KARL MARX
THE ASSOCIATION FOR ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM.—
(PEOPLE'S CHARTER)
London, June  5. The Association for Administrative Reform  has gained a victory in Bath.
Its candidate, Mr. Tite, has been elected a Member  of Parliament by  a large majority against the Tory  candidate. This
victory, won  on  the terrain of a “legal” country, is being
celebrated as a great event by  today’s Liberal papers. Bulletins about the poll are being published with no  less ostentation than those about the bloodless successes on  the Sea of
Azov.  Bath and Kerch! is the motto  of the day. What the
press— pro-reform and anti-reform, Ministerial, Opposition,
Tory,  Whig  and Radical papers alike— says nothing  about
is the defeats and disillusionments which the Association
for Administrative Reform  has suffered in the last few days
in London,  Birmingham and Worcester. To  be sure, this
time the battle was not  fought on  the limited terrain of a
privileged electoral body. Nor  were its results such as to
draw cries of triumph  from the opponents  of the City
reformers.
The first truly public meeting (i. e., one without admission
tickets) which the Reform  Association held in London took
place in Marylebone last Wednesday. One  of the Chartists
countered the resolutions of the City  reformers by  moving
the amendment
“that the money  aristocracy represented by  the City  men  is as bad as
the landed aristocracy; that, under the pretext of reform, it is merely

striving to vote its way, on  the shoulders of the people, into Downing
Street, and there to share offices, salaries and ranks with the oligarchs;
that the Charter with its five points  is the only  programme  of the
people’s movement ” .
The chairman of the meeting, one of the City  illuminati,
voiced a number  of doubts: first, whether he should put  the
amendment to the vote at all, then, whether he should first
take a vote on  the resolution or on  the amendment, and
lastly, how he should take the vote. The audience, being
tired of his indecision, tactical considerations and unpleasant manoeuvres, declared him incapable of presiding further,
called on  Ernest Jones  to replace him in the chair, and voted
by  a vast majority against the resolution and for the amendment.
In Birmingham, the City  Association called a public meeting in the Town  Hall with the Mayor  in the chair. The As sociation resolution was countered by  an amendment similar
to that moved  in London. The Mayor, however,  flatly
refused to put  the amendment to the vote unless the word
“Charter” was replaced by  a less objectionable one. If not,
he would  withdraw from the chair, he said. The word
“Charter'1 was therefore replaced by  "universal suffrage and
voting  by  ballot” . Thus  edited, the amendment was passed
by  a majority of 10 votes. In Worcester, where the City
reformers called a public meeting, the victory of the Chartists and the defeat of the Administrative Reformers were
even more  complete. There the Charter was proclaimed
without  more  ado.
The very doubtful success of these large meetings in Lon don, Birmingham and Worcester decided the Administrative
Reformers to circulate in all the bigger and more  populous
towns  petitions to be signed by  their partisans, rather than
to make public appeals to the vox populi. The City  notables’
manifold links with the lords of commerce in the United
Kingdom,  and the influence these gentlemen exert upon  their
clerks, warehousemen and “minor ” commercial friends will
no  doubt  enable them to fill the petitions with names very
quietly, behind the back of the public, and then to send them
to the “Honourable  House ” with the label, Voice of the People of England. But  they are mistaken if they think they can

intimidate the Government  with signatures collected by
wheedling, intrigue and stealth. The Government  looked on
with ironical self-satisfaction at the Administrative Reform ers being hissed out  of the theatrum mundi. Its organs are
silent for the time being, partly because they would  otherwise have to register the successes of Chartism, and partly
because the ruling class is already toying  with the idea of
putting  itself at the head of the “Administrative Reformers”
should the people’s movement  become importunate. They
keep a “misunderstanding” in reserve should this danger set
in: ever again to regard the Administrative Reformers as
the spokesmen  of the masses will be due to a “misunderstanding” . Such misunderstandings constitute the capital
joke of England’s “historical” development, and no  one is
more  familiar with handling them than the free-thinking
Whigs.
The Charter is a very laconic document; besides the
demand for universal suffrage, it contains only  the following
five points, and as many  conditions for its exercise: 1) voting
through  the ballot (box); 2) no property  qualifications for
Members  of Parliament; 3) remuneration of Members  of
Parliament; 4) yearly Parliaments; 5) equal constituencies.
After the experiments which destroyed faith in the universal
suffrage of 1848 in France,109  the continentals are prone  to
underrate the importance and meaning of the English Charter. They overlook  the fact that two-thirds of French society
are peasants and over one-third townspeople,  while in Eng land more  than two-thirds live in the towns  and less than
one-third in the countryside. In England the results of universal suffrage must  thus be in the same inverse proportion
to its results in France as town  and country  are in the two
empires. This explains the diametrically opposite  character
which the demand for universal suffrage has assumed in
France and England. In France it was a demand made by
political ideologues, one that every “educated” person  could
share to a greater or  lesser extent, depending on  his convictions. In England it forms the broad boundary between
aristocracy and bourgeoisie on  the one hand, and the classes
of the people, on  the other. There it is regarded as a political question  and here, as a social one. In England agitation

