Primrose League

“ Any little bundle of human beings, however small, illiterate, and unimportant, provided only that it was a law unto itself and waved a flag about and insisted upon a cantankerous independence, was regarded as a possible unit by the pedants who devised the League. Any body of people, however numerous, intelligent, and significant in human affairs, provided it had grouped itself into any other larger political aggregation, ceased, on the other hand, to be anything but a merged participator in the League’s affairs. ”

“ Why are your eight score Oneidas absent—the eight score who still remain in the Long House? Surely, brothers, there are sachems among them? Why are they not here? Do you fear they might not agree to the punishment of the Oneida nation?"
I folded my arms and stared at the Mohawks.
"Clan ties are close, national ties closer, but strongest and closest of all, the six iron links that form the Great League! Why do you punish now? How can you punish now? Is it well to break the oldest League law to punish those who have broken the law of the League?" ”

“ The free traders anticipated no more than some miserable compromise, unworthy of acceptance. They did not even anticipate any acknowledgment of the existing distress, which, in the previous session, had been either totally denied by the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, or attributed to temporary causes needing no legislative measure. It was seen, however, that the agitation of the League, and the proofs it had adduced of wide-spread and intense suffering, the result of a selfish, unjust, and cruel legislation, had not been without their effects. ”

“ Finally, we have societies banded together to do battle against rivals on the principle of "Union is strength." These clubs are defensive or aggressive. The latter class includes all trading associations, the object of which is to make profits by out-manœuvring competitors. The former or defensive class includes all the political societies formed for the purpose of resisting the State,—the most aggressive club in existence. Over one hundred of these "protection societies" of one sort and another are now federated under the hegemony of the Liberty and Property Defence League. ”

“ Secret meetings between the capitalists of the Players' League and the National League were held, with the result that the rival clubs in New York, Pittsburg and Chicago were consolidated, this causing the disruption of the Brotherhood. ”

“ Kimmensen's hands crushed his thighs, and he stared grimly at Messerschmidt's back.
"Let's look at the record. You and I are citizens of the Freemen's League. Which is a voluntary organization. Now—who founded the League? Josef Kimmensen. Who's been the only League President we've ever had? Who is the League, by the grace of considerable spellbinding powers and an electorate which—by the very act of belonging to the League—is kept so split up that it's rare when a man gets a chance to talk things out with his neighbor? ”

“ If Peel's measure should become law, then the Council will be compelled to face the question, 'What shall the League do during the three years?' It has struck me that under such circumstances we might absolve the large subscribers from all further calls, put the staff of the League on a peace footing, and merely keep alive a nominal organization to prevent any attempt to undo the good work we have effected. ”

“ The obvious object of all this was to create a schism in the League, now beginning to exercise a power which might be very dangerous to men in office, to whom "certain dogmas called principles" are not often acceptable. If a portion of that body could be induced to declare for ministers and their "moderate" fixed duty, while another portion called "impracticables" demanded total repeal, the Association would be broken up or rendered powerless. The League, however, adhered to its declared constitution and justified the proceedings of its deputation to Walsall. ”

“ They were the representatives of three millions of the people—they were the evidence that the great towns had banded themselves together, and their alliance would be a Hanseatic League against the feudal Corn-Law plunderers. ”

“ He had found that morning in his telescribe receiver the Trafalgar Chambers manifesto which had been flashed to friend and foe alike. He had read it with a frown; it savoured of impertinence that it should be sent to him. He finished it with a laugh, half-contemptuous, half-annoyed. He saw that it was a stupid move unless the League had abandoned all hope of forming the League-Labour alliance ”

“ Most people’s ideas of the League fall between these extremes. They want the League to be something more than an ethical court, they want a League that will act, but on the other hand they shrink from any loss of “our independence.” ”

“ Nothing but the loyal co-operation of members is required to ensure the triumph of those Principles of Government which the League has always advocated, and a complete attainment of the object for which the League came into existence. ”

“ In his annual address of 1886 he declared:
“This League is the only organized and authentic national representative of the reform sentiment. I challenge any man to show that it has in any degree, or at any time, betrayed the trust voluntarily assumed by it, with the approval of the locally organized friends of reform, of honestly and adequately representing that sentiment, and its criticisms and demands upon political parties and public men. The League has pandered to no personal ambition, to no party purpose. ”

“ Any member of the League which has violated any covenant of the League may be declared to be no longer a member of the League by a vote of the council concurred in by the representatives of all the other members of the League represented thereon. ”

“ Fifty thousand pounds may be raised by the League, if they'll only tell the country that the money is wanted, and that it is wanted to accomplish our object by the beginning of the session of Parliament. I am sure that the money is wanted, and I tell you of it now, least you should be taken by surprise, and should produce any ill consequences. (Laughter.) I tell you now that the chairman and council of the League are determined to raise £50,000 in the country. They'll lay an assessment upon the country ”

“ A further and a more energetic agitation for five years more, and five years more of intense suffering on the part of the people, were required to bring them to the recognition of thoroughly free-trade principles.
The League had not been disheartened by the defeat of the whig ministers, for they had rather stood in its way than helped it; and their tardy conversion had been only half-way to its principles. The union of every class of monopolists in support of the one great monopoly was only an to incentive renewed and additional activity. ”

“ There are scruples to be overcome, but I do not think that an alliance with the moderate section of the Labour interest is inconsistent with the aims and traditions of the great parties which our League represents. ”

