As those on the Left begin to focus upon the upcoming Peoples Assembly, the 19th century Labour Parliament has received scant attention. Even an article on the history of popular assemblies on the Left Unity website failed to refer to it
In response to a lock-out of around 20,000 mill workers by the employers in Preston and also in an attempt to revive the Chartist Movement, Ernest Jones was the prime mover in assembling what was called, the Labour Parliament.
He declared “It must, therefore, become manifest that unless the working classes fight this battle as a Class, that is, in one universal union by a mass movement, they will be inevitably defeated...”
Marx makes it clear the event could possibly become one of considerable significance in working-class history. The People’s Paper published his letter regretting he was unable to accept the invitation to sit as a honorary delegate. Marx writes:
“The mere assembling of such a Parliament marks a new epoch in the history of the world. The news of this great fact will arouse the hopes of the working classes throughout Europe and America...The English working classes with invincible energies, by the sweat of their brows and brains, have called into life the material means of ennobling labour itself and multiplying its fruits to such a degree as to make general abundance possible. By creating the inexhaustible productive powers of modern industry they have fulfilled the first condition of the emancipation of labour. They have now to realise its other conditions. The have to free those wealth-producing powers from the infamous shackles of monopoly and subject them to the joint control of the producers, who till now allowed the very products of their hands to turn against them and be transformed into as many instruments of their own subjugation.
The labouring classes have conquered nature; they have now to conquer men. To succeed in this attempt they do not want strength but the organisation of their common strength, organisation of the labouring classes on a national scale – such, I suppose, is the great end aimed at by the Labour Parliament. If the Labour Parliament proves true to the idea that called it into life some future historian will have to record that there existed in the year 1854. two Parliaments: a Parliament at London and a Parliament at Manchester – a Parliament of the rich and a Parliament of the poor – but that men sat only in the Parliament of the men and not in the Parliament of the masters."
The Parliament first met on March 6, 1854, at Manchester, and was attended by some fifty or sixty delegates, mainly from the textile unions. The Lancashire miners refused to appoint delegates with full powers, and only sent delegates with a watching brief. John Clarke Cropper was elected to the chair, John Teer became general secretary and James Williams was made treasurer. The Parliament’s discussions lasted several days to the 18th March , and when it broke up it declared its intention of meeting again at a later date that year. Before adjourning, the Labour Parliament elected a five-person executive of James Finlen (London), George Harrison (Nottingham), Joseph Hogg (Newcastle), Abraham Robinson (Wilsden) and James Williams (Stockport). Ernest Jones was elected as an honorary member of the executive “with all powers except that of voting”. The Parliament which was to have met in Nottingham, in August, never materialized.
None of the demands put forward in the Charter appeared in the Labour Parliament’s programme of demands. Its main points was the organisation of a weekly levy to support those on strike or locked out and a call for factory reforms;
“The power of this movement shall be further extended to secure a due restriction of the hours of labour; a limitation of female labour in manufacture as also the entire abolition of the labour of young children in mines and factories; a cessation of the tyrannical system of discharge notes, of fines, abatements and other unjust modes of reducing wages.”
It also put forward a scheme for agricultural and factory co-operatives even though Jones had always previously pronounced such schemes as worthless.
In his History of the Chartist Movement, Robert Gammage, declared the Labour Parliament was the end of the road for Chartism. “The plan did not take. The contributions – which according to Jones, were to amount to five million pounds a-year – were not sufficient to pay the salaries of the Executive, who were involved in a debt of £18, which rested upon the shoulders of a single individual.” According to Gammage, realising the plan was doomed, Jones declared the failure of the scheme to be evidence that the people were becoming more convinced of the need to gain political power.
So let us remember as this Peoples Assembly meets, that in 1854, there met two Parliaments: “a Parliament of the rich and a Parliament of the poor and that men sat only in the Parliament of the men and not in the Parliament of the masters.”
Perhaps the 2013 Peoples’ Assembly may fulfil the mission that Marx had hoped for in the Labour Parliament but which failed to deliver. SOYMB may be forgiven for not holding out any great hopes that it can go beyond calling for usual reform of capitalism instead of advocating a genuine emancipation from wage-slavery.
