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THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL 
 
 OF 
 
 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR 
 
 RELATIONS 
 
 AT 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924002283202 
 
LABOUR IN TRANSITION. 
 
LABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 A SURVEY OF BRITISH INDUSTRIAL 
 HISTORY SINCE 1914 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM AYLOTT ORTON 
 
 B.A. Cantai., M.Sc. LonJon. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 PHILIP ALLAN fit CO.. 
 
 QUALITY COURT. CHANCERY LANE 
 
 
First published in October, 1921. 
 
 Printed by The Abbey Pkess Ltd., 
 3c & 34, Great Peter Street, Westminster, s.w.i. 
 

 n^o 
 
 To 
 IAN MACAI.ISTER. 
 
 Vouchsafe to those that have not read the story. 
 That I may prompt them : and of such as have, 
 I humbly pray them to admit th' excuse 
 Of time, of numbers, and due course of things, ^ 
 Which cannot in their huge and proper life 
 Be here presented. 
 
 Shakbsfeakb, 
 King Henry the Fifth. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 PR01.0GUE xiii 
 
 PART ONE. 
 
 AUGUST, 1914— JULY, 1915. 
 
 Chapter I Cataci,asm 3 
 
 State of the country and of industry on the eve of 
 the war — Unemployment and trade disputes — 
 lyock-out of London builders — SodaUst opinion on 
 war — ^Labour Party policy — Demonstration of 
 August 2nd, 1914 — Effect of invasion of Belgium — 
 The evidential value of resolutions — Immediate 
 effects of war — Food prices and unemployment — 
 Distress committees — Workers' War Emergency 
 Committee— Trade Union Funds — Recruiting — ^The 
 industrial and political truce — I.L.P. manifesto. 
 
 Chapter II General Post 20 
 
 Effect of war on supply and demand for labour — 
 Recruitment in the various industries — Over-supply 
 of labour changing to under-supply — Attempts to 
 meet the shortage — Redistribution of demand — In 
 mining, leather, clothing industries — In armaments 
 and munitions industries — Extension of sub-con- 
 tracting — ^Defects of the system — PoUcy of concen- 
 trating labour — Breakdown of the pre-war systems 
 both of labour distribution and of production. 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter III ... Getting Down To It 3^ 
 
 Meaning of " trade practices " — Early efforts to 
 secure relaxation— Engineering conferences 1914- 
 1915 — Counter-proposeds of the trade unions — 
 The Crayford agreement for the employment of 
 women — Deadlock in the north — Government 
 intervenes — Committee on Production — " Broken 
 squads " — Shells and fuzes agreement — ^Trouble 
 on the Clyde— Strike of February, 1915 — Progress 
 of the dilution negotiations — ^Treasury Agreement 
 — The I/abour Advisory Committee. 
 
 Chapter IV Push and Go ... 44 
 
 The munitions crisis of May, 1915 — Failure not 
 primarily due to labour restrictions — Change io 
 policy of production — ^Armaments Output Com- 
 mittee — Treasury Committee on Munitions — Redis- 
 tribution of contracts — National factory scheme 
 adopted — Labour unrest — Food prices — ^Womea 
 registered for war-work — The Dockers' Battalion — 
 The drink agitation — l/ocal armaments committees 
 — The King's Squad scheme — Possibility of indus- 
 trial conscription — ^War munitions volunteer scheme 
 — Munitions Act of 1915. 
 
 PART TWO. 
 
 JUI^Y, 1915— DECEMBER, 1917. 
 
 Chapter I The Vai,i,ey of the Shadow 62 
 
 Danger abroad and at home — Sources of industrial 
 trouble — ^Manifesto of German Social Democrats — 
 Munitions recovery — Experiments in control of 
 labour— South Wales mining strike— Qyde strikes 
 over dilution and the leaving certificate — Balfour- 
 Macassey Commission — Central Labour Supply 
 Committee — Labour criticism of the Munitions Act 
 — Its amendment. 
 
CONTENTS ix 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Chapter II Crisis 76 
 
 The debate on conscription— I/abour apprehensive 
 — Derby attestation scheme — ^Military Service Act 
 of January, 1916 — Exemption of munition workers — 
 Second Mlitary Service Act — Efiect of the Somme 
 campaign — Revision of exemptions — The Trade 
 Card scheme — Schedule of Protected Occupations — 
 Increasing importance of dilution — Increased em- 
 ployment of women — The Clyde Workers' Com- 
 mittee on dilution — Demand for rank-and-file con- 
 trol — The Dilution Commissions — Further diffi- 
 culties — Dilution on private work. 
 
