society at large
under the laws of modern bourgeois production, and under the rule of those
men who are the directors of that production. By Free Trade they
mean the unfettered movement of capital, freed from all political,
national and religious shackles. The soil is to be a marketable
commodity, and the exploitation of the soil is to be carried on according
to the common commercial laws. There are to be manufactures of food
as well as manufactures of twist and cottons, but no longer any lords of
the land.
There are, in short, not to be tolerated any political or
social restrictions, regulations or monopolies, unless they proceed from
"the eternal laws of political economy," that is, from the conditions
under which capital produces and distributes. The struggle of this
party against the old English institutions, products of a superannuated,
an evanescent stage of social development, is resumed in the watchword:
Produce as cheap as you can, and do away with all the faux frais of
production (with all superfluous, unnecessary expenses in production).
And this watchword is addressed not only to the private individual, but to
the nation at large principally.
Royalty, with its "barbarous splendours," its court, its
Civil List and its flunkeys—what else does it belong to but to the
faux frais of production? The nation can produce and exchange
without royalty; away with the crown. The sinecures of the nobility,
the House of Lords? faux frais of production. The large
standing army? faux frais of production. The Colonies?
faux frais of production. The State church, with its riches, the
spoils of plunder or of mendicity? faux frais of production.
Let parsons compete freely with each other, and everyone pay them
according to his own wants. The whole circumstantial routine of
English law, with its Court of Chancery? faux frais of production.
National wars? faux frais of production. England can exploit
foreign nations more cheaply while at peace with them.
You see, to these champions of the British bourgeoisie, to
the men of the Manchester School, every institution of old England appears
in the light of a piece of machinery as costly as it is useless,
and which fulfils no other purpose but to prevent the nation from
producing the greatest possible quantity at the least possible expense and
to exchange its products in freedom. Necessarily their last word is
the bourgeois republic, in which free competition rules supreme in
all spheres of life; in which there remains altogether that minimum
only of government which is indispensable for the administration,
internally and externally, of the common class-interest and business of
the bourgeoisie, and where this minimum of government is as
soberly, as economically, organised as possible. Such a party in
other countries would be called democratic. But it is
necessarily revolutionary, and the complete annihilation of Old England as
an aristocratic country is the end which it follows up with more or less
consciousness. Its nearest object, however, is the attainment of a
Parliamentary reform which should transfer to its hands the legislative
power necessary for such a revolution.
But the British bourgeois are not excitable Frenchmen. When
they intend to carry a Parliamentary reform they will not make a
Revolution of February. On the contrary. Having obtained, in 1846, a grand
victory over the landed aristocracy by the repeal of the Corn Laws, they
were satisfied with following up the material advantages of this victory,
while they neglected to draw the necessary political and economical
conclusions from it, and thus enabled the Whigs to reinstate themselves
into their hereditary monopoly of government.
During all the time from 1846 to 1852, they exposed
themselves to ridicule by their battle-cry—broad principles and practical
(read small) measures. And why all this? Because in
every violent movement they are obliged to appeal to the working class. And if the aristocracy is their vanishing opponent, the working class is
their arising enemy. They prefer to compromise with their vanishing
opponent rather than to strengthen the arising enemy, to whom the future
belongs, by concessions of more than apparent importance. Therefore, they
strive to avoid every forcible collision with the aristocracy; but
historical necessity and the Tories press them onwards. They cannot avoid
fulfilling their mission, battering to pieces Old England, the England of
the past, and the very moment when they will have conquered exclusive
political dominion, when political dominion and economical supremacy will
be united in the same hands, when, therefore, the struggle against capital
will no longer be distinct from the struggle against the existing
government—from that very moment will date the social revolution of
England.
We now come to the Chartists, the politically active portion of the
British working class. The six points of the Charter which they contend
for contain nothing but the demand of universal suffrage and of the conditions without which universal suffrage would be illusory
for the working class: such as the ballot, payment of members, annual
general elections. But universal suffrage is the equivalent for political
power for the working class of England, where the proletariat form 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,
and where even the rural districts know no longer any peasants, but
landlords, industrial capitalists (farmers) and hired labourers. The
carrying
of universal suffrage in England would, therefore, be a far more
socialistic measure than anything which has been honoured with that name
on the Continent.
Its inevitable result here, is the political supremacy of the working
class.
I shall report, on another occasion, on the revival and reorganisation of
the Chartist Party. For the present I have only to treat of the recent
election.
