seekers and traitors, they were honest, courageous men, and many of
them were endowed with considerable talent of other kinds. But now
that the times called for immediate action, came forward the men
capable of setting it on foot; and a new network of workmen's
associations grew up very speedily, whose avowed single object was
the tiding over of the ship of the community into a simple condition
of Communism; and as they practically undertook also the management
of the ordinary labour-war, they soon became the mouthpiece and
intermediary of the whole of the working classes; and the
manufacturing profit-grinders now found themselves powerless before
this combination; unless THEIR committee, Parliament, plucked up
courage to begin the civil war again, and to shoot right and left,
they were bound to yield to the demands of the men whom they
employed, and pay higher and higher wages for shorter and shorter
day's work. Yet one ally they had, and that was the rapidly
approaching breakdown of the whole system founded on the World-Market
and its supply; which now became so clear to all people, that the
middle classes, shocked for the moment into condemnation of the
Government for the great massacre, turned round nearly in a mass, and
called on the Government to look to matters, and put an end to the
tyranny of the Socialist leaders.

"Thus stimulated, the reactionist plot exploded probably before it
was ripe; but this time the people and their leaders were forewarned,
and, before the reactionaries could get under way, had taken the
steps they thought necessary.

"The Liberal Government (clearly by collusion) was beaten by the
Conservatives, though the latter were nominally much in the minority.
The popular representatives in the House understood pretty well what