ABSTRACT
The Reform Act of 1867 and the critical situation of the Trade Unions in relation to the law turned the attention of the working-class leaders to parliamentary action. It was in 1867, the year of the Reform Act, that the London Working Men's Association launched its movement for working-class representation in Parliament, The great legal struggle of the Trade Unions was just beginning; and from the first the L.W.M.A. appealed directly to the organised working-class movement. In 1869 the Labour Representation League was formed, practically as a successor to the National Reform League. In about half a dozen constituencies, moreover, the Conservatives nominated either no candidate, or only one for two seats, thus leaving the Labour man a free run against the Liberal. Meanwhile, at the Trades Union Congress, the question of Labour representation was a matter of annual debate.
