ABSTRACT
The objects proposed for the new body were thus clearly meant to be political as well as industrial, and from the first the Council was actively engaged in various forms of political agitation on behalf of Trade Unionism. George Potter created in 1866 the London Working Men's Association, a primarily political body, which became for a time a lesser rival to the Trades Council. Mr. and Mrs. Webb have given to the group of men who now began, from London, to dominate the Trade Union Movement, the name of "the Junta". Again and again in the past history of the movement similar committees had been established, either to deal with a big strike or to organise resistance to some actual or proposed legal oppression, or to demand some particular reform. The Council became in effect not a mere joint committee of the London trades, but a central Cabinet for the Trade Union Movement as a whole.
