Avery & Blake 02 - The Infidel Stain (15 page)

‘This is merely another example of the foolish insolence of you Chartists, who encourage and stir the unnatural hatred of the have-nothings for the have-somethings!’ cried Mr Elliot. The latter part of his speech was drowned out by the boos of the Chartist army. In among them, however, I could still hear a few cheers from the Anti-Corn-Law Leaguers.

‘No, my friend,’ said the Chartist Watkins. ‘It is you who have stoked this feeling, by betraying us in ’32 with the so-called “Great” Reform Act, which brought the vote to the manufacturers and the masters but left us, the workers, without. Now you campaign upon a matter which is a distraction from the true needs of the poor, but you pursue it because it will allow you to lower wages.’ The Chartists cheered. ‘Your league claims to welcome all, but your membership subscription of £50 a year shows to whom it truly belongs.’ At the front, Daniel Wedderburn applauded and waved his cap.

‘And now, Mr Elliot,’ said Watkins, ‘I will ask you and your friends to return to your seats. No ill will befall you, but we have some business to transact, and we will have our way.’

Mr Elliot rolled his eyes, advised his supporters to wait for the invasion to pass, and sat down, glowering. It was plain that this was not the first time such a thing had taken place.

‘We shall now propose our own motion,’ said Watkins, ‘and I have a feeling that this meeting of the Anti-Corn-Law League will pass it with a great majority! I have with me some well-known members of the National Charter Association.’

He introduced the men who had stepped on to the stage with him. First there was Mr George Harney, ‘the well-known journalist and speaker’, a slight fellow with a lively face who waved his revolutionary red cap at the audience. Then the unsmiling Dr McDouall, ‘surgeon and devotee to our cause’, with long sideburns and a dark frock-coat. There was Mr Charlie Neesom, ‘bookseller, journalist, temperance man, who has paid for his devotion to the cause many times over’, a gaunt, bespectacled man with a quiet, commanding
air. Finally, there was ‘Major Bennywhisky, our Polish brother, who, having laboured for Polish independence, has committed himself to our own struggle for freedom’. Major Bennywhisky wore a blue military jacket with gold epaulettes, and a pair of remarkably elaborate side whiskers. He stood to attention and saluted. The gesture seemed to me rather overdone. The rowdy cheers and applause that greeted him, however, lasted for several minutes.

‘Friends,’ Watkins said at last, ‘we are not here merely for frivolous reasons. We find ourselves at the end of three years of terrible hardship for working people, particularly for our friends in the North. In Nottingham, Sheffield, Glasgow and Manchester, we have seen destitution and misery on a scale that we never dreamt. I have seen parents sit through the night for weeks at a time so their only bed might afford their families some rest; I have seen babies born on wet flags without a rag to cover them, or a bit of food for their mothers; I have seen men fast for days uncheered by the hope of better fortune, sinking under the pressure of want into premature graves. Children left without parents, starving on the streets.’

By the time he had finished speaking, the room was utterly silent. Unbidden, the image of Matty, struggling to feed her brother and herself, came to me.

‘I see a community of careworn looks, of desolate homes,’ Watkins continued. ‘A community in need, denied help by the masters and manufacturers who campaign for the repeal of the Corn Laws, but who obstruct attempts to limit working hours, to combat dangerous work conditions and to raise wages.’

On the dais, the Anti-Corn-Law men sat, stony-faced. Though I could not condone the rudeness of the Chartists, I could not restrain a smile at the former’s discomfort.

‘Mr Charlie Neesom will now address you,’ said Watkins. Neesom, the gaunt man in spectacles, stood and came to the front.

‘London! The depredations that have already wrought devastation upon your brothers in the North have come to you,’ he said. He had the blunt, matter-of-fact accent of the North and this, I saw, gave his dramatic words more force than a more colourful delivery would have. ‘The death of crafts and trades, among them the silk
weavers of Spitalfields, who starve before our eyes while the princes of commerce build their gaudy, tinselled palaces. Our country is the richest in the world, the envy of the world, and yet the vast fruits of its success are denied us, we who carry this country upon our shoulders. The inequality of riches in England is a byword among foreigners. In no country in the world is there so striking a contrast, so defined a partition, so easy and dreadful a comparison between rich and poor as there is here.’

There were loud calls of ‘Hear, hear!’

