Page:The Chartist Movement.djvu/118

 Charter." The United Kingdom should be divided into two hundred equal electoral districts returning one member each. Every person (women included) above twenty-one years old should be entitled to be registered as a voter after six months' residence. Parliament should be re-elected annually on June 24, Midsummer Day. The only qualification for candidates should be nomination by at least two hundred electors. Voting should be by ballot. Parliament should sit from the first Monday in October until its business for the year was accomplished. It was to rise in any case not later than the first of September following. The hours of business were to be from 10 to 4  The salary of each member was fixed at £400 a year.

The petition is interesting as a sample of popular radical theory, which preserved a strong flavour of abstract doctrine long after the middle-class radicals had become disciples of Bentham in theory and opportunists in practice. It is noteworthy that this original conception of universal suffrage included women's suffrage, a demand which the Charter afterwards abandoned. The belief that Government, as it then existed, was maintained by force or fraud was not allowed to remain a mere statement of a theory. It explains the faith of many later Chartists in the power and influence of mass demonstrations which were expected to prove to the Government that its physical force foundation was no longer sound.

The meeting at the Crown and Anchor aroused the interest of the small group of radical members of Parliament which included Sir William Molesworth, Daniel O'Connell, Hindley, Sharman Crawford, Joseph Hume, John Arthur Roebuck, and others. These encouraged the Association to continue its public exertions. The leaders of the Association began to sound their parliamentary friends as to the possibility of getting the question of universal suffrage introduced into the House of Commons. A conference was arranged between the two groups, and took place on May 31 and June 7, 1837. The basis of discussion was the petition of February drawn as a bill. Most of the members of Parliament were disinclined to present a bill of so sweeping a character, and suggested a policy of opportunism and reform by instalments. O'Connell was specially zealous in his advocacy of the "fourpence in the shilling policy," but his suggestions met with little approval. The working men were not prepared