In this second and final part, RAY GOODSPEED looks at the reporting of the sudden end of the strike and its aftermath (9-17 May). Part one (here) looked at the first four issues of the paper.
The 10 May edition of The British Worker, marked the beginning of the second week of the strike. It reported on actions of the government and comments by spokespeople such as Winston Churchill which increased tension as the strike showed no sign of weakening.
Churchill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was the editor of the British Gazette and had been presenting the strike as a revolutionary movement, requiring a “fight to the finish”. He had engineered a whole set of semi-military manoeuvres designed to create alarm in the population.
The BW, typically, cited a speech by the Tory Prime Minister, Baldwin, presenting him as a voice of moderation due to his not mentioning the word revolution in his address to the nation. It tried to split the establishment by claiming that the churches had told Mr Baldwin that talk of revolution was “rubbish” and that it was merely a dispute about miners’ wages. They also quoted, anonymously, a representative of “big employers” who were allegedly “angry”:
“We have to work with Trade Unionists afterwards. A fight to the finish such as Churchill talks about is all nonsense.”
The BW mocked Churchill’s “stunt”:
“Thus all the display of steel-helmeted troops, all the tearing about in motor cars filled with special constables, all the hints of the Home Secretary that the regular police are wanted ‘for perhaps sterner work’, all the clatter about the country being in danger of civil war, have failed of their object. The nation has kept its head in spite of the alarming tricks played upon it. Mr Churchill has failed again and everyone knows it.”
It welcomed (10 May) the comments of the Archbishop of Canterbury that: “There is a whole-hearted and general desire not only for a reasonable, but for a generous settlement of whatever presses hardly upon the poorest section of wage-earners.”
Military convoy
The BW played down any military involvement, reporting (10 May) that a “meat convoy” had been escorted by soldiers in armoured cars through the East End of London. It stressed that the convoy only moved about 150 tons of meat, compared to the thousands of tons a day normally moved by dockers who were now on strike. The paper talked of dockers’ pickets calmly lining the streets and even waving at the soldiers.
The trade union and Labour Party leaders were keen, through the pages of The British Worker to proclaim their indignation at a suggestion by Baldwin that the strike was led “by a relatively small body of extremists.”
“It is impossible that Lord Balfour can suppose Mr Pugh, Mr Thomas, Mr Bevin and other members of the General Council, who have always been moderate, reasonable men, to have been suddenly transformed into “extremists” as rash and reckless as Mr Churchill himself.”
This kind of cringing and the appeals to Baldwin’s honour and goodwill were typical.
Meanwhile, J H Thomas, a Labour MP and a member of the TUC General Council, effusively spoke of the “most wonderful display of solidarity the world has ever seen”. In the same speech, however, he declared that he: “had never been in favour of a general strike.” The BW reported that he went on to show that:
“in spite of the efforts of himself and his colleagues in begging and pleading for peace, the struggle was forced upon them at the last minute by the Government.”
At a different public meeting the miners’ leader, Herbert Smith, reminded people that:
“Apart from the question of pay, remember that every five hours, a man or boy is killed in the mine; everyday 850 are maimed – some for life.”
The more left-wing General Secretary of the Miners’ Federation, A J Cook, asked in a speech:
“Is peace possible? Yes, Yes I repeat. We are not fighting the Constitution. This is a fight for bread. What are the terms of peace? A living wage. We are not asking for the impossible. We are not claiming the moon.”
On 11 May, the front page noted government supporters switching from scare stories about revolution, to claiming that the strike was crumbling. The paper was clear:
“This is as much a fabrication as the other. The number of strikers has not diminished: it is increasing. There are more workers out today than there have been at any moment since the strike began.”
Strike more solid than at the start
Reports from all over the UK, in the 10 May issue, make it clear that the strike was more solid now, after a week, than it was at the start. Scotland was “at a standstill”, with “more coming out and none going back”. Dozens of reports from other cities and towns said the same thing. Cotton mills in Bolton were closing due to transport difficulties, even though the workers were not on strike.
In fact, two new sections of workers had just been called out: engineering shops and shipyards. The paper described, on 13 May, these workers’ “magnificent response”. Harry Hopkins of the AEU (engineering union) said, “he has never known the men so eager or enthusiastic as in this fight for a decent standard of existence.” Workers in Paris had acted to prevent the Daily Mail from printing extra copies there.
