Waking up the 90 percent

I began writing this blogpost on 2nd May, having just returned home after voting in the local council elections. The turnout for local elections is never high. The national figure this time was just 32%, so 68% of eligible citizens chose not to exercise their democratic right, even in this most basic sense. In thinking about these elections, and voter apathy, I was reminded of this provocative poster

Waking up the 90% was the underlying aim of the Society for Constitutional Information (SCI). In an Address to the Public published in 1782 the Society expressed its concern that a small number of individuals were effectively disenfranchising their constituents (A Second Address to the Public from the Society for Constitutional Information, London, 1782, p. 9). In this context, the Society claimed to have undertaken the task of 'rousing their countrymen to the defence of their hereditary rights'

Convinced, that those who wish to enslave mankind will always attempt to divert

their attention from the danger which threatens their liberty, till the mortal wound

has been received, they present an antidote to the poisons which have been so

industriously diffused. (Second Address, p. 13).

That antidote was very simple. All it required was the diffusion of political information so as to revive in the minds of the British public 'knowledge of their lost rights' (Address to the public from the Society for Constitutional Information, London, 1780, p. 2). In particular, the SCI wanted to alert the public to the fact that the balance of the British constitution was under threat. The three elements of the constitution - King, Lords, and Commons - were supposed to be in balance, but this required them to be independent of each other. Yet what was increasingly happening, according to reformers, was that the independence of the Commons was being threatened by encroachment from both the King and the House of Lords. This was achieved by various means, including the existence of rotten boroughs and the restriction of the franchise - both of which often gave members of the aristocracy undue influence over the election of MPs. By reviving knowledge among citizens of their lost rights, the Society hoped to restore 'Freedom and Independency to that branch of the legislature that originates from, represents, and is answerable to them' (Address to the public, p. 2). I focused in a previous blogpost on the key elements of the reform agenda. This post will instead explore some of the methods adopted by the SCI to wake up the 90%.

Capel Loft by William Ridley. National Portrait Gallery, NPG D5102. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Central to their approach was the reprinting of tracts analysing the British constitution and setting out the case for reform. In the second meeting of the Society, which was held on 2 May 1780, a resolution dictated details of the font, page size, and paper quality to be used in the tracts reprinted by the Society, and another required the printer to produce for the next meeting a specimen page with an estimate of the cost of printing 1,000 copies (The National Archives (TNA), TS 11/1133). Ten days later it was resolved 'unanimously' that Capel Lofft was to be requested 'to compile a Tract or Tracts, consisting of Extracts' from the works of various authors:

as may clearly define, or describe in few Words the English Constitution; and

particularly what relates to the Rights of the Commons to an equal and complete

Representation in Parliament; to their Independency as the Third Estate of the

Realm; to the Powers delegated to their Representatives, and the Limitations of the

same; and to the Abuses of those Powers.

These principles - and the authors who were explicitly named at that meeting - were reflected in the works that were identified at subsequent meetings as suitable for publication by the Society. In the first two years of the SCI's existence approximately 30 tracts were singled out for printing (with many others being entered into the books of the society). Those identified for printing included: the Society's own publications (such as their two Addresses to the People); works by members such as Major John Cartwright and Dr Joseph Towers; letters, speeches and reports central to the reform campaign; but also older texts identified as relevant to the cause such as John Trenchard's 'The History of Standing Armies' and Bishop Poynet's 'Treatise on Politick Power'.

As well as printing copies of entire tracts and distributing them for free, the Society also selected extracts from key texts to be printed in London newspapers such as the General Advertiser. During the year 1782, at least 23 extracts were selected by the Society for this treatment. Some of these were among those already identified for printing - such as Jeremiah Batley's 'Letter addressed to the people of England &c.' And Mr Bennett's 'Letter to the people of Great Britain', but others - including extracts from James Burgh's Political Disquisitions, Lord Bolingbroke's Dissertation on Parties, and Marchamont Nedham's The Excellency of a Free State - were not. During 1782 The General Advertiser included a regular column reporting SCI business which usually provided an extract from the minutes along with the text selected for inclusion. As time went on, the pages of that publication also became the location for debates concerning the decisions and activities of the Society, for example over its controversial resolution 'on money for ship building' from September 1782.