 Chapter III Unopficiai, 88 
 
 The shop steward — Rise of the unofficial movement 
 — Position of the trade unions — The workshop 
 policy — Clyde strikes of March, 1916 — A new tem- 
 per — Repudiation of official leadership — Evolution 
 of the Clyde Workers' Committee— Resurgence of 
 the " one big union " movement — " Class spirit " 
 versus " craft prejudice " — Influence of the I.W.W. 
 — Opposition to the war — German peace overtures 
 — Ivabour ministers and the " left " — Withdrawal 
 of the Trade Card scheme— The rank-and-file rebel- 
 lion — Strikes of May, 1917 — Official versus unofficial 
 leadership — A truce — Engineering shop stewards 
 agreement of December, 1917. 
 
 Chapter IV "Out op the Darkness ..." ... loi 
 
 Significance of the Russian revolution — Critical 
 situation in England at the time — Albert Hall 
 demonstration of I,abour — The " United Socialist 
 Council " calls for British Soviets — And is shown 
 the error of its ways — Evolution of I/abour opinion 
 — The Triple Alliance — International War Aims 
 controversy — The U.D.C. — America and Russia — 
 The British Memorandum on War Aims — ^The 
 future of the I/abour party. 
 
 Chapter V Getting on With the War 115 
 
 The Enquiry into Industrial Unrest — Summary of 
 reports — Control of prices — ^Dilution on private 
 
X CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter V {continued). page 
 
 work dropped — I/caving certificate abolished — 
 The I2| per cent, bonus— I/ord Askwith's view— 
 The Whitley scheme — ^The national effort. 
 
 PART THREE. 
 DECEMBER, 1917— DECEMBER, 1918. 
 
 Chapter I Angel Unwinding Destinies 128 
 
 Esoteric — Effect of German offensive of 1918 on 
 the Labour situation — " Comb-out " of munition 
 shops — Attitude of the A.S.E. — Development of the 
 Shop Stewards and Workers' Committee movement 
 — National response to the German offensive — 
 Recruitment from the munition centres. 
 
 Chapter II ... The Strands are Parted 133 
 
 Official British Labour Party policy — Reconstitu- 
 tion of the party — The choice of tactics — ^Labour 
 and the New Social Order — A party of the intellec- 
 tuals — Right, left, and centre — Lenin and British 
 labour — Complex tendencies. 
 
 Chapter III ... The Broad Highway 141 
 
 Industrial disputes of 1918 — Government policy — 
 The principle of joint consultation — ^Wage regula- 
 tion — The new franchise — National education — 
 Labour education — " Communism for children." 
 
 Chapter IV " Look Now Upon This Picture ..."... 151 
 
 Britain in 1918 — Urbanisation — Redistribution of 
 the population — The herding movement — ^Welfare 
 — The women's work — The women — The children 
 — ^Wages in war-time — The " standard of living" 
 question — Needs of the future. 
 
CONTENTS xi 
 
 PART FOUR. 
 
 JANUARY, 1919— JULY, 1921. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Chapter I Vox Popui<i 162 
 
 Position of trade unions after the war — ^The general 
 election — I/abour prospects ^ — And results — The 
 Albert Hall comedy — The strikes of 1919. 
 
 Chapter II Via Media 169 
 
 Significance of the strikes — Sir Robert Home's 
 diagnosis — Industrial Conference — Recommenda- 
 tions — General Unes of Government policy — Self- 
 government in industry — Demobilisation and re- 
 settlement — Training the ex-soldier — Restoration of 
 pre-war practices — Temporary regulation of wages 
 — Conciliation and arbitration — Whitley councils at 
 work — Statutory hours and wages — Unemployment 
 — Relief schemes. 
 
 Chapter III ... Homes for Heroes 189 
 
 The Housing problem — Extent of the deficiency — 
 War developments — ^Housing Acts of 1919 — Sub- 
 sidy scheme — ^lyabour dij05culties — PoUcy of the 
 building unions — Post-war dUution proposals — 
 Direct labour — The Building Trades ParUament — 
 Democratisation of industry — The Building Guilds. 
 
