The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-11 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, JANUARY 11, 1868.

1151 1G 151

1031 2;

WORKING MEN Aip.POLITICS.

The firs general meeting of the London Working Men's
Association for the ear has just been held, Mr. George
Potter presiding. In opening the proceedings, the chair-
man said that it had been resolved upon by a sub-committee
that an agitation should be organised with a view to secure
the repeal of the ratepaying clause of the Reform Bill.
Working men complained that they had to pay rates in addi-
tion to their rents. The section of the new Rqform Bill to
which he had alluded entailed an increase of ls. or ls. Gd.
a week in excess of what they formerly paid, and even
the vestries felt themselves incapable of completing
their collections. The association had also resolved on
promoting the labour registration scheme, and several
influential members of Parliament had expressed their
approval of the movement. One of their number had
already issued an address to the electors of one of the
metropolitan boroughs. He did not know whether the
proposal he was about to make would meet with the ap-
proval of the society. They had resolved that the committee
should consist altogether of working men, and that the
board of trustees should be formed of gentlemen, among
whom were Mr. .M'Cullagh Torrens and other prominent
politicians. The present aspect of things was far from
encouraging. The Working Men's Association had no
sympathy with any physical force movement. The working
men of England had now sufficient power to procure a
redress of their grievances by moral, legitimate, and con-
stitutional means. He regretted that the oligarchy of the
country were still unwilling to give up any portion of the
power of which they had the monopoly so long, and he was
sorry to have to add that great apathy existed among the
working men of England regarding the objects the asso-
ciation was seeking to advance. He believed that on the
reassembling of Parliament several members of the House
of Commons would become honorary members of the
association, and there was no doubt that they would then
receive a considerable accession to their numbers. They
would endeavour to promote the subject of education, and
the Irish Church and the Irish land question would also
engage their most earnest attention. It was a disgrace to
our civilisation that only one in forty of the people of
England could read and write. He trusted that in a short
time their children would be:able to obtain as good a secular
and rational education as the youth of any other country.
They would soon put prominently before the public
,lie true principles of trades union societies. The oppo-
nents of trades unions should remember that these associ-
ations had superseded secret societies, and the proportion
of working men who now advocated physical force against
those who differed from them was very insignificant com-
paratively with the number which would have advised
that course of procedure some few years ago. A resolution
was then passed condemnatory of " a proposed loyal and
anti-Fenian meeting," organised by the Metropolitan
Conservative Working Men's Association. One of the
delegates present (Mr. Gilmore) remarked that Mr. Digby
Seymour's appeal to the Irishmen in London to sign an
address asserting their loyalty to the Throne was an insult
to those to whom the appeal was particularly directed,
and the resolution was altered to comprise the opinion ex-
pressed by Mr. Gilmore.