ment. The presence of Dr. Wade at Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Birmingham was very significant. Wade had been a member of the old Birmingham Union in 1832, and had created a storm by advocating the formation of a Working Men's Union on the ground that middle-class leadership could not possibly be satisfactory to working men. Middle-class people would invariably be attracted by speculative bubble schemes which would depreciate labour.[1] He used the language of militant Owenism of which he, Vicar of Warwick as he was, was a prop and pillar. He was in fact a Christian Socialist of an early generation and a pronounced type. He was active in various purely Owenite societies in London and a member of the semi-Owenite National Union of the Working-Classes. For his temerity the Birmingham Union proposed to exclude him, and it is probable that the old leaders of the new Union were not pleased to be haunted by his presence and his continual thrusting forward of the Charter.[2] The London W.M.A. had other reasons for suspecting the Attwoodites besides class prejudice. They did not like the Currency Scheme. O'Brien, who borrowed some currency lore from Attwood, thought his plans unsound and said so.
The Currency Scheme was in truth a great source of weakness. The Attwoodites had obtained popular support by promising immediate benefit for both master and man from the adoption of their scheme. When the political programme was added, a body of supporters was obtained who were far more concerned for the vote than for paper money. Place indeed did not hesitate to ascribe the collapse, not only of the Birmingham Union, but also of the whole movement, to the Currency Scheme. Attwood and his lieutenants, he declared, were not at all eager for the Petition and Charter, and started the movement for Universal Suffrage as a means of intimidating Government to accept the Currency notion. Hence they were always ready to let it drop. This conduct played into the hands of the violent leaders.[3] Place further maintained that the Attwoodites themselves considered with some misgiving the possibility that a Parliament, elected by Universal Suffrage, might not care to legislate about the Currency, either because the question was not understood or because a remedy could not be devised to suit all opinions.[4] This is certainly a damaging