 Chapter IV " A Conservative Sort OF Animal " ... 205 
 
 Defective poUtical integration of labour — Extra- 
 ofiScial machinery — Hands off Russia Committee — 
 Council of Action — The general staff scheme — 
 Bolshevik policy — Evolution of Shop Stewards and 
 Workers' Committee movement — ^Activities of 
 revolutionary and Communist groups — Attempts at 
 Communist unity — Rejection of Communists by 
 I,abour party — ^By I.I^.P. — Estimate of the import- 
 ance of the revolutionaries. 
 
xii CX)NTKNTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter V ... De Profundis 215 
 
 Importance of recent history of the miners — 
 Motives of the Nationalisation movement — 
 Demands of Miners' Federation, January, 1919 — 
 The Sankey Commission— The reports— Govern- 
 ment policy — ^Labour policy — " Mines for the 
 Nation" campaign— Its failure— Direct action 
 vetoed by Trades Union Congress — ^Wages and 
 prices demands of the miners — ^The strike threat — 
 Datum line — ^National miners' strike of 1920 — Its 
 effects — ^The output basis of wages. 
 
 Chapter VI ... Zero 230 
 
 Position of the coal industry after November, 
 1920 — Inherent possibilities realised — ^Decontrol 
 — Negotiations for a permanent settlement brokeii 
 off — The fundamental^ issue — ^New wages scales 
 _ offered — ^Miners cease work on March 31st, 1921 
 — General position in other industries — Calls 
 for the Triple Alliance — Government emergency 
 measures — ^AUiance strike threat — ^Wider aspect of 
 the dispute — ^The debacle — ^The disruption of the 
 unions — ^The settlement and its prospects. 
 
 BPII.OGUE 256 
 
 SsiyECTED Authorities, Etc 
 
 Statistics : I^abour Organisation 272 
 
 Unemployment 273 
 
 Cost of I/iving Index 274 
 
 Index 
 
 275 
 
PROI.OGUE. 
 
 Of social affairs, it has been said, war does but 
 accelerate tendencies already in existence. In the 
 long run, and on the national scale, the statement is 
 probably true ; and even in the short run, and on 
 the scale of the individual groups and sections of a 
 complex community, it holds good in so far as the 
 sudden assertion of an exacting national purpose 
 demands the utmost of whatever Serves, or can be 
 made to serve it, while imposing a drastic test on aU 
 social dispositions. It is with the historic application 
 of that test, more especially to the industrial groups 
 of the community, that the following chapters deal. 
 In the result, the numerical and the psychological 
 strength, the functions, the inter-relations, the 
 political status of those groups have been profoundly 
 altered ; and in this respect alone, to speak of no 
 other, we are a fundamentally changed society. 
 " Things will be different after the war," we used to 
 say six years ago. They are, with a vengeance. 
 This book is an attempt to explain how and why. 
 
 To this attempt some broad picture of the society 
 over which the storm burst in 1914 is a necessary 
 preface. It was a society, prosperous as modem' 
 societies go, of some 28 miUion more or less educated 
 adults, of whom 8 million men were parliamentary 
 voters — the first full-grown generation in which 
 some degree of education was practically universal : 
 a fact not without significance in regard to the 
 
xiv PROLOGUE 
 
 quality of its institutions, its recreations, and its 
 press. It was a society with individualism in its 
 very blood, gregarious only within narrow limits, 
 organising itself rather according to the fortuitous 
 pressure of circumstance than according to any 
 preconceived plan ; moved more by personalities 
 and events than by principles and ideals, amenable 
 to tradition and custom rather than to system and 
 coercion, possessed to an extraordinary degree, 
 though less than half-consciously, with a sort of 
 historic sense of continuity, so that while in its 
 political and legal organisation it had achieved no 
 small measure of at least nominal democracy, its 
 education, its churches (except those of the Catholic 
 faith), its amusements, its manners, and even its 
 dress, tended still to conform, as it were in spite of 
 themselves, to a social framework that was becoming 
 increasingly an anachronism. 
 
 The survival of this framework, while making 
 
 within certain limits for social stability, served to 
 
 disguise from the general consciousness amazing 
 
 inequalities of wealth and liberty. In its higher or 
 
 narrower stages the functions of economic ascendancy 
 
 were being strained, with a good deal of tacit consent 
 
 and some success, to fill the space formerly occupied 
 
 by those of an aristocracy ; while strictly within the 
 
 lower or broader stages there had been growing 
 
 up for near a century a sullen " class-consciousness " 
 
 founded, for what it was worth, almost entirely on 
 
 a community of economic disabilities . To this extent 
 
 at least the permeation of the old framework by the 
 
 modern economic system — " capitalist " system as it is 
 
 called by its opponents — ^had dried out the cement 
 
 that held the fabric together ; and it had been 
 
 repeatedly asserted, and by some believed, that a 
 
 good jerk from below would bring it all tumbUng.' I 
 
 The permeation had had other consequences. It, J 
 
 had proved necessary to mitigate by statutory regu- 
 
PROI^OGUE XV 
 
 lation — by Trade Boards, by Factory Acts, by various 
 species of insurance — the incidence of the system on 
 those least favourably situated ; and by the action 
 of associations nominally voluntary tWs regulation 
 had been carried a good deal further ; carried in some 
 cases, it was alleged, to the point of actually impeding 
 the system. 
 