Attempts to use scab labour on the railways had resulted in many accidents; the worst one outside Edinburgh, resulting in three deaths and 16 people injured! In Bradford, 7,000 “operative dyers” walked out because of the use of blackleg (scab) transport. This was a common story in many areas, of workers joining the strike in protest at the use of blacklegs, as well as workers joining unions in large numbers so as to join in the strike.
A visiting American journalist from Chicago travelled 700 miles around the country reporting on how solid the strike was. He is quoted as saying: “So far as I can gather from what I have seen up to now, English industrial life is at a standstill.” The paper reports that, “Many owners of factories frankly admitted to the correspondent that they never believed the men would obey their unions to the extent they did.”
News of collections from other workers and from “middle-class areas” were coming in, including £60 from Oxford University Labour Club. On 13 May, BW reported regular collections in middle class areas such as Welwyn Gardn City. At a meeting in Bedford Palace the paper oddly reported that a black person handed in a pound to the collection for the strike.
The Protestant Archbishop of Dublin is quoted (11 May) as saying that “disastrous as the General Strike may be, it is the symptom of something more disastrous – the unequal distribution of wealth.”
Strike called off – astonishment and anger
On 12 May, the strike, to widespread astonishment and anger, was suddenly called off. There was no issue of the paper on that day. Presumably, the uncertainty caused by last minute discussions made it difficult to edit and publish.
The headline on the following day (13 May) tried to sound upbeat and jubilant – “Great Strike Terminated – Trades Union Congress General Council satisfied that miners will now get a fair deal – How Peace Came”
The truth, however, was that the General Council called off the strike after discussions with a mediator, Sir Herbert Samuel, which committed the government to absolutely nothing. The General Council went in to see the Prime Minister, based on Samuel’s “Memorandum”, received nothing in the way of firm guarantees, but called off the strike anyway. It was a shocking capitulation, however the TUC tried to spin it.
For the avoidance of any doubt, Samuel wrote to the General Council on 12 May, stating plainly:
“I have made it clear to your committee from the outset that I have been acting entirely on my own initiative, have received no authority from the Government, and can give no assurances on their behalf.”
He undertook merely to recommend acceptance of the proposals to the government.
The General Council declared, via the BW (13 May) that:
“The proposals, if approached and operated in a spirit of whole-hearted co-operation between all parties concerned should result in a more equitable and durable relationship than has hitherto existed in the Coal Mining Industry.”
TUC leaders
At best, the TUC leaders were extremely naïve; at worst they knew they had betrayed the strike, but dressed it up meaningless verbiage and weasel words.
The Memorandum, even if accepted by the Government in full, was pitifully weak. Negotiations would recommence once the strike was ended and the subsidies to the coal industry reinstated for “a reasonable period” to allow negotiations to proceed.
A National Wages Board would be set up with equal representatives from the unions and the coal owners and “a neutral element” and independent chairman – an obvious trap. This Board would decide wage levels and resolve other disputes.
No “revision of previous wage rates” would be implemented until the recommendations of the Coal Commission had been adopted and the industry re-organised. But if, after trying to deal with the financial difficulties of the industry, it was found to be “absolutely necessary” then wage cuts were back on the table. So much for the General Strike slogan “Not a penny off the pay, not a second on the day!”
The Memorandum did suggest that there should be no wage cuts for the lowest paid, and that a minimum wage should be fixed at a reasonable level for the mining industry. But neither the Government not the coal owners had agreed to these demands before the general strike was terminated.
Churchill’s British Gazette understood the situation very well – describing it as “Total Surrender!”, leading J H Thomas MP to complain that the Gazette had gone out to 2,000,000 men who had refused to surrender to the Germans and that “they could imagine the bitterness that followed.”
Bosses thirsting for revenge
Workers who obeyed the instruction to return to work were met with widespread attempts to reduce their wages and conditions by employers thirsting for revenge. The unions for the rail workers and dockers then instructed their members to stay on strike, as did the GMW, in a mood of greater anger than was expressed during the general strike itself.
Ramsay McDonald MP, in the House of Commons, declared that there were more workers on strike on 13 May, after the strike had been called off, than there were the day before (BW 14 May).
The General Council advised workers not to sign any individual agreement to reduce wages and conditions, and to contact their union for instructions.
The TUC leaders were full of indignation and outrage, and fiery defiance:
“Let there be no mistake. The Trade Union Movement is not suing for mercy. It is not beaten, it is not broken. Its strength is unimpaired and even reinforced by the solidarity which the response to the General Strike revealed. If one class of employers, misinterpreting the calling off of the strike, thinks it can seize the opportunity to disrupt and degrade the Trade Union Movement, the situation is grave indeed. To that, the Movement cannot and will not submit.”
