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THE ELECTORS AND THE ELECTED . TO THE CHARTISTS . December 17 , 1851 . Brotiiek Chartists , —You are being told you cannot elect an Executive of three ( or five ) men , and pay them for labour done , because the last convention did not make such a regulation , and therefore it would be undemocratic to alter the constitution ot
the committee . ... I don't understand such very nice scruples . _ My notion is that that is the most democratic which zs the best for democracy . My notion is , the constituency that sends delegates whom it sends ; that primary assemblies are higher than elected bodies , and that , therefore , the full free vote of the entire Chartist movement can make any improvement it pleases in its organization . So much for the objection on the score of democracy . A nice position we should be in at a time of crisis ' if we found there was something wron <* in our organization , and we must needs wait until " we could afford the money , and get up the
machinery requisite for summoning a convention ! If there is an evil , get rid of it as speedily as you can . And here is an occasion when we cannot wait till a convention is called together . An Executive ( by the rules ) must be elected at once . A convention could not meet in less than six weeks , and , therefore , I suggested the only democratic course left in the emergency , to make forthwith a direct appeal to the Chartist body , whether certain alterations were needed in the formation of an Executive . You are further told you should elect a committee of nine , because the large number " insures a good average attendance . "
Pay the men , then you can command their attendance , and discard them if they are negligent servants . Nine are further recommended , as giving the advantage of a multiplicity of opinions . That is just what we should avoid , it prevents unity of action . One man tells us , " I ' m a Communist , elect none but Communists with me . " Another says , " I ' m for supporting the middle-class movement . " Each one tries to divert Chartism into a tool to carry out his own peculiar notions , and thus all pull different Avays , and neutralize the Chartist power .
This comes of having men given to other movements on our committee . Would you take a blacksmith to plane a board , or a bricklayer to make a pair of shoes ? In the same way in which you want a carpenter to do a carpenter ' s work , or a weaver for weaving , so you want a Chartist for Chartism . And until you feel and act upon this you will never have Chartist work done properly . One rich gentleman who , if he had given that time to the interests of man which he has devoted to his own , would not possess the riches he now boasts of . One rich gentleman—ami there are others who might be as rich , and perhaps richer , than he , had they not trampled upon Mammon to kneel before humanity , had they not preferred the dungeons with which he
taunts them , to the country house in which lie revels , —one rich gentleman tells us it is unnecessary and impracticable " to pay an Executive " ! Let the rich man say it is unnecessary—1 , the ]> oor vian , say it i . s not , and 1 am prouder of my poverty th ; ui lie is of his riches . Jle tells us , "We do not want an Kxceutive to live upon our energies and sacrifices !" Then neither should he want to live upon the energies and sacrifices of an Executive . It is disgraceful in iinv movement to ask men to do that for us which avc refuse to do for others . " Impracticable . " What ? wit . li such numbers of rich friends , ready friends , ready to form nil Executive all for nothing ? Surely if ho ready to form an Executive , they must be ready to support , one ! He tells us , moreover , that we should "be better served" by rich amateurs than
by men whom we paid . I 5 y whom should we l > e better served than by a Ilarney or a Kydd ? and ran they serve u . s unless we give them the means of living ;? People have such a naughty habit , that , they will not , live without eating . The unpaid system , by the inevitable law of bread and cheese , drives such men from our active advocacy ; and tell t . he rich gentleman t hat one such man is worth a thousand of his order , with ten thousand times his sovereigns to boot . Another evil in . 'in unpaid Executive is , that . it . renders it . almost , imperative that , none but London men should he elected ; whereas , t . he metropolis should enjoy no such monopoly in the committee ; which should not , he tinged by local interests , but represent , a national feeling .