 The area over which this further regulation 
 operated was, however, a comparatively small one. 
 There were at the beginning of 1914 about 10^ million 
 men and 3 J million women employed in the industries 
 and services of the country ; and of these, about 
 34 in the hundred men, and 11 in the hundred women, 
 were enrolled in trade unions — using the expression 
 in a wide sense to include practically all societies that 
 dealt with the terms and conditions of employment 
 of their members. In the narrower sense, the 
 societies affiliated to the Trade Union Congress 
 represented about one-fifth of the total employed 
 population. The organised proportion of workpeople 
 varied widely between the separate industries. 
 In one or two — ^in coal-mining, in most of the textile, 
 and some of the metal trades — ^it stood as high as 
 70 per cent. ; but in the majority there was an 
 unorganised residue of at least one half ; while in 
 the more scattered occupations, among the bulk 
 of the " black-coated proletariat," in home and small- 
 shop industry, in the distributive trades, in fishing 
 and sea transport, in agriculture, and among the 
 women generally, organisation had made little head^ 
 way. The facts that by the date of the Armistice 
 the organised proportion of workpeople had grown 
 to about 50 per cent., and that to-day the minority 
 of 1914 is practically a two-thirds majority, indicate 
 in themselves something like a social revolution. 
 
 Some of the impUcations of the change are note- 
 worthy. It means not merely that the industrial 
 area over which collective bargaining is possible has 
 
xvi PROLOGUE 
 
 been extended. It means that a majority of the 
 working people of the country have reaUsed the 
 manifold possibilities of group action. It means 
 that the extent to which concerted action in pursuit 
 of a common poUcy is possible among the various 
 trade unions is now a matter of first-rate importance to 
 the entire community. And so far as such action is 
 even attempted it means that there is a bigger 
 potential backing of interested people and financial 
 resources behind it than at any time in the history 
 of the coimtry. But if we ask how far in fact such 
 action was in 1914 and has since become possible 
 we are faced with certain considerations in regard to 
 organisation and to opinion, that modify the effect 
 of the whole progress. 
 
 As regards organisation, the number of separate 
 societies — somewhere about 1,200 — ^has not varied 
 very much for twenty years ; and counted as units, 
 the vast majority still rest on a local craft basis. 
 The number of national or general societies with 
 effective centralised administration does not even 
 now exceed, at an outside estimate, 150. On the 
 other hand, " probably five-sixths of eJI the trade 
 union membership, and practically all its effective 
 force, are to be found among the hundred principal 
 societies to which the Ministry of I^abour has 
 long confined its detailed statistics."* By 1914 
 the tendency to centralisation was in full swing ; 
 and during the succeeding years it became a factor 
 of importance second only to the actual growth in 
 membership. The forms it has taken vary from 
 complete fusions of regional or competing associations 
 that covered practically the same classes of workers, 
 to highly complex federations and affiliations among 
 distinct groups in the great industries, with varying 
 degrees of central control. And concurrently with 
 this tendency there has emerged a difficulty in the 
 
 ♦Webb: History of Trade Unionism. 
 
PROI/DGUB xvii 
 
 nature of the control itself ; a difficulty which is 
 really a particular case of the general truth that the 
 industrial and the political centres of this country 
 are anything from two to five hundred miles apart. 
 In proportion as the administration has become 
 centralised and the administrative unit expanded, 
 both the g,ctual and, so to speak, the psychological 
 distance between Head Office and the district, 
 the shop and the individual member have inevitably 
 widened ; until now the leaders of the larger associa- 
 tions have to adopt something like the same tactics 
 in informing, educing, and interpreting the opinion 
 of their vast constituencies as does the Government in 
 regard to the country as a whole. And the difficulty 
 is complicated by the fact that the process has 
 roughly coincided with the supersession, actual in 
 more cases than is apparent, of some of the older 
 leaders and policies, by men of a different type, 
 different training, and very different ideals. Here 
 is at any rate one group of tendencies the war 
 accelerated ; one of the leading clues to the tangled 
 history we are to unravel. 
 