To be a voter for the British Parliament, a man must occupy, in the
Boroughs, a house rated at £10 to the poor's rate, and, in the counties he
must be a freeholder to the annual amount of 40 shillings or a leaseholder
to the amount of £50. From this statement alone it follows that the
Chartists could take, officially, but little part in the electoral battle
just concluded. In order to explain the actual part they took in it, I
must recall to mind a peculiarity of the British electoral system:
Nomination day and Declaration day! Show of hands and Poll!
When the candidates have made their appearance on the day of election, and
have publicly harangued the people, they are elected, in the first
instance, by the show of hands, and every hand has the
right to be raised, the hand of the non-elector as well as that of the
elector. For whomsoever the majority of the hands are raised, that person
is declared by the returning officer to be (provisionally) elected by show
of hands. But now the medal shows its reverse.
The election by show of hands was a mere ceremony, an act of formal
politeness toward the "sovereign people," and the politeness ceases as
soon as privilege is menaced. For if the show of hands does not return the
candidates of the privileged electors, these candidates demand a poll;
only the privileged electors can take part in the poll, and whosoever has
there the majority of votes is declared duly elected. The first election,
by show of hands, is a show satisfaction allowed, for a moment, to public
opinion, in order to convince it, the next moment, the more strikingly of
its impotency.
It might appear that this election by show of hands, this dangerous
formality, had been invented in order to ridicule universal suffrage, and
to enjoy some little aristocratic fun at the
expense of the "rabble" (expression of Major Beresford, Secretary
of War). But this would be a delusion, and the old usage, common
originally to all Teutonic nations, could drag itself traditionally down
to the nineteenth century, because it gave to the British class Parliament,
cheaply and without danger, an appearance of popularity.
The ruling classes drew from this usage the satisfaction that the mass of
the people took part, with more or less passion, in their sectional
interests as its national interests. And it was only since the
bourgeoisie took an independent station at the side of the two official
parties, the Whigs and the Tories, that the working masses stood up, on
the nomination days in their own name. But in no former year has the
contrast of show of hands and poll, of Nomination day and Declaration day,
been so serious, so well-defined by opposed principles, so threatening, so
general, upon the whole surface of the country as in this last election of
18 52.
And what a contrast! It was sufficient to be named by show of hands in
order to be beaten at the poll. It was sufficient to have had the majority
at a poll, in order to be saluted, by the people, with rotten apples and
brick-bats.
The duly elected members of Parliament, before all, had a great deal to
do, in order to keep their own parliamentary bodily-selves in safety. On
one side the majority of the people, on the other the
twelfth-part of the whole population, and the fifth-part of the sum total
of the male adult inhabitants of the country. On one side enthusiasm, on
the other side bribery. On one side parties disowning their own
distinctive signs, Liberals pleading the conservatism, Conservatives
proclaiming the liberalism of their views; on the other, the people,
proclaiming their presence and pleading their own cause. On one side a
warn-out engine which, turning incessantly in its vicious circle, is never
able to move a single step forward, and the impotent process of friction
by which all the official parties gradually grind each other into dust;
on the other, the advancing mass of the nation, threatening to blow up the
vicious circle and to destroy the official engine.
I shall not follow up, over all the surface of the country, this contrast
between nomination and poll, of the threatening electoral demonstration of
the working class, and the timid electioneering manœvures of the ruling
classes. I take one borough from the mass,
where the contrast is concentrated in a focus: the Halifax Election. Here
the opposing candidates were: Edwards (Tory), Sir Charles Wood (late Whig
Chancellor of the Exchequer, brother-in-law to Earl Grey), Frank Crossley
(Manchester man), and finally Ernest Jones, the most talented, consistent
and energetic representative of Chartism.
Halifax being a manufacturing town, the Tory had little chance. The
Manchester man, Crossley, was leagued with the Whigs. The serious
struggle, then, lay only between Wood and Jones; between the Whig and the
Chartist.
Sir Charles Wood made a speech about half-an-hour, perfectly inaudible at
the commencement, and during its latter half, to the disapprobation of the
immense multitude. His speech,
as reported by the reporter, who sat close to him, was merely a
recapitulation of the Free Trade measures passed, and an attack on Lord
Derby's government, and a laudation of "the unexampled prosperity of the
country and the people"! ("Hear, hear.") He did not propound one single
new measure of reform, and but faintly, in very few words, hinted at Lord
John Russell's bill for the franchise.
