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3 - Speech on Blackstone Edge, 1846 (Extract)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2012

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Summary

Speech at a demonstration of Yorkshire and Lancashire Chartists on Blackstone Kdge (between Halifax and Rochdale) on Sunday, 2 August 1846. Northern Star, 8 August 1846. This was the first occasion Jones had spoken in the north. Ben Rushton, the veteran Halifax radical, was in the chair. Feargus O'Connor and Dr McDougall were the other main speakers.

…<Sc>what is it that we want? Is it something so unreasonable? It is mercy at the hands of monopoly – justice at the hands of power – and our own at the hands of luxurious rapacity. On what grounds, I say, do they oppose us? They say we are too ignorant to enjoy the franchise; we, ourselves, do not know what we want; we are no judges of what would be good for us. Does a man know what he wants when he is starving? and sees the rich rolling in riotous profusion? He'll tell you he wants food – but then, they say that's all his folly – it's the workhouse that he wants! Does a man know what he wants when he is sinking with over-work, that the wealthy may enjoy their sumptuous indolence? He'll tell you he wants some hours of rest; but then, they say that's idleness and crime! It's the gaol that he wants! Does a man know what he wants when he's ground to the dust by the accursed hand of monopoly?

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Visions of the People
Industrial England and the Question of Class, c.1848–1914
, pp. 354
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1991

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