How often have we not been warned by friends and sympathis- 
ers, “Keep aloof from party politics!” And they were perfectly 
right, as far as present English party politics are concerned. A 
labour organ must be neither Whig nor Tory, neither Conserva- 
tive nor Liberal, or even Radical, in the actual party sense of that 
word. Conservatives, Liberals, Radicals, all of them represent but 
the interests of the ruling classes, and various shades of opinion 
predominating amongst landlords, capitalists, and retail trades- 
men. If they do represent the working class, they most decidedly 
misrepresent it. The working class has interests of its own, political 
as well as social. How it has stood up for what it considers its social 
interests, the history of the Trades Unions and the Short Time 
movement shows. But its political interests it leaves almost entirely 
in the hands of Tories, Whigs, and Radicals, men of the upper 
class, and for nearly a quarter of a century the working class of 
England has contented itself with forming, as it were, the tail of 
the “Great Liberal Party”. 

This is a political position unworthy of the best organised 
working class of Europe. In other countries the working men have 
been far more active. Germany has had for more than ten years a 
Working Men’s party (the Social-Democrats), which owns ten seats 
in Parliament, and whose growth has frightened Bismarck into 
those infamous measures of repression of which we give an 
account in another column.’ Yet in spite of Bismarck, the Working 
Men’s party progresses steadily; only last week it carried sixteen 
elections for the Mannheim Town Council and one for the Saxon 

a See this volume, pp. 407-09.— Ed. 

A Working Men’s Party 405 

Parliament. In Belgium, Holland, and Italy the example of the 
Germans has been imitated; in every one of these countries a 
Working Men’s party exists,“ though the voter’s qualification 
there is too high to give them a chance of sending members to the 
Legislature at present. In France the Working Men’s party is just 
now in full process of organisation; it has obtained the majority in 
several Municipal Councils at the last elections,’ and will undoubt- 
edly carry several seats at the general election for the Chamber 
next October. Even in America where the passage of the working 
class to that of farmer, trader, or capitalist, is still comparatively 
easy, the working men find it necessary to organise themselves as 
an independent party.*” Everywhere the labourer struggles for 
political power, for direct representation of his class in the 
Legislature—everywhere but in Great Britain. 

And yet there never was a more widespread feeling in England 
than now, that the old parties are doomed, that the old shibboleths 
have become meaningless, that the old watchwords are exploded, 
that the old panaceas will not act any longer. Thinking men of all 
classes begin to see that a new line must be struck out, and that 
this line can only be in the direction of democracy. But in 
England, where the industrial and agricultural working class forms 
the immense majority of the people, democracy means the 
dominion of the working class, neither more nor less. Let, then, 
that working class prepare itself for the task in store for it,—the 
ruling of this great empire; let them understand the respon- 
sibilities which inevitably will fall to their share. And the best way 
to do this is to use the power already in their hands, the actual 
majority they possess in every large town in the kingdom, to send 
to Parliament men of their own order. With the present household 
suffrage,**' forty or fifty working men might easily be sent to St. 
Stephen’s,*” where such an infusion of entirely new blood is very 
much wanted indeed. With only that number of working men in 
Parliament, it would be impossible to let the Irish Land Bill*” 
become, as is the case at present, more and more an Irish Land 
Bull, namely, an Irish Landlords’ Compensation Act; it would be 
impossible to resist the demand for a redistribution of seats, for 
making bribery really punishable, for throwing election expenses, 
as is the case everywhere but in England, on the public purse, etc. 

Moreover, in England a real democratic party is impossible 
unless it be a working men’s party. Enlightened men of other 
classes (where they are not so plentiful as people would make us 

a See this volume, pp. 394-96.— Ed. 

believe) might join that party and even represent it in Parliament 
after having given pledges of their sincerity. Such is the case 
everywhere. In Germany, for instance, the working-men represen- 
tatives are not in every case actual working men. But no 
democratic party in England, as well as elsewhere, will be 
effectively successful unless it has a distinct working-class charac- 
ter. Abandon that, and you have nothing but sects and shams. 

And this is even truer in England than abroad. Of Radical 
shams there has been unfortunately enough since the break-up of 
the first working men’s party which the world ever produced —the 
Chartist party. Yes, but the Chartists were broken up and attained 
nothing. Did they, indeed? Of the six points of the People’s 
Charter,** two, vote by ballot and no property qualification, are 
now the law of the land. A third, universal suffrage, is at least 
approximately carried in the shape of household suffrage; a 
fourth, equal electoral districts, is distinctly in sight, a promised 
reform of the. present Government. So that the break-down of the 
Chartist movement has resulted in the realisation of fully one-half 
of the Chartist programme. And if the mere recollection of a past 
political organisation of the working class could effect these 
political reforms, and a series of social reforms besides, what will 
the actual presence of a working men’s political party do, backed 
by forty or fifty representatives in Parliament? We live in a world 
where everybody is bound to take care of himself. Yet the English 
working class allows the landlord, capitalist, and retail trading 
classes, with their tail of lawyers, newspaper writers, etc., to take 
care of its interests. No wonder reforms in the interest of the 
workman come so slow and in such miserable dribbles. The 
workpeople of England have but to will, and they are the masters 
to carry every reform, social and political, which their situation 
requires. Then why not make that effort?