I give a more extensive abstract of Ernest Jones's
speech, as you will not find it in any of the great London ruling-class
papers. Ernest Jones, who was received with immense enthusiasm, then
spoke as follows:—
"Electors and non-electors, you have met upon a great and solemn
festival. To-day the Constitution recognises universal suffrage in theory
that it may, perhaps, deny it in practice on the
morrow. To-day the representatives of two systems stand before you, and
you have to decide beneath which you shall be ruled for seven years. Seven
years—a little life! I summon you to pause upon the threshold of those
seven years; to-day they shall pass slowly and calmly in review before
you; to-day decide, you 20,000 men! that perhaps five hundred may undo
your will to-morrow. ("Hear, hear.")
"I say the representatives of two systems stand before you. Whig, Tory
and moneymongers are on my left, it is true; but they are all as one. The moneymonger says, buy cheap and sell dear. The
Tory says, buy dear, sell dearer. Both are the same for labour.
But the former system is in the ascendant, and pauperism rankles at its
root. That system is based on foreign competition. Now, I assert, that
under the buy cheap and sell dear principle, brought to bear on foreign
competition, the ruin of the working and small trading classes must go on. Why? Labour is the creator of all wealth. A man must work before a grain
is grown, or a yard is woven. But there is no self-employment for the
working man in this country. Labour is a hired commodity—labour is a
thing in the market that is bought and sold; consequently, as labour
creates all wealth, labour is the first thing bought—'Buy cheap, buy
cheap! Labour is bought in the cheapest market. But now comes the next: 'Sell dear, sell dear!' Sell what? Labour's produce. To whom?—to
the foreigner—aye! and to the labourer himself—for labour, not being
self-employed, the labourer is NOT the partaker of the first-fruits of his
toil.
"'Buy cheap, sell dear.' How do you like it? 'Buy cheap, sell dear.'
Buy the working man's labour cheaply and sell back to that very working
man the produce of his own labour dear!
The principle of inherent loss is in the bargain. The employer buys the
labour cheap—he sells, and on the sale he must make a profit; he sells
to the working man himself—and thus every bargain between employer and
the employed is a deliberate cheat on the part of the employer. Thus
labour has to sink through eternal loss, that capital may rise through
lasting fraud.
"But the system stops not here. This is brought to bear on foreign
competition—which means, we must ruin the trade of other countries, as we
have ruined the labour of our own. How does it work?
The high-taxed country has to undersell the low-taxed. Competition abroad
is constantly increasing—consequently cheapness
must increase constantly also. Therefore, wages in England must keep
constantly falling. And how do they effect the fall? By surplus labour. And how do they obtain the surplus labour? By monopoly of
the land which drives more hands than are wanted into the factory. By
monopoly of machinery which drives those hands into the street—by woman
labour which drives the man from the shuttle—by child labour which drives
the women from the loom. Then planting their foot upon that living base of
surplus they press its aching heart beneath their heel and cry—'Starvation.
Who will work? A half-loaf is better than no bread at all'—and the
writhing mass grasps greedily at their terms. (Loud cries of "Hear,
hear.")
"Such is the system for the working man. But, electors! how does it
operate on you? How does it affect home trade, the
shopkeeper, poor's rate and taxation? For every increase of competition
abroad, there must be an increase of cheapness at home. Every increase of
cheapness in labour is based on increase of labour surplus, and this
surplus is obtained by an increase of machinery. I repeat, how does this
operate on you? The Manchester Liberal on my left establishes a new
patent and throws three hundred men as a surplus in the streets. Shopkeepers! Three hundred
customers less. Ratepayers! Three hundred paupers more! (Loud cheers.)
"But, mark me. The evil stops not there. These three hundred men operate
first to bring down the wages of those who remain at work in their own
trade. The employer says: 'Now I reduce
your wages.' The men demur. Then he adds: 'Do you see these three hundred
men who have just walked out you may change places if you like, they are
sighing to come in on any terms, for they are starving.' The men feel it,
and are crushed. Oh! you Manchester Liberal! Pharisee of politics! Those men are listening—have I got you now?
