Welsh Journals

Broadly, I find myself convinced by this plebeian 'civic humanism', but quite a few questions, however, remain to be answered. Biagini is right to argue that the neo- Marxian 'labour aristocracy' thesis may be finished as a hegemonic concept but skilled workers there certainly were, whose attitudes to their bosses as well as to their inferiors leached through into their politics. If one accepts Biagini's notion of the continuing power of a civic, localized radicalism-and I find that something like this works for Scotland and Wales and some areas of England-then the 'mix' of this would differ greatly from one industrial centre to another. This makes it ipso facto difficult to generalise on a national basis. Biagini has put his stint at Newcastle to good use, and has much new to say about the blend of Methodism, trade unionism and radicalism to be found in the Northumberland and Durham coalfields. I am less convinced by the affinity he implies with south Wales, let alone with other areas of the country. In the 1870s the upward spiral of Welsh coal statistics was only just beginning, while the northern coalfield was 'mature', and not subject to much immigration. The conservative folksiness of Thomas Burt had more mileage ahead of it than Mabon's south Wales version. About the areas in which radicalism was more collectivist-Birmingham for example-Biagini is almost silent, and it is odd to have a lot on Joseph Cowen, the leader of north-eastern Liberalism, without mentioning his opposition to Gladstone on the Eastern Question agitation. Nor is Biagini forthcoming about cities such as Liverpool and Glasgow, where home rule split the Liberal vote and a populist, protestant Conservatism proved successful until 1906 and even beyond. A section on Parliament and community, one feels, ought logically to end with the Chamberlain- Gladstone clash in 1886: Radical Programme plus regional government versus great moral issue and charismatic leadership. One is left thinking that it was the variable nature of regional Liberal strength, as well as ideology, that caused the party to invest so heavily in Westminister and in Gladstone in particular. Biagini sidelines the intellectuals: not a word on Essays on Reform and only a marginal role for the Positivists. This may be too drastic. Fawcett, Thorold Rogers and Dilke were regular fixtures on platforms, and Bryce acted as a channel between the rank-and-file and Gladstone. Further, Biagini's main source, the local and working-class press, raises problems-and opportunities-which he does not tackle adequately. He salts his narrative with extracts from the polemic of local bards and pamphleteers-ranging in literary quality from the appalling to the impressive. But he does not investigate the issue raised by the fact that the radical poet Janet Hamilton on Garibaldi in Scots is touching and impressive: I ca' ye mine, for ye're the brither 0' my ain Wallace; twa sic ither Ne'ever leeved upon the yirth thegither, Blest among women was the mither That bore thee, Garibaldi-, while other more high-falutin' verse from the Beehive, etc., seems almost comic. In his remarkable book, Popular Literature and Society in Victorian Scotland (Aberdeen