‘How can we combat this assault upon our livelihoods and our families? Are we to bleed like our northern brothers before succour comes? We ask for a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. But when will it come? Again and again, Parliament ignores our plight. The old government, the Whigs, the most infamous government that ever ruled, passed laws that lowered our wages and raised the price of food, consigned us to the workhouse, divided families, allowed the needy to die of want and in shame. Now they try to woo us. The Tories are no better: they give seventy thousand pounds to the refurbishment of the Queen’s stables, they send thousands more to compensate the rich owners of former black slaves in the Caribbean, but they ignore the starving poor.

‘A couple of rich men do try and buy us off with promises of cheaper food or a few less hours’ work. But their fellow parliamentarians will not acknowledge our desperate need. We must have a new beginning. It is only through fair representation in government that our needs and our just demands can be met. I ask you to vote for the motion: a motion in support of our Charter and for universal suffrage, the vote for every man.’

At this, the Polish major, Bennywhisky, leapt up, stood on his chair in a highly excited manner and cried, in an accent only just intelligible to his audience, ‘Brothers in bondage! We must protect ourselves from the ferocious monster Capital, who is at all times eager to appease his greedy appetite upon the very miseries of the sons of industry, and would – given any opportunity – make tools and slaves of us all! We must respond in kind. With fire and fury! Let us light the fire of liberty in London so that it shall never die!’

Many in the audience, Daniel Wedderburn included, shouted, ‘Aye!’ The Major sat down, evidently very pleased with himself, to noisy applause and whistles – amidst which one could still hear a few boos.

‘Thank you, Brother Beniofsky,’ said Neesom, pronouncing the man’s name with a knowing air, though I wondered how much he had actually welcomed his Polish colleague’s intervention. ‘The National Charter Association demands the just representation of the people of Great Britain and Ireland in the Commons House of Parliament, through the six points of the Charter. What are these six points? Firstly, the vote for every man above twenty-one – true democracy.’

There was a grumble in the audience and a woman shouted, ‘And what of women?’

Several male voices rose to hush her, but the speaker raised his hand. ‘That we will come to by and by. Secondly, we demand the abolition of a property qualification to stand as an MP; and thirdly, we want payment for MPs so that we may be represented by men like ourselves: poor but honest men who will speak for us. Fourthly, we must have annual parliaments. Fifthly, electoral boroughs must be of equal size; and sixthly, there must be secret ballots to protect the voter in the exercise of his vote.’

‘All those in favour of the motion,’ said little Mr Watkins, ‘that the Anti-Corn-Law League should adopt the six articles of the Charter?’

There were a few boos and hisses, but the motion was easily carried.

‘Mr Elliot, let it be entered in your minutes that a motion in favour of the Charter was passed at this meeting of the Anti-Corn-Law League.’

The man who had not spoken, McDouall, took the ledger from one of Mr Elliot’s colleagues and proceeded to write in it, offering it to Mr Elliot to countersign. The latter shook his head. ‘This only weakens your case, it changes nothing!’ he shouted.

‘It shows that numbers, not privilege, will out in the end,’ said Neesom.

‘May we now be permitted to go?’ said Mr Elliot sarcastically.

Neesom nodded. Then a voice from the audience called out, ‘May I ask one question?’ It was Daniel Wedderburn.

Neesom smiled and said, ‘One of our younger members – Brother Wedderburn. Ask away.’

‘We tell ourselves that the rulers of our country must be in ignorance of our state.’ Wedderburn’s voice was hoarse with nerves, and he stuttered a little. ‘Yet when, two years ago, thousands brought a petition to Parliament, imploring our governors to hear testimony of our situation, it was dismissed and their demands scorned. I believe in the Charter but it is hard not to feel that our legislators, our magistrates and our employers have abandoned us. I ask you, Mr Neesom, where are you on the matter of physical force?’

Neesom smiled, took off his spectacles and said, ‘A good question, Brother Wedderburn. I say, “Peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must!”’

There were at once both cries of approval and boos and hisses. Mr Elliot raised his hands in the air and looked at his pocket watch.

