for shelving it in favour of Universal Suffrage. On November 7 P. H. Muntz brought forward a resolution to that effect, and carried it in spite of opposition and some uproar.[1] This decision saved the situation and the Union for the time being by securing a wider working-class support for it, but it piled up difficulties for the future. A movement in favour of Universal Suffrage could not long remain tied to the apron-strings of the Birmingham Union, as was fondly hoped, and the currency question still remained to be solved. Douglas compromised by inserting an Attwoodite clause into the National Petition of 1838, which clause was contumeliously rejected by the Convention in 1839.
Meanwhile the resolution of November 7 had unexpectedly large results. Lord John Russell had roused the ire of Radicals by his "finality" declaration. On the 28th Douglas carried a resolution of protest in the Council of the Union, and on December 7 the Union called upon all Radicals to unite in an attempt to procure the reform which Lord John had declared impossible. This was an appeal to Cæsar with a vengeance. The Radicals of Great Britain were mainly amongst the working classes, and in rousing them to political action the Birmingham Union had stirred up a giant which was destined to turn and rend it. The first response to the appeal was made by the London Working Men's Association, and these two organisations began to agitate on a much larger scale. Political excitement was growing. The accession of Queen Victoria was expected to have great and good things in store for the working people. Meanwhile distress and unemployment increased. The population of the North of England began to become restive. Stephens and Oastler were active and had recently acquired an accession of agitating violence in O'Connor and the Northern Star, and in A. H. Beaumont and the Northern Liberator. It was a bad time to appeal to working-class feelings. The better sort of working people were angry over their 1832 disappointment, dismayed by their Trade Union failure of 1834, and saw in the prosecution of the Glasgow Cotton Spinners a declaration of the Government's hostility to their legitimate aspirations; whilst the poorer operatives in the domestic industries were horrified at the deterrent Poor Law Administration. Fiery sentimentalists, like Oastler and Stephens, found it easy to rouse such a population to fury. Even in normal times it was an unruly people. From 1830 onwards order was
- ↑ Additional MSS. 27,819, pp. 145-8.
