Sette Giugno: Petition, Dispatch and Crowd
You are writing a timed essay on the causes of the Sette Giugno riots in Malta on 7 June 1919. The examiner provides four extracts. Extract A, the governor's dispatch of 10 June, blames 'seditious agitators' who 'misled the labouring classes' and notes that 4 people were killed and 17 wounded. Extract B, a Labour Party petition of 15 May, records that bread had risen from 1d to 3.5d per loaf, that 4,000 dockyard workers faced reduced hours, and that a public meeting had been banned. Extract C, a merchant's diary entry of 7 June, says the crowd included 'women demanding bread' and that a police officer fired after being struck. Extract D, a later nationalist history, calls the riot 'the first blow for Maltese self-government'. You must explain why the riots occurred and assess which extract is most useful for each part of your explanation. You have 40 minutes.
1. How would you weigh economic grievance against political agitation in explaining the riots?
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Economic grievance and political agitation should be weighed as levels of explanation, not as rival slogans. Extract B shows the material background: bread rose from 1d to 3.5d, 4,000 dockyard workers faced reduced hours, and a public meeting was banned. Those conditions created anger and a sense of injustice. Extract A, the governor's dispatch, has an interest in blaming 'seditious agitators' because it shifts responsibility away from the colonial administration and the food supply. Extract C's merchant diary supports the presence of women demanding bread, which suggests the crowd was not simply a party machine. Political networks could organise and give direction, but they did not invent the shortage. The best explanation is therefore multi-causal: economic hardship supplied motive and numbers; political leadership and the banning of meetings supplied opportunity and grievance; the police shooting supplied the fatal trigger.
2. Which extract is least reliable for establishing causation, and why?
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Extract D is the least reliable for establishing causation because it was written later and frames the riot as 'the first blow for Maltese self-government'. That is a teleological reading: it makes 1919 meaningful in the light of later constitutional development. It may tell us how later nationalists remembered the event, but it cannot prove what motivated the crowd. Extract A is also interested, but it is closer in time and official. Extract C is closer still but limited to one diarist's view. Reliability depends on the question: for the governor's attitude, A is excellent; for the price of bread, B is better; for crowd composition, C is useful but partial.
3. Write a thesis sentence for the essay and explain how it would organise your use of the extracts.
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A strong thesis sentence would be: 'The Sette Giugno riots were produced by wartime and post-war economic distress, especially food-price inflation and dockyard unemployment, which political organisation converted into a challenge to colonial authority, while the banning of meetings and the police shooting turned protest into violence.' This sentence ranks causes without denying any. It also sets up the source analysis: B for economic distress, A for official framing, C for the crowd, D for memory. The candidate should avoid saying the riots were caused only by 'hunger' or only by 'agitators'.