 As regards opinion, no concise statement will 
 cover all the facts, and no single policy will ever cover 
 all the unions. Most of the principal societies were 
 and are affiliated both to the Trade Union Congress 
 and to the I^abour party ; but the former had its 
 own left, right and centre, and the I<abour party 
 was a rather loose federation comprising, in addition 
 to the Trade Unions, the I.I^.P., the British SociaUst 
 Party, the Fabian Society, and one or two other 
 non-vocational bodies that were very far indeed, 
 once war broke out, from pulling together. The 
 Trade Union Congress had its ParHamentary Com- 
 mittee, and the I^abour party its National Executive, 
 and both united with the General Federation of 
 Trade Unions to form a Joint Board which dealt 
 with a variety of concrete issues pretty much as they 
 
xviii PROIX)GUE 
 
 arose. Then there were the local Trades and I^abour 
 Councils, which the I^abour party admitted to 
 affiliation and the Congress refused; there were 
 local branches of the IX.P. and the various other 
 Socialist bodies ; and there was the Httle group of 
 thirty-six I^abour members, orgahising themselves 
 and their constituencies on orthodox ParUamentary 
 lines. 
 
 All this is perhaps somewhat confusing — and in 
 1914, in fact, the unions were finding it so, and 
 contemplating the general clear-up that is now in 
 progress ; but it was as nothing compared with the 
 real confusion of opinions subsisting among the rank- 
 and-file. There one met not merely the official 
 programs of the recognised authorities, but all kinds 
 of doctrine promulgated by all kinds of organisation, 
 from semi-Capitahst to downright Communist, and 
 a maze of controversy upon almost every matter of 
 applied social or industrial policy. At the heart of 
 a good deal of it was the unsolved problem of the 
 nature of the ideal industrial unit — vocation or 
 industry, or a mixture of both. Beyond that, 
 generalisation is of little use, save to point out that 
 there was a wide dissatisfaction with the Capitalist 
 system so far as it was understood, a broad sentiment 
 in favour of some sort of collective control of some 
 industries, and a half-articulate demand for some 
 better representation of " working-class interests " 
 than an5^hing in the prevailing system afforded. 
 From such a state of things it was easy to evoke a 
 common sentiment, difficult to frame a common 
 policy, almost impossible, except on rare occasions 
 and the narrowest issues, to evolve a common plan 
 of action. 
 
 But if large-scale organisation and general opinion 
 were thus inchoate, the actual workaday business of 
 the trade unions in regard to the " terms and con- 
 ditions of employment " was to no small extent 
 
PROlyOGUH xix 
 
 stabilised. Parallel with, and in some measure 
 consequent on, the expansion of the unions, there 
 had been a steady progress in the organisation of 
 the employers — not merely in the direction of what 
 are usually called trade combinations, but towards 
 concerted action in regard to labour. By the summer 
 of 1914 over 1,500 national and local employers' 
 associations were dealing collectively with labour 
 matters, and the number was increasing at the 
 rate of over two hundred a year — a good deal of the 
 increase, of course, being due to the expansion of 
 functions on the part of existing associations that 
 originally dealt with trade and commercial questions 
 only. And naturally, and, on the whole, beneficially, 
 the relations between the corporate bodies on either 
 side of industry tended to settle down. Says the 
 Twelfth Report of the Ministry of lyabour on 
 Conciliation : 
 
 " The position in regard to the settlement of 
 labour disputes in this country, prior to the 
 war, was that the majority were settled by 
 agreement between employers and workpeople 
 without recourse to Government intervention. 
 An outstanding feature of the industrial position 
 in Great Britain had for many years been the 
 permanent voluntary conciliation boards, estab- 
 lished by agreement between employers and 
 workpeople, unsupported by legal enactment, 
 and depending for their success on the goodwill 
 of the parties. During the course of half a 
 century, voluntary conciliation boards or other 
 suitable arrangements for the settlement of 
 labour disputes had been established in all the 
 well-organised industries, and this procedure 
 was instrumental in settling large numbers of 
 disputes " 
 — mainly before, that is, and sometimes after, direct 
 action had been invoked by one side or other. Over 
 
XX PR0I/3GUE 
 
 300 such boards were in existence at the beg inning 
 of 1914, to say nothing of the joint district boards 
 for the miners set up under the Act of 1912, or the 
 joint boards on the railways set up after the Board of 
 Trade conference at the end of 1911. 
 
