become of this movement, had it not been swallowed up in Chartism. Probably it would have died away, burned itself out. It was not a revolutionary movement, nor were its leaders revolutionaries. It is true that there were real revolutionaries, like O'Brien, John Taylor, and William Benbow, among them, but their time was not yet come. The true revolutionary does not give way to rhetoric like the example of Stephens above quoted. Mere words will not satisfy him, and we have no evidence that either Stephens, Oastler, or O'Connor was prepared to go beyond mere words. Their business was to protest, which they did thoroughly, and to prevent their own suppression under the six Acts, which they did partially and temporarily. When they found that, as a result of their exertions, the New Poor Act was not enforced, and that they could still harangue their followers unmolested, they were virtually in the position of an army which accomplishes by mobilisation all that a successful campaign would bring, and which, being unwilling to disband without attacking somebody, allows itself to be led anywhere. So the agitation passed into Chartism. It gave up its negative character and acquired a positive programme. It became more organised under the influence of Birmingham and London Radicals. But these Northern Chartists retaining their violent methods and their incendiary leaders, gave that tumultuous aspect to the movement by which it is best known. Fully developed Chartism derives its programme from London, its organisation from Birmingham, its personnel and vehemence from Lancashire and Yorkshire.
