13. A Chartist Manifesto on the Sacred Month [William Lovett, Life and Struggles, p. 214], 1839.
We respectfully submit the following propositions for your serious consideration[372]:—
That at all the simultaneous public meetings to be held for the purpose of petitioning the Queen to call good men to her councils, as well as at all subsequent meetings of your unions or associations up to the 1st of July, you submit the following questions to the people there assembled:—
1. Whether they will be prepared, at the request of the Convention, to withdraw all sums of money they may individually or collectively have placed in savings banks, private banks, or in the hands of any person hostile to their just rights?
2. Whether, at the same request, they will be prepared immediately to convert all their paper money into gold and silver?
3. Whether, if the Convention shall determine that a sacred month will be necessary to prepare the millions to secure the charter of their political salvation, they will firmly resolve to abstain from their labours during that period, as well as from the use of all intoxicating drinks?
4. Whether, according to their old constitutional right—a right which modern legislators would fain annihilate—they have prepared themselves with the arms of freemen to defend the laws and constitutional privileges their ancestors bequeathed to them?
[372] Addressed to the Chartist Convention.
14. The Rochdale Pioneers [Industrial Co-operation, Ed. Catherine Webb, pp. 68-9], 1844.
The objects of this Society are to form arrangements for the pecuniary benefit and improvement of the social and domestic condition of its members, by raising a sufficient amount of capital, in shares of one pound each, to bring into operation the following plans and arrangements:—