ABSTRACT
The working-men's dwellings between Oldfield Road and Cross Lane (Salford), where a mass of courts and alleys are to be found in the worst possible state, vie with the dwellings of the Old Town in filth and overcrowding. At all times there were naturally many unsnobbish people in the working class who remained indifferent to the social effects of affluence or poverty on those about them and who judged others not at all by their place and possessions. Class divisions were of the greatest consequence, although their implications remained unrealised: the many looked upon social and economic inequality as the law of nature. The class struggle, as manual workers in general knew it, was apolitical and had place entirely within their own society. Before 1914 the great majority in the lower working class were ignorant of Socialist doctrine in any form, whether 'Christian' or Marxist.