"But the evil stops not yet. Those men, driven from their own trade, seek
employment in others when they swell the surplus and bring wages down. The
low-paid trades of to-day were the high
paid once—and the high-paid of to-day will be the low-paid soon. Thus the
purchasing power of the working classes is diminished every day, and with
it dies home trade. Mark it, shopkeepers, your customers grow poorer and
your profits less, while your paupers grow more numerous and your poor's
rates and your taxes rise. Your receipts are smaller, your expenditure is
more large. You get less and pay more. How do you like the system? On you
the rich manufacturer and landlord throws the weight of
poor's rate and taxation. Men of the middle class! You are the
tax-paying machine of the rich. They create the poverty that creates
their riches, and they make you pay for the poverty they have created.
The landlord escapes it by privilege, the manufacturer by repaying himself
out of the wages of his men, and that reacts on you. How do you like
the system?
"Well, that is the system upheld by the gentlemen on my left. What then
do I propose? I have shown the wrong. That is something. But I do more. I
stand here to show the right, and prove it so." (Loud cheers.)
Ernest Jones then went
on to expose his own views on political and economical reform, and
continued as follows:—
"Electors and non-electors! I have now brought before you some of the
social and political measures, the immediate adoption of which I advocate
now, as I did in 1847. But, because I tried to extend
YOUR liberties,
MINE
were curtailed. ('Hear, hear:') Because I tried to rear the temple of
freedom for you all, I was thrown into the cell of a felon's jail; and
there, on my left, sits one of my chief jailers. (Loud and continued
groans, directed towards the left.) Because I tried to give voice to
truth, I was condemned to silence. For two years and one week he cast me
into a prison in solitary confinement on the silent system, without pen,
ink or paper, but oakum picking as a substitute. Ah! (turning to Sir
Charles Wood), it was your turn for two years and one week; it is mine
this day. I summon the angel of retribution from the heart of every
Englishman here present. (An immense burst of applause.) Hark! You feel
the fanning of his wings in the breath of this vast multitude. (Renewed
cheering, long continued.) You may say this is not a public question. But
it is. ("Hear, hear.") It is a public question, for the man who cannot
feel for the wife of the prisoner, will not feel for the wife of the
working man. He who will not feel for the children of the captive, will
not feel for the children of the labour
slave. ("Hear, hear," and cheers.) His past life proves it, his
promise of to-day does not contradict it. Who voted for Irish coercion,
the gagging bill and tampering with the Irish Press?
The Whig—there he sits; turn him out! Who voted fifteen
times against Hume's motion for the franchise; Locke King's on the
counties; Ewart's for short Parliaments; and
Berkeley's for the ballot? The Whig—there he sits; turn him out! Who
voted against the release of Frost, Williams and Jones? The Whig—there
he sits; turn him out! Who voted against reducing the Duke of
Cambridge's salary of £12,000, against all
reductions in the army and navy; against the repeal of the window tax, and
forty-eight times against every other reduction of taxation, his own
salary included? The Whig—there he sits; turn him out! Who voted
against the repeal of the paper duty, the advertisement duty, and the
taxes on knowledge? The Whig—there he sits; turn him out! Who voted for the batches of new bishops,
vicar rare, the Maynooth grant, against its reduction and against
absolving dissenters from paying Church rates? The Whig—there he sits;
turn him out! Who voted against all inquiry into the adulteration of food? The Whig—there he sits; turn him out! Who voted against lowering the
duty on sugar, and repealing the tax on malt? The Whig—there he sits;
turn him out! Who voted against shortening the nightwork of bakers,
against inquiry into the condition of frame-work knitters, against medical
inspectors of workhouses, against preventing little children from working
before six in the morning, against parish relief for pregnant women
of the poor and against the Ten Hours Bill? The Whig—there he sits;
turn him out! Turn him out in the name of humanity and of God! Men of
Halifax! Men of England! The two systems are before you. Now judge and
choose!"
It is impossible to describe the enthusiasm kindled by this speech, and
especially at the close; the voice of the vast multitude, held in
breathless suspense during each paragraph, came at each pause like the
thunder of a returning wave, in execration of the representative of
Whiggery and class-rule. Altogether it was a scene that will long be
unforgotten. On the show of hands being taken, very few and those chiefly
of the hired or intimidated, were held up for Sir C. Wood; but almost
everyone present raised both hands for Ernest Jones, amidst cheering and
enthusiasm it would be impossible to describe.
The Mayor declared Mr. Ernest Jones and Mr. Henry Edwards to be elected by
show of hands. Sir. C. Wood and Mr. Crossley then demanded a poll.
What Jones had predicted took place; he was nominated by 20,000 votes;
but the Whig (Sir Charles Wood) and the Manchester man (Crossley) were
elected by 500 votes. |