‘Let me explain, my brothers!’ said Neesom, stretching out his arms in a plea for quiet. ‘We must show Parliament that we mean what we say. That for us the Charter is a matter of life and death, and that we cannot be deflected by the opposition of an assembly in which none of us has a say. They must understand that we are in earnest. Let us not forget, moreover, that the government has created its own militia force, those skull-cracking ruffians, those kitchen spies, those bludgeoners, those blue devils, the so-called new police!’ This last raised a cheer. ‘They must know that if they turn their forces on us, the mills and fields of England will burn. Too long have we remained in bondage, too long have we turned a smiling face to oppression!’ At this the Polish major stood, nodded emphatically to denote his support of Neesom’s words, and roared, ‘Yes! Yes!’

Over the heads of the crowd I saw Daniel Wedderburn nodding vigorously too. But not all were in agreement: the clerical type, Watkins, shook his head.

‘I do not support physical force,’ he said, ‘and I am as true a supporter of the Charter as any man. I say, such agitation can only be harmful and injurious to the movement. Parliament tries to discredit us by branding us anarchists and plunderers; it says that universal suffrage means universal pillage; it claims that threats of force prove we are undeserving of the vote and if we accomplish it, it will be the first step to disorder, revolution and the redistribution of property. Violent words do not threaten the enemies of our movement, but they undermine its friends. We do not want muskets and pikes but education and schooling.’

The Chartists seemed split: most cheered, some booed.

Daniel Wedderburn turned for a moment. Our eyes met, then his slid away.

The Chartists began to push out of the room. A few angry words and insults were exchanged with the Leaguers, but their retreat was more or less peaceful. Blake and I watched them depart but Daniel Wedderburn had vanished, and so we too passed through the doors, leaving the Anti-Corn-Law Leaguers to their own devices.

‘I know you, do I not?’ It was the bespectacled man from the stage, Neesom, and he placed a hand on Blake’s arm. ‘Charlie Neesom at your service. And this is George Watkins, Charter organizer, cabinetmaker by trade – though there’s precious little of that work about just now – and Methodist lay preacher. We have seen you at the Mechanics Institute and the Philosophical Society and such like.’ Neesom pushed his spectacles up his nose. He looked thoroughly mild-mannered; it would have been hard to imagine anyone less like a revolutionary firebrand.

‘We saw you at the talk on Thomas Paine,’ said Watkins eagerly.

‘And when you translated for Mr Matseeni,’ said Neesom.

‘Jem Blake,’ Blake said, taking Neesom’s hand. ‘This is my companion, William Avery. I saw Mr Watkins recite
Paradise Lost
in its entirety. Quite a feat.’

Watkins nodded modestly, and then, ‘We are surprised to find you among the Leaguers.’

‘But is this not a Chartist meeting now?’ Blake said innocently.

‘You heard we were coming?’

‘I heard it might be a possibility.’

‘Blake and Avery, Blake and Avery,’ said Watkins. ‘Why is that familiar?’

‘The men who were with Mountstuart when he died,’ said Neesom, taking off his spectacles and starting to polish them with the edge of his shirt.

‘Good Lord, of course! You knew Mountstuart?’ said Watkins, his face lighting up with excitement. ‘I was – am – a great admirer of the man. Well, it is even more of a pleasure to meet you! I should certainly like to take the opportunity to ask you about him.’

Blake nodded absently.

‘Thank you,’ I said hurriedly, ‘but it is still a slightly painful subject for us.’

‘Of course,’ said Watkins, looking mortified.

‘No matter,’ said Blake, ‘I’d be happy to talk of him some time. But perhaps Mr Neesom might answer a question for me. Is there a natural link between printers and booksellers and Chartism?’

‘The fight for the vote has often gone hand in hand with the fight for free speech,’ said Neesom pleasantly. ‘There’s many printers and booksellers who fought the stamp in the ’20s and ’30s, were committed to suffrage too, and went to prison for it.’

‘The stamp?’ I said.

‘The duty on newspapers to keep them too dear for the working man, a tax on knowledge,’ said Neesom. ‘You are no doubt too young to remember.’

‘I’ve another question, for Mr Watkins,’ said Blake. ‘You do not share Mr Neesom’s opinion on physical force, and yet you share the same stage.’

‘I hold that we must win the battle through moral argument. But if anyone has a right to argue for force, it is Charlie. He has been arrested many times for his beliefs. And next year we will gather signatures for another petition, and it will be so great that there will be no denying that it represents the will of the people and Parliament will not be able to refuse us.’