Attempts to Form a New Opposition Party^[248]

In the same measure as the hitherto predominating parties dissolve themselves, and as their distinctive marks ate effaced, the want of a new opposition party is felt, as a matter of course. This want finds an expression in different ways.

Lord John Russell, in his already quoted speech^[a], takes the lead. Part of the alarm raised by Lord Derby, he says, had sprung from the rumors that he, Lord J. Russell, had adopted "highly democratical opinions." "Well, I need not say on that subject that this rumor was totally unfounded; that it has no circumstances on which it rested." Nevertheless, he pronounces himself a Democrat, and then explains the harmless meaning of the word:

"The people of this country are, in other words, the Democracy of the country. Democracy has as fair a right to the enjoyment of its rights as monarchy or nobility. Democracy does not mean to diminish any of the prerogatives of the Crown. Democracy does not attempt to take away any of the lawful privileges of the House of Lords. What, then, is this Democracy? The growth of wealth, the growth of intellect, the forming of opinions more enlightened and more calculated to carry on in an enlightened manner the Government of the world. But I will say more. I will say that the manner of dealing with that increase of the position of the Democracy could not be according to the old system of restraint with which I was but too familiar. On the contrary, Democracy ought to be maintained and encouraged, there ought to be given a legitimate and legal organ to that power and influence."

"Lord John Russell," exclaims The Morning Herald in reply, "has one set of principles for office and another set of principles for opposition. When in office, his principle is to do nothing, and when out of office, to pledge himself to everything."

What in all the world may The Morning Herald mean by "nothing," if it calls the above trash, pronounced by Lord John Russell, "everything!" and if it menaces little John Russell, for his king-loving, lords-respecting, bishop-conserving "Democracy," with the fate of Frost, Williams & Co.! But the humor of the thing is that Lord Derby, in the House of Lords, announces himself as the prominent opponent of "Democracy," and speaks of Democracy as of the only party against which it is worthwhile to struggle^[b]. And in steps the inevitable John Russell with an examination of what this Democracy is, viz., the growth of wealth, of the intellect of this wealth, and of its claims to influence Government through public opinion and through legal organs. Thus, then, Democracy is nothing but the claims of the Bourgeoisie, the industrious and commercial middle class. Lord Derby stands up as the opponent, Lord John Russell volunteers as the standard-bearer of this Democracy. Both of them agree in the implicit confession, that the ancient feuds within their own class, the aristocracy, are no longer of any interest to the country. And Russell is quite prepared to drop the name of Whig for that of Democrat, if this be the conditio sine qua non for turning his opponents out. The Whigs, in this case, would in fact continue to play the same part, and appear officially as the servants of the middle class. Thus, Russell's plan of a party reorganisation is confined to the adoption of a new party name.

Joseph Hume, too, considers the formation of a new "people's party" a necessity. But he says that on tenant-right and similar propositions it cannot be formed. "On these matters you could not muster a hundred out of the 654 members to unite." What, then, is his nostrum?

"The people's league or party, or union, must agree on one point—say the ballot; and after carrying that one point, proceed from step to step to other points. And while the movement must begin with a few individual[c] members of the House of Commons, it cannot succeed until the people out of doors and the electors shall see the necessity of doing their part, and of giving support to the small party of the people in Parliament."[d]

This same Hume was one of the drawers-up of the People's Charter^[249]. From the People's Charter and its six points, he retreated to the "little Charter" of the financial and parliamentary reformers with only three points^[250], and now we see him reduced to one point, the ballot. What success he promises to himself from his new nostrum, he will tell us himself in the concluding words of his letter to The Hull Advertiser:

"Tell me how many editors will risk to give their support to a party that, as Parliament is now composed, can never succeed to power?"

Now, as this new party does not mean to change for the present anything in the composition of Parliament, but confines itself to the ballot, it will, by its own confession, never succeed to power. What is the good - of forming a party of impotence, and of openly confessed impotence?

Next to Joseph Hume, there is another attempt made for the creation of a new party. This is the so-called National Party. Instead of the People's Charter, this party would make universal suffrage its exclusive shibboleth, and thus leave out those very conditions which can alone make the movement for universal suffrage a national movement and secure to it popular support. I shall hereafter have occasion to recur to this National Party. It consists of ex-Chartists who wish to conquer respectability for themselves, and of Radicals, middle-class ideologists, who wish to get hold of the Chartist movement. Behind them whether "Nationals" are aware of it or not you find the parliamentary and financial reformers, the men of the Manchester School, urging them on and using them as their vanguard.

Now, what cannot but be evident to everyone in all these miserable compromises and backslidings, these huntings after weakly expediency, these vacillations and quack nostra, is this: Catiline is at the gates of the city^[e], a decisive struggle is drawing near, the opposition knows its unpopularity, its incapacity for resistance, and all the attempts at the formation of new centers of defense agree in one point only, in a "going backwards policy." The "National Party" retreats from the Charter to General Suffrage, Joe Hume from General Suffrage to the ballot, a third from the ballot to the equalization of electoral districts, and so forth, until at last we arrive at Johnny Russell, who has nothing to give out for a battle-cry but the mere name of democracy. Lord j. Russell's Democracy would be, practically speaking, the ultimatum of the National Party, of Hume's "people's party," and of all the other party shams, if any one of them had anything like vitality about it.

But on the one hand, the political flaccidity and indifference consequent upon a period of material prosperity, on the other hand the conviction that nevertheless the Tories are menacing mischief—on the one hand, the certainty on the part of the Bourgeois leaders that they will very soon require the people to back them, on the other hand the knowledge acquired by some popular leaders that the people are too indolent to create, for the moment, a movement of their own all these circumstances produce the phenomenon that parties attempt to make themselves acceptable to each other, and that the different factions of the opposition out of Parliament attempt a union by making to each other concessions, from the most advanced faction downwards until at last they again arrive at what Lord J. Russell is pleased to call democracy.

Of the attempts at creating a self-styled "National Party," Ernest Jones justly remarks:

"The People's Charter is the most comprehensive measure of political reform in existence, and the Chartists are the only truly national party of political and social reformers in Great Britain."[f]

And R. G. Gammage, one of the members of the Chartist Executive^[251], thus addresses the people:

"Would you then refuse the co-operation of the middle classes? Certainly not, if that co-operation is offered on fair and honorable terms. And what are these terms? They are easy and simple; adopt the Charter, and having adopted that Charter, unite with its friends who are already organized for its achievement. If you refuse to do this, you must either be opposed to the Charter itself, or, piqueing yourselves upon your class superiority, you must imagine that superiority to entitle you to leadership. In the first case, no honest Chartist can unite with you, in the second, no working man ought so far to lose his self-respect as to succumb to your class prejudices. Let the working men trust their own power alone, receiving honest aid from whatever sources, but acting as though their salvation depended upon their own exertions." [g]

The mass of the Chartists, too, are at the present moment absorbed by material production; but on all points the nucleus of the party is reorganized, and the communications re-established, in England as well as in Scotland, and in the event of a commercial and political crisis, the importance of the present noiseless activity at the headquarters of Chartism will be felt all over Great Britain.

Notes