Tlu ; writer further objects to : i committee ! exclusively of working men . ' I never proposed if ,. What 1 nai < i wji . h , that , the committee should consist of men who would do our work , and not . coquet , with a hundred different tilings . That was a sham perversion of my meaning- I peifect . ly agree with our wealthy monitor that , a man , because he had been m prison , is no better than another man . I am as opposed to aristocracy of " convicts , " as I am to any other aristocracy ; but 1 do say this , that getting into prison is no cause of reproach , as he makes it . And Unit , it , does not , " evidence , " as her says , " u want o < the foresight , calmness , and thought necessary to bo postit-SHcdj" nince none could be more diaereet ,
thoughtful , and calm , than the leaders of the Trades Unions , and they are in Stafford gaol notwithstanding . Calm or loud , despotism imprisons democracy whenever it grows dangerous . * A more important point is the policy of not electing men pledged to other movements . Our friend talks largely of the " Society for the Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge , " " Antistate Church Society , " and the " Secular School Society . " I said nothing about them—though , if a man gives his time to them , he cannot be giving it to
us ; but what I did say was , we should not elect men wedded to a hostile political movement . We are engaged in a struggle of labour against capital , and we should not elect men united with the capitalist . The question is not , are we to join a " parallel association , " as the writer says , but are we to join a hostile one and have its agents on our Executive , to neutralize and strangle our movement . Such is the association in No . 11 , Poultryf—unfledged political birds , who have not yet got the first down feathers of democracy upon them . in
Why do I call them hostile ? Because , a struggle of labour against capital , every extension of the franchise that increases the power of the rich more than it increases the power of the poor , weakens and lessens the chances of the latter to obtain their rights . I know of no " parallel" association . If Financial Reformers mean the same thing as the Charter , let them give up the field to the working men who raised the Charter fifteen years before the political poultry had ever cackled . But if they mean not the same , and they do not if they mean merely an instalment of the franchise ( as I have elsewhere shown ) , and that an instalment of one hundred per cent , given to the middle class for every ten per cent , given to the working class , and if that
ten per cent , be given only to the aristocracy of labour , then I say it is a hostile movement , one ruinous to the people ' s cause , and the man who supports it is , though unconsciously , our enemy . I say , «• though unconsciously" ; for our argument is not , as this writer tells you , " that all men are villains , but it is that vie wont be made fools and have the old tricks of 1832 played over again . I desire , as well as he , to see Chartism made " loveable "; but I do not wish to see it made a plaything and a laughing stock of the rich . I would sooner see it hateful in their eyes than contemptible in our own ! And you may depend upon it , as soon as the rich begin to love it , it will be a thing not worth the affections of the poor .
Having said this much as to whom I conceive the people should elect , permit me to offer a word to those whom they are electing . There seems a misapprehension on the part of some as to the amount of labour expected from a member of the -Executive . I do not believe the Chartists expect unreasonable work from him ; but I think they do expect , and I know they have a right to expect , that their servants shall perform their work , and that it is not unreasonable to expect the member of the Executive who remains in town , to attend at the office for at least as many hours as a banker ' s or a merchant ' s clerk would do , and that each should be prepared to pass in
rotatation one month out of the three in the country . I do not see that a man need have the capabilities of a steam-engine to perform that which , in his respective line , is performed by every commercial traveller or trader ' s servant . I regret that any should refuse to serve in the people ' s cause . Poor chance has Democracy when its best men refuse to serve it . This is false pride , and its errors should be pointed out to a friend ( however intimate or valued ) , for be is no honourable man who does not reprove the errors of a brother us freely as the sins of a foe . No man should be too proud to live by work ; and if not
too proud to take wages from a private employer , no man should be too proud to take them from the noblest of masters—the People , in the holiest of work—their redemption . It is wrong—very wrongto reject the helm when called to it , in the most critical and dangerous hour . Is this the way to keep the movement on ? Stray lecturing and isolated tours won ' t do it . The about and cheer of the meeting may he attractive , the independent , desultory journey may prove more pleasant , ; but . the steady , obedient , Jiml assiduous service is what we want , and when called to the post of duty , no man should shrink from it in the time of apathy .
To the rally , then , every man who has a heart in the cause . We cannot spare one amid the honest sterling few who stand unshaken in the vanguard of our battle . Do you see what comes of such reformers ? You leave the helm to tin : incapable or designing ; you repress the rising courage of the people ; you shake their awakening confidence . What must , the people think and feel when they call on those whom
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* 'l'lieic have been many personal remarks written These I do not . answer . Whether 1 did or did not regularly attend the committee when not on ( 'hartist busincHH in t . lu > country , him nothing to do with the question , Whether three , live , or nine should be elected as an Executive , paid or unpaid . The render is referred lo the weekly attendance lint , at ) publmhed in the democratic papers . —K . J . j- l'arliiunentury and JL'inuncial lleform AuHociatiou .
they love and trust to serve them , and one hv m , they answer , « Not I ! " « Not I ! " « Not I ^ ¥ this the way to help democracy , and that in its mnS critical and trying hour ? Oh no ! the Charter endangered , stand by it ! stand by it ! every man * f heart , stand by your ranks ! face round on ever side ! hold up the banner in your centre ; stand fi till the storm has blown by—then comes the sign-if makch , and we will move onward . ' ' Ernesi Jones .
