FREDERICK ENGELS
[THE COMMERCIAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND.—
THE CHARTIST MOVEMENT.— IRELAND]
*  The title in brackets here and elsewhere has been provided by  the
Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee  of the Com munist  Party of the Soviet Union.— Ed.
The commercial crisis to which
England finds itself exposed at the moment  is, indeed,
more  severe than any of the preceding crises. Neither in
1837 nor  in 1842 was the depression as universal as at the
present time. All the branches of England’s vast industry
have been paralysed at the peak of its development; everywhere there is stagnation, everywhere one sees nothing  but
workers  thrown  out  on  the pavement. It goes without  saying
that such a state of affairs gives rise to extreme anxiety
among  the workers  who,  exploited by  the industrialists
during the period of commercial prosperity, now  find themselves dismissed en masse and abandoned to their fate. Con sequently meetings of discontented workers  are rapidly increasing. The Northern Star, the organ of the Chartist
workers,  uses more  than seven of its large columns  to report
on  meetings held in the past week; the list of meetings announced for the present week fills another three columns.
The same newspaper mentions  a brochure published by  a
worker,  Mr. John  Noakes,23 in which the author makes an
open  and direct attack on  the right of the aristocracy to own
its lands.

“English soil,” he says, “is the property  of the people, from whom
our  aristocrats seized it either by  force or by  trickery. The people must
see that their inalienable right to property  prevails; the proceeds of
the land should be public property  and used in the interest of the
public. Perhaps I shall be told that these are revolutionary remarks.
Revolutionary or not, it is of no  concern; if the people cannot obtain
that which they need in a law, they must  get it without  law.”
It will not  seem surprising  that in these circumstances the
Chartists should have recourse to most  unusual measures;
their leader, the famous Feargus O ’Connor,  has just announced that he is shortly to leave for Scotland, where he
will call meetings in all the towns  and collect signatures for
the national petition for the People’s Charter, which will be
sent to the next Parliament. At  the same time, he announced
that before the opening  of Parliament, the Chartist press is
to be increased by  the addition of a daily newspaper, the
Democrat.2'1
It will be recalled that at the last elections Mr. Harney,
editor-in-chief of the Northern Star, was put  forward as the
Chartist candidate for Tiverton, a borough  which is represented in Parliament by  Lord Palmerston, the Foreign
Secretary. Mr. Harney, who  won  on  the show  of hands,
decided to retire when  Lord Palmerston demanded a poll.20
Now  something  has happened which shows  how  the feelings
of the inhabitants of Tiverton differ from those of the small
number  of parliamentary electors. There was a vacancy to
fill on  the borough  council; the municipal electors, a far
more  numerous  class than that of the parliamentary electors,
gave the free seat to Mr. Rowcliffe, the person  who  had pro posed Mr. Harney at the elections. Moreover,  the Chartists
are preparing all over England for the municipal elections
which will take place throughout  the country  at the beginning  of November.
But  let us  turn  now  to England’s greatest manufacturing
district, Lancashire, a county  which has suffered under the
burden of industrial stagnation more  than any other. The
situation in Lancashire is alarming in the highest degree.
Most  of the factories have already stopped work  entirely,
and those which are still operating employ  their workers  for
only  two  or at the most  three days a week. But  this is still
not  all: the industrialists of Ashton,  a very important town

for the cotton industry, have announced to their workers  that
in eight days’ time they are going  to reduce wages by  10 per
cent. This news,  which is causing alarm among  the workers,
is spreading all over the county. A  few days later a meeting
of workers ’ delegates from all over the county  was held in
Manchester; this meeting resolved to send a deputation to
the owners  to induce them not  to carry out  the threatened
reduction and, if this deputation achieved no  results, to announce a strike of all workers  employed in the Lancashire
cotton industry. This strike, together with the strike of the
Birmingham iron-workers and miners which has already
started, would  not  fail to assume the same alarming dimensions  which signalled the last general strike, that of 1842. It
could quite well become even more  menacing for the govern ment.
In the meantime starving Ireland is writhing  in the most
terrible convulsions. The workhouses  are overflowing with
beggars, the ruined property  owners  are refusing to pay the
Poor  Tax, and the hungry  people gather in their thousands
to ransack the barns and stables of the farmers and even of
the Catholic priests, whom  they still worshipped  a short
time ago.
It looks as though  the Irish will not  die of hunger  as
calmly next winter as they did last winter. Irish emigration
to England is getting more  alarming each day. It is estimated that an average of 50,000 Irish arrive each year; the
number  so  far this year is already over 220,000. In Sep tember, 345 were arriving daily and in October this figure
increased to 511. This means that the competition between the
workers  will become stronger, and it would  not  be at all
surprising  if the present crisis caused such an uproar that it
compelled the government  to grant reforms of a most  important nature.
on  October 23, 1847
Published in La Reforme, Translated from the French
October 26, 1847