In addition to covering the costs of printing and attending to the distribution of texts, members of the SCI were also alert to the formats that were most likely to be accessible to members of the general public. In August 1781 the Society asked its members:

to consider of an Address to the Commonalty by way of Dialogue, or in some other

familiar and interesting Form showing how deeply and universally they are

concerned in the Question of equal Representation and new Parliaments every

Session. (TNA: TS 11/1133, 66, 3 August 1781).

Sir William Jones by James Heath, after Sir Joshua Reynolds. National Portrait Gallery. NPG D36735. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

It is not clear whether it was explicitly designed as a response to this request, but William Jones's Dialogue on the Principles of Government Between a Scholar and a Peasant, was seized upon by the Society for this end. On 26 July 1782 the Society ordered 'That Mr Jones's dialogue be entered into the Books of this Society' and on 9 August that it be 'printed in the publick papers' (TNA: TS 11/1133, 98, 100). The full text duly appeared in The General Advertiser on 15 August. The title page acknowledged Jones's membership of the Society (he had been elected an honorary member in March 1782 and regularly attended meetings between 10 May and March 1783) and the Society continued to support both Jones and his brother-in-law William Shipley, the Dean of St Asaph after he was prosecuted for disseminating the work in Wales.

One aspect of dialogue form is that it invites the audience into the narrative, thereby encouraging active engagement over passive reading. The premise behind this dialogue is the circulation of a reform petition that the peasant is reluctant to sign, admitting: 'It is better for us peasants to mind our husbandry, and leave what we cannot comprehend to the King and Parliament.' (William Jones, The Principles of Government; in a dialogue between a Scholar and a Peasant. London, 1782, p. 3). Over the next five pages the scholar succeeds in demonstrating to the peasant that he does have the understanding to engage with the issues surrounding reform. Central to this act of persuasion is the parallel that is drawn between the village friendly society - of which the peasant is a member - and a free state. The peasant already understands what is required for the friendly society to run effectively - including having clear rules to which everyone agrees; removing officers who betray the trust of members; and dealing with offenders who threaten the good of the society, with force if necessary. The scholar explains: 'That a free state is only a more numerous and more powerful club' and as a result the peasant realises that he has 'been a politician all my life without perceiving it' and therefore has all the knowledge required to sign the petition (Jones, The Principles of Government, p. 8). While the approach might seem patronising, the advantage of adopting dialogue form in this context is that readers could be convinced alongside the peasant, while reformers could use the specific arguments deployed by the scholar to persuade others - thereby spreading the desire for reform.

There is not space here to explore in detail the controversy that Jones's pamphlet prompted, but it is worth noting that the concern it aroused was largely due to the audience at which it was directed. In response to the high sheriff of Flintshire's verdict that it was a 'seditious, treasonable, and diabolical' work, the advertisement to a subsequent edition declared that in that case 'Lord Somers' 'was an incendiary' and Locke 'a traitor', the difference, of course, being that these works were not generally read by ordinary people. Shipley's circulation of the work in Wales (which included translating it into Welsh) was a deliberate attempt to broaden its audience. In the end the attempt by the authorities to contain it backfired, since the prosecution and trial drew attention to the work. The SCI reprinted not just the text itself, but also the court proceedings (TNA: TS 11/961) and both were presented as an 'interlude' to be performed at fairs and markets - thereby making it accessible even to those who were illiterate (Michael J. Franklin, 'Jones, Sir William (1746-1794), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).

Dialogue is not a common format for political literature today, yet we do have a recent example of a television dramatisation provoking political action, in the case of 'Mr Bates vs The Post Office'. Perhaps those wanting to reverse modern day voter apathy in the forthcoming General Election would do well to follow the SCI's example and to think not just about the content of manifesto promises, but also about how to present them in an engaging fashion to the electorate.

Experiencing Political Texts 5: Dialogues

In previous blogposts in this series I have discussed the use of fiction for political ends, and the blending of fact and fiction, in Yanis Varoufakis's Another Now (2019) and James Harrington's The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656). One genre in which fact and fiction are often knitted together is the dialogue. Early modern political thinkers made much use of this form, and while Varoufakis's book is not explicitly set out as a conversation it does adopt the essence of that form in its exploration of the views of the three main characters: Iris, Eva and Costa. Moreover, in the Foreword, the narrator Yango Varo admits to the kind of artistic licence or invention that is typical of political dialogues, reporting that:

In an attempt to do full justice to my friends' ideas and points of view, I have found it necessary to recount these debates as if I had been witness to them myself, pretending to inhabit a past from which I was mostly absent, fleshing out conversations I never participated in. (Yanis Varoufakis, Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present, London: The Bodley Head, 2019, p. 6).