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KCAUC 1 T Y OF < JJON U IN K FOKTK Y . <; lii : ) K <> w , Duceiiibcr ' - ' . IN ' Siu , —There can lit ! no surer evidence of the h « J » - city of genuine poetry at the present day , tn injudicious approbation awarded by < : ritu : H \ ' sions pretending to be »» f ' - " ^ X s ^ ' Huch pretension * may be , whether iih to the » " tJ (( or tho moral tone of the productions . 11 an i former much allowance nhould bo made to w
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1216 If 1 ) 0 3 Lt&J ! t t * [ Saturday ,
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REPLY TO •« A LETTER TO CHA RTISTS . " London , December 1 , 1851 , Sir , —Genuine criticism is always beneficial and we should be grateful for it ; but , to fulfil its office thoroughly , to do its work well , it should be scrupulously accurate , inflexibly just , and always kindly " The critic of a popular movement is the most ixa . . portant officer thereof : he is a responsible censor liable to the exercise of his particular function on himself . Our friendly critic , H . It . N ., in his "Letter
to Chartists , " with much truth well spoken , has made no distinctions : we are all swept up into one lot of rubbish . He must know ( as I know ) that the noisy the turbulent , the denunciatory , and abusive p ersons among the Chartists are the most notorious , perhaps , but the least numerous , and who are endured for their proved sincerity in many cases , whilst they are rebuked for their violence . If H . R . N . meant by ?' the Chartists" only a certain portion of them , he were wise to have said so , and should have stated
their relative numbers , because it is not true of any of his charges to apply them , to the whole bod y . For example : —All the Chartists have not " set up certain wordy idols " ; do not " suppose that strong words are strong sense" ; do not " ask Where ' s Moloch ? ' " except to put him out ; do not " mistake sound for sense , and noise for strength "; do not "denounce all who will denounce everybody "; do not " scora to be practical "; do not " revel in the vague "; do not "like to be oppressed" ; do not "laud to the skies the great talker and little doer" ; do not " regard talk as an end , not as a means . " With some ,
nay with many , of the Chartists , their movement is " a steady gale " intelligently adopted , conscientiously adhered to , candidly avowed , and temperately advocated , who are Chartists and gentlemen , who cannot be vulgar , who work from honesty and earnestness of conviction , and are the very core of the movement , the quiet internal power round which aggregate men who , presenting certain rude appearances of mind and manners , have been readily selected as our models of the whole by our opponents , but who cannot be so recognized by one of ourselves . Candour requires a disavowal of the misconduct of a few and not a sweeping censure of the many ; when the critic shall select the actual offenders , and speak
of them , we shall listen without feeling any injustice ; when this is not so , we must disavow the charges as caricature not portraiture , as the exceptional put lor the general , the transient for the enduring . Criticism , the result of culture , gives greater light ; instinct of the people , that inspiration ot humanity , gives greater heat . I regret to see them put m opposition . Why may we not have the illumination of culture ( which always causes criticism ) with me prolific heat of popular instinct united into one process of , radiation over society ? That man shall ne the leafier who can combine them in his own Pj * 80 "' Till then let us not have a renewal of the worUi-oiu i •¦
XHl 1111 , 11 ll ' L Uo ilUL ii «*» v « - « . " * contest . —Light trying to put down heat , ami heat trying to bum up li B ht . Let these estimable critics ' remember that all movements him . these two parties—the Girondists and the Mountain , and the wisdom and policy of a Chartist is to umic these oppositions , to be careful in Ins ctjnfiUll ! 5 , avoid irritations—for no man is unassailable oV * liens , no man is proof against irritations ; m , * ,,, ' is a danger of doing the wrong we condemn , oy ^ nounciiifj denunciation , and unjustly "" P ' ' ^' " perinnoeent in a universal censure . Ijetll . it . I severe in the path of personal exertion , convu-n ¦ i ¦ -. ! .. i ..... « .. -- : „! ,,.,. «• r . w . ii . i . ru lri Ins Hn , > niii ) > individualsrestraining violent feeling * m JnH 1 ("'' /
, ( teaching and exemplifying mild language , _ twin . ] .. ¦ tone , and kind manners , with strong convictions decided measures— . sure that others are labourint , ^ the sunie cour . se , with as certain success , i « . People are sound at heart , mid hooh respond i ^ generous call and the affectionate examp le . " ^ bo careful bow we constantly expose our lain , , exposure hardens them . If we justify" * "" <> PP " () S ( , by our indiscreet confessions , we do u wrong u ¦ who are the real heart and life of the < > ; ' ^ " iih 1 ment the calm , the temperate , the rellectiv ,, practical men , who are not , often the most pronw ¦ though the moHt useful , of the Chartists , - l- '
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 20, 1851, page 1216, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1914/page/20/
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