In response to a lock-out of around 20,000 mill workers by the employers in Preston and also in an attempt to revive the Chartist Movement, Ernest Jones was the prime mover in assembling what was called, the Labour Parliament.
He declared “It must, therefore, become manifest that unless the working classes fight this battle as a Class, that is, in one universal union by a mass movement, they will be inevitably defeated...”
Marx makes it clear the event could possibly become one of considerable significance in working-class history. The People’s Paper published his letter regretting he was unable to accept the invitation to sit as a honorary delegate. Marx writes:
“The mere assembling of such a Parliament marks a new epoch in the history of the world. The news of this great fact will arouse the hopes of the working classes throughout Europe and America...The English working classes with invincible energies, by the sweat of their brows and brains, have called into life the material means of ennobling labour itself and multiplying its fruits to such a degree as to make general abundance possible. By creating the inexhaustible productive powers of modern industry they have fulfilled the first condition of the emancipation of labour. They have now to realise its other conditions. The have to free those wealth-producing powers from the infamous shackles of monopoly and subject them to the joint control of the producers, who till now allowed the very products of their hands to turn against them and be transformed into as many instruments of their own subjugation.
The labouring classes have conquered nature; they have now to conquer men. To succeed in this attempt they do not want strength but the organisation of their common strength, organisation of the labouring classes on a national scale – such, I suppose, is the great end aimed at by the Labour Parliament. If the Labour Parliament proves true to the idea that called it into life some future historian will have to record that there existed in the year 1854. two Parliaments: a Parliament at London and a Parliament at Manchester – a Parliament of the rich and a Parliament of the poor – but that men sat only in the Parliament of the men and not in the Parliament of the masters."
The Parliament first met on March 6, 1854, at Manchester, and was attended by some fifty or sixty delegates, mainly from the textile unions. The Lancashire miners refused to appoint delegates with full powers, and only sent delegates with a watching brief. John Clarke Cropper was elected to the chair, John Teer became general secretary and James Williams was made treasurer. The Parliament’s discussions lasted several days to the 18th March , and when it broke up it declared its intention of meeting again at a later date that year. Before adjourning, the Labour Parliament elected a five-person executive of James Finlen (London), George Harrison (Nottingham), Joseph Hogg (Newcastle), Abraham Robinson (Wilsden) and James Williams (Stockport). Ernest Jones was elected as an honorary member of the executive “with all powers except that of voting”. The Parliament which was to have met in Nottingham, in August, never materialized.
None of the demands put forward in the Charter appeared in the Labour Parliament’s programme of demands. Its main points was the organisation of a weekly levy to support those on strike or locked out and a call for factory reforms;
“The power of this movement shall be further extended to secure a due restriction of the hours of labour; a limitation of female labour in manufacture as also the entire abolition of the labour of young children in mines and factories; a cessation of the tyrannical system of discharge notes, of fines, abatements and other unjust modes of reducing wages.”
It also put forward a scheme for agricultural and factory co-operatives even though Jones had always previously pronounced such schemes as worthless.
In his History of the Chartist Movement, Robert Gammage, declared the Labour Parliament was the end of the road for Chartism. “The plan did not take. The contributions – which according to Jones, were to amount to five million pounds a-year – were not sufficient to pay the salaries of the Executive, who were involved in a debt of £18, which rested upon the shoulders of a single individual.” According to Gammage, realising the plan was doomed, Jones declared the failure of the scheme to be evidence that the people were becoming more convinced of the need to gain political power.
So let us remember as this Peoples Assembly meets, that in 1854, there met two Parliaments: “a Parliament of the rich and a Parliament of the poor and that men sat only in the Parliament of the men and not in the Parliament of the masters.”
Perhaps the 2013 Peoples’ Assembly may fulfil the mission that Marx had hoped for in the Labour Parliament but which failed to deliver. SOYMB may be forgiven for not holding out any great hopes that it can go beyond calling for usual reform of capitalism instead of advocating a genuine emancipation from wage-slavery.
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