Jeremiah Yates
A POSTSCRIPT TO YATE'S CHARTISMAs a postscript to Jeremiah's Chartism a quote #
"For a succeeding generation in Britain it might have seemed that all that Chartism had achieved and taught was lost. For forty years there was no independent political working class movement in Britain. Only a minority of skilled workers carried on the tasks of working class organisation and struggle, within narrows limits of adaptation to capitalism. The mass of the workers appeared sunk in acceptance of their lot. The statesmen of the ruling class, who did all in their power to wipe out every memory of Chartism from the traditions of the nation, began to boast that a political working class movement was impossible in Britain.
But they were wrong. The achievement of Chartism was never lost. The seed that had been sown was to bear fruit. One million Chartists did not disappear by magic from the population. Obscurely, all over the country, the old Chartists bequeathed the lessons they had learnt to their children. Those who emigrated carried the teachings of Chartism to far countries, to Australia, to Canada, to the United States.
Chartism, by its example, by its lessons, by its weaknesses, provided an indispensable part of the foundation of modern socialism."
NOTE:
# Salme Dutt: The Chartist Movement.