 In spite of this machinery, however, the three 
 years preceding the war were years of marked 
 " unrest " in industry. The number of open" disputes 
 originating in 1913 was nearly three times the average 
 of the years since 1900 ; while in respect of the num- 
 ber of workpeople affected, 1912 constituted an 
 even more startling maximum. But it would be 
 misleading to base any general conclusion on these 
 facts alone. These same years, it must be remem- 
 bered, were fat years for commerce and industry; 
 1913 is spoken of as having witnessed a " trade boom." 
 They were years, that is to say, of good employment;; 
 and the usual inverse correspondence between the 
 unemployment returns and the totals of industrial 
 disputes had persisted with remarkable accuracy 
 through the whole period since 1900. Nothing in 
 fact illustrates more clearly the real nature of the 
 industrial system than .the immediate increase in the 
 strike figures whenever the labour demand gave the 
 unions an opportunity. The strike was in fact a 
 normal and necessary part of the system, recognised 
 as such, in at least a negative way, by the law. 
 The extent, therefore, to which the " unrest " of 
 1913 may be called abnormal is smaller than the 
 figures would suggest. What is significant is that 
 in the analysis of the causes of those 1,500 disputes 
 of 1913, the two heads under which is revealed an 
 increase not only considerable in itself, but much 
 larger than the increase of the total in comparison 
 with previous years, are " the employment of 
 particular classes or persons " and " trade unionism" ; 
 wages as a cause of dispute shows an absolute decline 
 in importance. 
 
PR0IX)GUE xxi 
 
 Here we come upon a leading symptom of the 
 complex social situation of the early century. The 
 political labour movement was yet in its infancy, 
 and there was behind it no such accepted school of 
 political philosophy and tradition as informed the 
 older poUtical parties. For many years there had 
 been a few trade union representatives in Parlia- 
 ment ; but it was not until 1900 that the new-formed 
 I^abour Representation Committee secured the return 
 of the first two members on a definitely political 
 " ticket " ; not until 1906 that the effort to stimulate 
 a sense of political solidarity among working-men 
 had any very marked effect on the election results. 
 29 political I/abour candidates were then returned 
 in addition to 23 trade union representatives ; the 
 event being made the occasion of a speech* by Mr. 
 I^loyd George in which the Radical program of 
 succeeding years was put forward as an antidote to 
 this " socialist mission among the workmen." Four 
 more years were to pass before the trade unionists 
 and the I/.R.C. men were definitely united as a 
 poUtical unit ; and before the next appeal to the 
 country was made, political I^abour was handicapped 
 by the Osborne judgment. 
 
 Apart, however, from that particular disability, 
 the situation was one of intrinsic difficulty for the 
 I^abour movement, and the period tempts comparison 
 with the age of Bismarck and I^asalle. The political 
 creed of the new-born party was not so firmly estab- 
 lished nor so widely recognised that it could easily 
 maintain its integrity in face of an energetic Radical 
 administration that was professedly trying to reach 
 the heart of the working man with arrows taken from 
 the Socialist quiver. I^iberals as well as I^abour men 
 were proving themselves (on occasion) apt pupils 
 of Quintus Fabius ; and though the presence of 
 the I^abour group may have done much to expedite 
 
 * Quoted in Beet : Higtory of British Socialism, Vol. II. 
 
xxii PROI/DGUE 
 
 the reformist measures of the period — national health 
 and unemployment insurance, minimum wage legis- 
 lation, workmen's compensation; old age pensions 
 and the rest — ^it was the I^iberals who earned (or 
 took) the credit. Further, the great constitutional 
 battles waged by the I^iberal party left the I/abour 
 group no choice but to sink its identity ; and " the 
 political necessity of supporting the I^iberal party 
 bills relating to the Budget and the House of lyords, 
 and of not playing into the hands of a still more 
 reactionary front Opposition bench, were not readily 
 comprehended by the average workman." * In the 
 country, the political forces of I^abour were far from 
 consolidated. " Many of those (wrote W. C. 
 Anderson at the close of 191 1) who find its sinews 
 of war cannot when the crisis comes forget their old 
 faiths of lyiberaHsm and Toryism. So miners at 
 I/anark are held at the moment of voting by their 
 old tradition, and nullify at the ballot-box the work 
 they themselves set going in the Trade Union 
 branches, "t > 
 
