ABSTRACT
The Observer’s equivocal attitude toward Labour was especially evident by the time John Wheatley began work for the Catholic organ. Since Roman Catholics in Britain were mostly of the working class, Wheatley’s co-religionists as a group suffered more from social inequality and injustice than the working men of other religious denominations. Wheatley declared that devout Catholics ought to contemn an economic society which made indifference the norm and compassion the exception. In contrast to Devas’ meliorism, improvement within the Liberal and capitalist framework, Wheatley argued that the workers’ conditions of life would never be happy in a system which encouraged individualism and competition. The problem was to transform general dissatisfaction with Liberalism into active support for Labour candidates, and Wheatley appeared to understand that until the non-Catholic and Irish workers could support the same candidates, the working-class movement would continue to suffer.
