Welsh Journals

Certain themes run through the author's chapters: the conservatism of the rural protester, the growing ties between town and country, the impact of newspapers on agitation, the movement away from direct action to unionism, and the strangulation of the Land Question. In all of these, one regrets that the voice of the people must be hidden so firmly behind the views of other interested parties-newspaper editors, com- missioners, politicians, landowners and policemen. When the labourer's words do appear on the pages of this book, the effect can be startling (see, for instance, pp. 248-49). Yet it would be wrong to end on a note of criticism; this is a pioneering study which has placed a generation of scholars in Dr. Dunbabin's debt. D. J. v. JONES Swansea. CHARTISM AND THE CHARTISTS. By David Jones. Allen Lane, 1975. Pp. 229. £ 6.00; paperback £ 3.00. In his new book, Dr. David Jones concludes that Chartism was more than its organization. So, in many respects, is his book. The list of contents suggests a pigeon-hole neatness: the reader will begin at Chartism and the Early Socialists, move through Chartism and Education, and Temperance, and Religion, and so on through some nearly twenty titles until he reaches The Struggle for Survival. Now every historian wants to bring orderliness to his thought and writing, and for the teachers and students of a subject so notoriously confused and cross-grained as Chartism a valuable service can be performed. There are, indeed, many commendable features of this book. The purpose is a proper one for a textbook which has to concede so much in the interests of space, namely to indicate what is known, what is speculative, and what is needed to be known. Dr. Jones's enthusiasm, moreover, is inspiriting at times, and he uses Chartist speeches and writings extensively in order to convey 'the power, discretion and class feelings of ordinary Chartist members' which, he feels, some historians have underestimated. Dr. Jones redresses this account, perhaps at the cost of relaxing his critical vigilance: he admires the Chartists' promise without always examining their perform- ance. Of course there is an escape-route available to historians of popular movements. The very poverty which bred protest also disabled the protestor's organisation; thus the protestors for the most part remain politically chaste. Turn, for example, to the four pages in this book which appear under the sub-section Chartism and Local Politics. As town councillors, Dr. Jones writes, the Chartists 'supported efficient government, popular education, urban improvements and other matters of working class interest' (p. 93). No more is said and the topic is left with O'Connor's gibe about the Leeds Chartist Councillors drifting into 'establishment radicalism'. But what is so singular about the Chartists' style of 'efficient government' (since we assume that no politician of any party has ever campaigned for 'inefficient government')? Altogether this book rather falls short of its laudable aims as a textbook. Perhaps as much care should have, been devoted to the writing as to the research. The style is undistinguished; and the schematic arrangement is