There is, of course, an irony here in that Varo is himself a fictional character, but his account of 'fleshing out conversations' describes very accurately what early modern political thinkers were doing when they produced dialogues.

In an article in the Guardian advertising his book, Varoufakis offered some insight into why he chose to examine the views of his characters in this way:

In a bid to incorporate into my socialist blueprint different, often clashing, perspectives I decided to conjure up three complex characters whose dialogues would narrate the story - each representing different parts of my thinking: a Marxist-feminist, a libertarian ex-banker and a maverick technologist. Their disagreements regarding "our" capitalism provide the background against which my socialist blueprint is projected - and assessed. (Yanis Varoufakis, 'Capitalism isn't working. Here's an alternative', The Guardian, 4 September, 2020).

Thus for Varoufakis this form provided him with a means of putting onto paper a dialogue that had been playing out in his own head, and a means of working out some of the conflicts between different commitments and views held by him and other members of society.

Dialogue form was much used by early modern political thinkers and especially by seventeenth-century English advocates of republican government. It could be employed very simply to address and challenge alternative views, or to bring alive a debate between two or more positions, but there are also examples of more sophisticated usage, such as that which is in evidence in a manuscript dialogue written by the seventeenth-century political thinker Algernon Sidney.

Algernon Sidney (1623-1683) is best known for the manner of his death and his posthumous work Discourses Concerning Government, which was published by John Toland and John Darby in 1698. Sidney had fought for parliament during the Civil Wars and had gone into exile on the continent after the return of Charles II to power in 1660. He returned to England in 1677, but was implicated in the Rye House Plot of 1683. An arrest warrant was issued against him on 25 June 1683 and in November of that year he was brought before Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys. Since only one witness would testify against him and two were required for a conviction, the papers confiscated from his desk at the time of his arrest were deployed as a second witness. He was found guilty of treason and was executed on 7 December 1683.

Algernon Sidney by Bernard Picart (Picard) (1724). NPG D30364. Reproduced from the National Portrait Gallery under a Creative Commons licence.

Sidney wrote 'Court Maxims, discussed and refelled' early in 1665. It took the form of a dialogue between two friends Philalethes and Eunomius. Philalethes is a courtier who puts forward the 'court maxims' of the title. These supposedly self-evident propositions are used to argue in favour of monarchical government and the private interests that sustain it. They are challenged by Eunomius, a commonwealthsman, who presents the case for the public or common good and for republican government. While the question of whether Philalethes is ultimately converted by his friend is left open, Eunomius does have the last word insisting that monarchy can rarely be the best form of government. In one sense this is not surprising, since we would expect the author of the Discourses Concerning Government to have favoured the public good over private interests, and republican government over monarchy. Yet the meaning of the names that Sidney gives to his characters complicates the matter. 

The name Philalethes literally translates as 'lover of truth', yet Sidney gives this name not to the character with whom his own sympathies lie, but to the advocate of private interest and absolute monarchy. Eunomius, by contrast, was the name of the 4th Century Bishop of Cyzicus, a controversial figure who challenged the conventional understanding of the Trinity, particularly the relationship between God and Christ. Since anti-Trinitarianism was still considered a heresy in the late seventeenth century this choice of name was provocative.

If we read Philalethes's silence at the end of the dialogue as indicating that he has been converted by Eunomius, then Sidney's point is perhaps simply that the love of truth does eventually win out over Philalethes's personal views and prejudices - or rather over the views he has had to 'conform' himself to at court (Algernon Sidney, Court Maxims, discussed and refelled, ed. Hans Blom and Eco Haitsma Mulier, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 2). As Philalethes explains at the beginning of the dialogue, there is little time at court to examine the truth of things, so he relies instead on what others tell him (p. 9). Moreover, he acknowledges that those court maxims are often at odds with reason. Yet Sidney is perhaps also being deliberately playful in offering as the explicit aim of his dialogue the refutation of self-evident propositions expressed by a lover of truth. He is perhaps implying that what is presented as 'truth' needs to be handled with care - or perhaps even re-conceived - an argument that Eunomius of Cyzicus and others who shared his views in the early years of the church would also have made. Moreover, writing at a time when rule in England had recently shifted from a commonwealth to a monarchy, Sidney perhaps hoped that his readers might apply that lesson in their own world, and examine for themselves the extent to which the attitudes and principles of the new regime were in accordance with reason.