even if that means a permanent split in the lesson of Inexorably, as this strike continues and the stakes become clear tor all to for whole Photo: JOHN STURROCK Icals. EVERY YEAR the trade union movement honours six labourers from the Dorset village of Tolpuddle. These six men are remembered - and rightly so -their heroic dignitied defence of working people's right to organise.
Tolpuddle has gone down in the annals of the workers' movement as one of the first and most important steps towards building a trade union movement in Britain. Tolpuddle has a significance far beyond trade unionism and repression of elementary rights.
It should also be remembered as an example of how the ruling class controls the courts, the judiciary and the paraphernalia of law-making and how it manipulates these, to serve its own interests. The martyrs, as the Tolpuddle six were known, were charged with using 'unlawful oaths' under an act of 1797.
AtelI leader George described how they came to see the need to organise as farmers in the area kept reducing wages below even the low rates paid in the surrounding area.
He says: 'From this time we were reduced to seven shillings a week, and Shortly after they told us they lower us to six shillings ... The labouring men consulted together what had better be done, as they knew it was impossible to live honestly on such scanty 'I had seen at different times accounts of trade societies; I told them of this and they village form a friendly society ... shortly after two delegates from a trade society paid us a visit ... gave us directions how to proceed...' To stop themselves families starving these labourers formed a society to defend themselves. Such audacity brought down on their heads Ine wratn or the landowners and thi establishment. At that time the Whig government was becoming increasingly disturbed at the reports of trade unions But being set up among the farm labourers.
The then Home Melbourne, had family connections in Dorset and he engaged change of letters with the presiding magistrate, one James Frampton, and Lord Digby who was Lord Lieutenant of the county. The three of them decided that the men from Tolpuddle should be made an example of.
Trial Justice and so-called impartiality neverene cho ner cosceao. In fact these three worthies were not even sure what law to use. Loveless matters have never troubled our worthy Lords for very long. Melbourne told magistrate Frampton to try an act of seditious meetings under which any group whose members undertook DallN authorised by law would be regarded as LESI unlawtul combinations. This was used despite the repeal of the Combination Acts in 1817 whereby trade unions had ceased to be legal. Then Lord Melbourne thought there might be a loophole in the 1817 Act under which they had been detained. But not to be outdone he and his advisors at the Home Office suggested willingly consented to Act.
their ed to Secretary, Lord Signals Derore tne web'.
But such sentence.' aimed at Currenti and assemblies' Tolpuddle not required trade unionism. linking their offence to the 1797 Mutiny The ambiguous wording of this Act meant it could be used agains! groups other than the armed forces for whom it had been specifically drafted.
The 1797 Act had another advan. tage in the eyes of the government and the landowners it carried heavier sentences such as deportation. During - the trial the judge made clear why the six men were in the dock when he explained that if trade unions were allowcontinue 'they would masters, cause a stagnation in trade and destroy property.' From beginning to end their trial was a political frame up. In her book The Tolpuddle Martyrs Joyce Marlow explains that they were as good as guilty trial began and describes their conviction as 'a beautifully spun Even The Times wrote: 'The crimes which called for punishment were not ape prisoners did not justity ehe prisoners justify The defendants were all sentenced to seven years deportations and despite great protests and demands it was two before they were pardoned. showed that behind that great facade of alleged majesty and dignity with which British law invests itself there stands a naked, vindictive class interest. It was used against the martyrs of Tolpuddle and in the 150 years since their trial, it has been used to attack and deny the working class Those labour leaders who put the law above the rights of the working class enter — albeit unwittingly — into a conspiracy against the interests of
Socialist Action 29 June 1984 Kent explains that the middle ground