 The years following the elections of 1910 were in 
 fact years of disappointment, not merely with the 
 results of the poUtical organisation of I^abour, but 
 with the general policy of coUectivist Sociahsm which 
 formed the mainstay of its program. While that 
 policy was apparently gaining support from the 
 I/iberals, important sections of I^abour were turning 
 towards Socialism of a more particularist, and in 
 some ways, incompatible, order. Syndicalism, which 
 relied on industrial coercion rather than the ballot- 
 box, was making rapid headway in Wales and on the 
 Clyde. Guild Socialism — one of the many important 
 contributions of the New Age to social history — was 
 moving towards its place as a recognised policy from 
 1908 onwards. At a critical moment the reaction 
 
 * Webb : Op cii. 
 
 t "Daily News " Year Book, 1912. 
 
PROI^OGUE xxiii 
 
 against Fabian collectivism was reinforced by Hilaire 
 Belloc's brilliant attack on the " Servile State." 
 And if, as has been stated,* the influence of Bergson 
 strengthened the movement towards direct industrial 
 action, that of Nietzsche confirmed the growing 
 distrust of constitutional political democracy. 
 
 Thus, while I^iberalism was approching its Phihppi 
 on the field of foreign policy, and political labour 
 attempting with indifferent success to focus the 
 heterogeneous mind of its constituency, the centre 
 of action passed again to the industrial arena. The 
 industrial organisation of the workers ran far ahead 
 of their poUtical evolution. The liaison between 
 the militant forces of Labour and their poUtical 
 direction grew swiftly weaker. The principle that 
 economic power precedes pohtical power was drastic- 
 ally applied in the great upheavals of 191 1 and 1912, 
 which led in 1913 to the first proposals for a Triple 
 Alliance. And while the militant arm was being 
 trained on tangible issues with a view to its eventual 
 use in a wider field, both means and ends of the 
 political and constitutional movement were increas- 
 ingly brought in question. 
 
 On all this suddenly broke the cataclasm of 
 external war, of whose effects the story is now to be 
 recounted : a story that must inevitably be con- 
 cerned ia the main with the difficulties, the differ- 
 ences, the struggles against the xmforeseen obstacles 
 and failures in circumstance and society of which 
 history is made. We shall see the worker challenged 
 by the national emergency to declare his relative 
 loyalty to vocation, to class, and to the commonweal. 
 We shall see the industrial Labour movement 
 challenged to convert its offensive-defensive alliances 
 of groups within a group to active agents of the 
 national purpose, called on, and at last compelled 
 to sacrifice securities of many years' earning to 
 
 * See Scott : Syndicalism and Philosophic Realism. 
 
xxiv PROI.OGUE 
 
 the common need. We shall see the political 
 lyabour movement challenged to define exactly what 
 in national and international polity it stood for. 
 And remembering that not even the poorest worker 
 is wholly circumscribed by vocation, we shall watch 
 the whole nation ridden harder and harder by an 
 ordeal that was for nearly four years in doubt, spurred 
 by dire necessity to a pace at which its very relaxa- 
 tions savoured of violence, weakened from time to 
 time less by misfortune than by sheer weariness, 
 dazed by the endless monotone of the guns and 
 the machines, im'paired in health physical and 
 spiritual by the strain of the one pitiless purpose 
 — emerging after all, swiftly and almost incredibly, 
 to a triumph too great for grasping. If at times we 
 dwell upon the darker side of the war period it is 
 in order that its sequel may be better comprehended., 
 History demands that human motives as well as 
 human actions be brought to light ; and to judge men 
 is at all times less profitable than to understand 
 them. 
 
PART ONE. 
 
 From the Outbreak of War to the Mxjnitions 
 Act of Jui,y, 1915. 
 
 1914. 
 
 War Emergency Workers' National 
 Committee Formed Aug. 6 
 
 National Industrial Truce Resolution . . . Aug. 24 
 
 Engineering and Shipbuilding Con- 
 ferences on I^abour Supply Oct. to Jan. 
 
 1915- 
 Committee on Production Appointed Feb. 4 
 
 Clyde Strike of Engineers Feb. 16 
 
 Shells and Fuzes Agreement Mar. 5 
 
 D.O.R. Amendment No. 2 Act ... Mar. 16 
 
 Treasury Conferences Mar. 17-19,25 
 
 Command Paper on Bad Time-keeping May i 
 
 Enrolment open for N.E. Coast King's 
 
 Squad May 15 
 
 Ministry of Munitions Established ... June 9 
 War Munitions Volunteer Enrolment 
 
 Open June 24 
 
 Munitions of War Act July 2 
 
 {The dates given to Acts of Parliament are those of 
 Royal Assent.) 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 CatAci^asm. 
 
