ments were not answered. Most of the delegates supported the strike because they did not know what else to do. Having raised such expectations in the minds of their followers, they felt that they must do something to justify themselves. They could not bear the thought that they had deceived themselves as well as their constituents, and so let themselves drift into a general strike without knowing in the least how it was to be conducted. Of preparations involving funds, food, stores, they would not hear; they would live on the country like an invading army. To them a strike was one thing, a general strike quite another thing. Yet for a general strike of this insurrectionary description they discussed no preparations, though the complicated arrangements of an ordinary strike were simple in comparison with those requisite for such a desperate venture. In fact, one is driven to the conclusion that the Convention delegates decided to recommend a general strike, partly because they had to decide on something and partly because they knew that it was impossible.
After two days' discussion it was resolved by thirteen against six votes (five abstentions) to recommend the commencement of the National Holiday on August 12. Thus the weightiest decision of the Convention was carried by one quarter of its original strength. The next day a Committee was appointed to promulgate the decree. Trade Unions were to be asked to co-operate. Eight delegates, sitting in London, were given a month in which to organise a national stoppage of industry in a land where industry was stopping of its own accord, in a land where only a strike of agricultural labourers could have had much effect, in a land where men, women, and children were begging to be allowed to work even for a pittance. As if to show how topsy-turvy its ideas had become, the Convention adopted an address urging the middle class to co-operate in this measure.
Whilst the Convention was thus engaged, the Chartist cause received irreparable injury through a riot which took place on the 15th of July, again at Birmingham, where the presence of the London police was a source of extreme exasperation, not merely to the Chartists and the numerous enemies of the newly formed Corporation,[1] but to the majority of the Council itself.
- ↑ In some newly incorporated towns, like Bolton, Manchester, Birmingham, there was a strong conservative faction which had opposed incorporation, and thwarted the new municipal bodies to the utmost of its power. The Chartists received much countenance from this factious body, especially in the matter of opposing the introduction of a police force. These facts help to explain the weakness of the borough councils at times like this.