for universal suffrage had gone  through  a period of historical
development before it became the catchword of the masses.
In France, it was first introduced and then started on  its
historical path. In France it was the practice of universal
suffrage that failed, while in England it was its ideology. In
the early decades of this century, universal suffrage of Sir
Francis Burdett, Major Cartwright and Cobbett  still had an
utterly indefinite idealistic character, which made it the pious
wish  of all sections of the population that did not  belong
directly to the ruling classes. For  the bourgeoisie, it was
really no  more  than an eccentric, generalised expression of
what it had attained through  the parliamentary reform of
1831. In England the demand for universal suffrage did not
assume its true, specific character even after 1838. Proof:
Hume  and O ’Connell  were among  those who  signed the
Charter. In 1842 the last illusions were gone. At  that time
Lovett  made a last but  futile attempt to formulate universal
suffrage as a common demand of the so-called Radicals and
the masses of the people.110 Since that day there has no
longer been any doubt  as to the meaning of universal suffrage.
Nor  as to its name. It is the Charter of the classes of the
people and implies the assumption of political power  as a
means of meeting their social requirements. That is why
universal suffrage, a watchword of universal fraternisation
in the France of 1848, is taken as a war slogan in England.
There the immediate content of the revolution was universal
suffrage; here, the immediate content of universal suffrage
is the revolution. He  who  goes over the history of universal
suffrage in England will see that it casts off its idealistic
character as modern society with its endless contradictions
develops here, contradictions born  of industrial progress.
Alongside the official and semi-official parties, as well as
alongside the Chartists, there is another clique of “wise
men ” emerging in England, who  are discontented with the
Government  and the ruling classes as much as with the
Chartists. What do the Chartists want? they exclaim. They
want to increase and extend the omnipotence of Parliament
by  elevating it to people’s power. They are not  breaking up
parliamentarism but  are raising it to a higher power. The
right thing to do is to break up  the representative system!

A  wise man from the East, David Urquhart, heads that
clique. He  wants to revert to England’s common  law. He
wants to squeeze Statute Law back into its bounds. He  wants
to localise rather than centralise. He  wants to dig up  again
from the rubbish  “the true old legal sources of Anglo-Saxon
times” . Then they will gush  forth of themselves and will
water and fertilise the surrounding  country. But  David is at
least consistent. He  also wants to return modern  division of
labour and concentration of capital to the old Anglo-Saxon
or, better still, to the Oriental state. A  Highlander by  birth,
Circassian by  naturalisation and Turk by  free choice, he is
capable of condemning civilisation with all its evils, and
from time to time even of passing judgement on  it himself.
But  he is not  insipid like the sublime ones  who  separate
modern  forms of the state from modern society, and who
indulge in wishful thinking about local autonomy  combined
with concentration of capital, and about individualisation
combined with the anti-individualising division of labour.
David is a prophet  facing backwards, and fascinated like an
antiquarian by  the vista of old England. He  should therefore
think it normal for new  England to pass him by  and leave
him standing where he is, however  urgent and deeply convinced he may be in exclaiming: “David Urquhart is the
only  man who  can save you!” Which is what he did but  a
few days ago, at a meeting in Stafford.
on  June  5, 1855
Published in Neue Oder-Zeitung Translated from the German
No.  261, June  8, 1855