“ The members of the secret revolutionary organisation were to capture the representation at the coming Land League Convention, to act unitedly in the development of a policy in harmony with the Clan-na-Gael, and to officer the future executive in such a way as to prevent further misunderstanding. In order to do all this, the Clan-na-Gael men were to obtain election as League, or Ancient Order of Hibernian, delegates, the latter organisation being a purely benevolent body, whose branches had largely affiliated with the League or open movement from the start. ”

“ After commenting on an article of seventy pages in the Quarterly Review, and of tracts published in defence of the landowners' monopoly, he said:—
"I wish that they would let their tracts go out side by side with the anti-corn-law pamphlets, eight bales of which are sent off this night by the League— (cheers) —that the people might read one and then the other. I have no doubt that the mind of any man in his senses would come out right from the perusal. (Great cheering.) Now the League has arrived at a point when it is requisite that we should be exceedingly cautious in our proceedings. ”

“ While largely recruiting by the device of holding out a suggestion of some indefinite and effective political scheme, the policy of the League will be that of laisser faire, and its influence may be safely ignored. Very little of its vast income is spent in propagandism or organisation. ”

“ The League is not a dual union in any sense of the word. It is purely an educational organization. It issues no membership cards, collects no dues, and gives out no charters. To join it all that is necessary is to belong to some mass labor union, accept the principles of the League, and subscribe to its official organ, The Labor Herald. ”

“ You know that in Manchester and Rochdale, and many other towns, where the people are enlightened enough to see the truth, they have the power to return whom they like. Even when a monopolist candidate has dared to show his face here, he has always found it necessary, at least, to put on the garb of a free trader. ( Laughter ) Now I wish the League to go on in this course. I believe the farmers are as anxious for good laws as we are, if they could but see the light. ”

“ I think, too, it justifies my reiterated assertion that the constitution of the League is so hopeless, so childish, so diplomatically conceived and useless, that nothing but reorganisation from the ground upward can give us a proper organ for the expression of the real need and desire for unity in the world. ”

“ Does this League of Nations which has been created by the covenant of 1919 contain within it the germ of any permanent{v2-584} federation of human effort? Will it grow into something for which, as Stallybrass says, men will be ready to “work whole-heartedly and, if necessary, fight”—as hitherto they have been willing to fight for their country and their own people? There are few intimations of any such enthusiasm for the League at the present time. The League does not even seem to know how to talk to common men. ”

“ He believed a large number, at least, of the League and its friends and supporters, would say they had tried every means in their power, in the present state of the suffrage, to obtain a redress of their grievances, and they had tried them all in vain; they must now join the ranks of those who were struggling for a radical reform in the representation of the people, convinced at length that the rights of humanity and justice could not otherwise be obtained. ”

“ And it, and it alone, must carry on, and carry on in public, negotiations with powers outside the league. All disputes that may arise between members of the league must be settled by judicial process. And none of the forces of the league must be available for purposes of aggression by any member against any other. ”

“ The student of current political tendencies will do well to keep an eye on the League, as it has gained a strong foothold in the Northwest, and the co-operative features of its platform satisfy an old craving of the farmer for State assistance in the management of his business. ”

“ It is undoubtedly incumbent on the agricultural body to lose no farther time in counteracting the pernicious schemes of the Anti-Corn Law League. The members of that League, many of them unprincipled schemers, whilst of those members who may claim credit for honesty of purpose, there are but few, of whom it may be alleged that they are at best conceited socialists. ”

“ Mr. Bolton, of Wolverhampton, the law agent for the candidate, not trusting his principal to reply, loudly asked if the League would not prefer Mr. Lyttelton, who was a liberal, and friendly to revision of the Corn Laws, to Mr. Gladstone, who was a tory and a supporter of protection? Mr. Acland said: "Do you ask me publicly before the electors?" Mr. Bolton said he did. Mr. Acland said he could only answer for himself; but there were two respectable members of the Council of the League who could answer for that body. ”

“ This League is not more or less that the germ of Australian independence (sic) . The die is cast, and fate has stamped upon the movement its indelible signature. No power on earth can restrain the united might and headlong strides for freedom of the people of this country, and we are lost in amazement while contemplating the dazzling panorama of the Australian future (Great works) . We salute the League [but not the trio, Vern, Kennedy, Humffray] , and tender our hopes and prayers for its prosperity [in the shape of a goodly pile of half-crowns] . ”

“ Where the independent unions are strong numerically and actually function as mass organizations the League shall do its utmost to upbuild and maintain them. But such unions shall not war against the old organizations nor pull individual or local unions away from them. ”

“ The Gueux league, in short, had now given to things an entirely different form. The murmurs of the people, hitherto impotent and despised, as being the cries of individuals, had, now that they were concentrated, become formidable; and had gained power, direction, and firmness through union. Every one who was rebelliously disposed now looked on himself as the member of a venerable and powerful body, and believed that by carrying his own complaints to the general stock of discontent he secured the free expression of them. To be called an important acquisition to the league flattered the vain ”

“ No set of men could handle it except under a well-matured and adequately-managed organization, worked out in detail from top to bottom.
We may not place one man in this League above another, for all were equal in their unselfish loyalty, from private to general, from operative to inspector, and from inspector to National Directors; but it is necessary to set down the basic facts of the inception of the League in order that the vast volume and usefulness of its labors properly may be understood. ”