The "Star" and the
"Daily Chronicle" took care to publish these resolutions, and everything
was done, which skilful agitators knew, to make a popular demand for a
social reform programme. We did what all active politicians in a
democratic country must do; we decided what the people ought to want,
and endeavoured to do two things, which after all are much the same
thing, to make the people want it, and to make it appear that they
wanted it. The result--how largely attributable to our efforts can
hardly now be estimated--was the Newcastle Program, reluctantly blessed
by Mr. Gladstone and adopted by the National Liberal Federation in
1891.[28]
The General Election of 1892 was anticipated with vivid interest. Since
the election of 1886 English Socialism had come into being and Trade
Unionism had been transformed by the rise of the Dockers, and the other
"new" unions of unskilled labour. But a Labour Party was still in the
future, and our Election Manifesto (Tract 40), issued in June, bluntly
tells the working classes that until they form a party of their own they
will have to choose between the parties belonging to the other classes.
The Manifesto, written by Bernard Shaw, is a brilliant essay on labour
in politics and a criticism of both the existing parties; it assures
the working classes that they could create their own party if they cared
as much about politics as they cared for horse-racing (football was not
in those days the typical sport); and it concludes by advising them to
vote for the better, or against the worse, man, on the ground that
progress was made by steps, a step forward was better than a step
backward, and the only thing certain is the defeat of a party which
sulks and does not vote at all.
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