However, the last thing they wanted was to reinstate the general strike, and they were desperate to resolve what they called a “difficult situation.” They made frantic appeals to Baldwin’s honour – to his “sacred promise” – and asked him to intervene to stop the victimisation. They even accused employers of “deliberately and maliciously defying His Majesty’s appeal for peace.”
Baldwin coolly replied in Parliament that “he had given only one pledge, and that to those who helped the Government, that they should not suffer.”
He said that he was against any attempt to reduce wages and conditions and that the “whole of the Government’s influence would be cast on the side of tolerance,” but that, of course, he had no power to coerce employers. In other words, he would do nothing beyond issuing fine words. McDonald, in Parliament, was left pathetically fulminating (to Labour cheers) that, “When peace came and a fight was over, the first thing the combatants on both sides did was to shake hands. This has not happened today!” (BW 14 May).
On 15 May, the BW main article reported that, “During the whole of yesterday, discussions were going on between Trade Union officials and employers with the object of removing difficulties in the way of returning to work”, and that Baldwin had presented his proposals to both sides in the coal dispute, including some but not all of the proposals in the Memorandum. Crucially, it still called for a reduction of wages for miners.
Thomas’s appalling rail deal
To get rail workers back to work, J R Thomas agreed an appalling deal with the rail bosses. Workers who had been on strike would only be taken on “as soon as work could be found for them,” starting with more senior grades. The union agreed that it had “committed a wrongful act” against the companies, who reserved their right to claim damages.
The unions undertook not to call a strike without negotiation; not to give support to members taking “unauthorised action”; and not to encourage some groups of supervisory staff to take action. “Certain employees” would be transferred (with no loss of pay) but this would not include any worker guilty of “violence or intimidation”. Such transfers were clearly a threat to union activists.
Thomas described this as an “eminently satisfactory settlement”, signed by the union leaders and the bosses in the spirit of a “genuine desire to do all that is humanly possible immediately to restart the wheels of industry.” Yet, the same day’s paper (15 May) was celebrating how rail workers were still solidly on strike, along with dockers, many transport workers, electrical workers and many other kinds of workers all over the country, some of whom had resumed work but come out on strike again to protect their terms and conditions.
The 15 May issue carried an angry article – “The Next Step” – responding to those who, “without scruple”, had termed the calling off of the strike by the General Council an “unconditional surrender”. It mentioned the opponents of the strike but was clearly aimed more at those “even those in our own ranks” whose words were used to discredit the TUC leaders. It launched into a righteous self-justification of their actions.
But in spite of all that, the article itself makes plain the timidity and naivety of these honourable gentlemen:
“There are no official undertakings and no official assurances but the position is one where the basis for agreement obviously satisfies men of honour concerned to make peace”
The fact that this impassioned front page article was considered necessary in order to defend the General Council’s reputation, gives an indication, in itself, of the fury with which the decision to call off the strike was received by many rank-and-file workers.
The 11th and final issue of The British Worker came out on 17 May, leading with the news that the Miners Federation was considering Baldwin’s proposals. In the meantime, the lockout in the mines was still in operation and A J Cook issued a desperate plea for money to help the 1,000,000 miners and their 5,000,000 family members. It reported on many collections throughout the Labour movement, including a cheque from Russian miners for £260,000.
Miners fight on isolated and abandoned
In the event, the miners later rejected the government proposals and struggled on, isolated and abandoned, for six months until they were finally starved back to work.
The dockers were gradually returning to work after an agreement was signed by Ernest Bevin, which included, almost word for word, the same restrictions on trade unions that were in Thomas’s rail agreement.
Rail workers were returning to work though they were “inclined to object” and the paper lists many examples where they had to be persuaded back to work by the union leaders. In particular, the clause admitting wrong doing by the unions in calling the strike and reserving the right of the bosses to sue for damages was apparently explained away as “merely to safeguard the companies from a legal point of view”!
A long article in 17 May celebrated the achievement of producing the 11 issues of The British Worker. On the last day of the strike its circulation reached 713,000 copies. It said, correctly, that:
“Those who have kept complete sets will have something which is unique in the history of labour disputes in this country, and something which in time to come will no doubt fetch a high price as a curiosity of journalism and be a vital record to which historians of the Labour Movement will have to go for their accounts of the Great Strike.”
[All quotes from The British Worker, the featured image and all other images are from https://libcom.org/article/british-worker-general-strike-newspaper-1926]