 §1- 
 
 When on the morning of June 29th, 1914, the 
 papers announced the assassination of an Austrian 
 Archduke at Sarajevo, it was remarked that one 
 more manifestation had occurred of the fit of minor 
 violence that seemed to be possessing public affairs. 
 Other topics on the morrow reoccupied the tops of 
 the news columns, and Britain resumed its gaze at 
 the domestic hearth oblivious of the fact that a corner 
 of the house had taken fire. The miUtant suffrage 
 movement continued its program of miniature 
 explosions ; Marconi shares and Government finance 
 drew more members to the House in mid-July than 
 foreign policy ; Ulster gun-running provoked an 
 occasional " sensation " and a few deaths ; and 
 although Sir Edward Carson declared that he " saw 
 no sign of peace " and warned the volunteers to be 
 " ready to obey the call," it was not of a European 
 War t^at he was understood to be thinking. 
 
 In short, despite a Government majority down to 
 38 at the end of June, it is to be presumed the 
 country as a whole felt secure enough to allow itself 
 the luxury of a little anarchy. Trade of course was 
 not as good as it had been — ^but then 1913 had 
 
4 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 witnessed a " boom," and in spite of the reaction 
 only the cotton industry, where from July 7th the 
 operatives were working 25 per cent, short time, 
 was seriously feeling the pinch. " The year 1914," 
 says the Labour Gazette for the following January, 
 " opened with emplojmient still good on the whole, 
 and very good in some industries, particularly coal- 
 mining, engineering and ship-building ; but with a 
 decided tendency to decUne in the pig-iron, iron and 
 steel, tin-plate, and textile industries, which con- 
 tinued with little alteration during the first half of 
 the year. In July the decline in emplo3rment became 
 at once more marked and more general, and there was 
 every prospect of an approaching period of less 
 activity, especially in the pig-iron and the iron and 
 steel industries, and the cotton, woollen and lace 
 trades." None the less, the average amotmt of 
 unemployment up to the end of July — 2'3 per cent. 
 — was barely more than half the average of the years 
 since 1900 ; only 1913 could show a better record. 
 
 And on the other side of the medal, as regards 
 what is quaintly called " industrial unrest," 1913 
 also held the record of the young century with a 
 total of 1,497 fresh disputes in the year — a figure 
 which, but for the supervention of " unrest " of 
 another and a wilder species, 1914 might easily 
 have beaten. Among the 836 separate trials of 
 strength that took place up to the end of July we 
 may notice one or two outstanding. In February 
 and March 150,000 of the Yorkshire miners held out 
 for seven weeks to enforce a wage demand — more or 
 less successfully. In lyondon a more fundamental '? 
 issue was at stake in the building industry. 
 Would the unionists undertake to work peaceably 
 with non-unionists ? Would they sign an under- 
 taking to that effect — ^with penalties for non-observ- 
 ance ? They would neither sign nor do it : at the 
 Pearl Assurance Building in Holborn, at other jobs 
 
CATACI.ASM 5 
 
 where the same issue was raised, they struck work 
 rather than do it ; and conference, conciHation, 
 arbitration, failed to make them. At length the 
 I/Ondon Master Builders declared a lock-out. The 
 operatives endeavoured to close their ranks in a new 
 industrial union, and undertook contracts on their 
 own responsibility — even executed one, in Tavistock 
 Square. Meanwhile, among the masters the question 
 of a national stoppage was being considered ; as a 
 result, came an ultimatum to the effect that failing 
 a settlement by August 15th the lock-out should be 
 made national. Among the unions unity was by now 
 threatening to break down ; mournfully says the 
 Herald on June 27th, " we would much have pre- 
 ferred to see the men go back beaten for the time 
 being rather than go back as now, making sectional 
 agreements and giving up the principle of the 
 Federation." So matters stood in July, unsettled, 
 inclining to defeat for the men. The aggregate 
 duration of this dispute the Labour Gazette estimates 
 at 2^ million working days ; what might have been 
 the equivalent of that in houses the Labour Gazette 
 does not tell us. But this issue — this interference, if 
 one likes to call it so, with the liberty of the master 
 to employ whomsoever he pleased — ^was funda- 
 mental. It was part of the general closing of the 
 ranks that had been so marked 3, feature of trade 
 unionism since 1911 — ^how important a part the 
 stubbornness with which the I^ondon builders fought 
 it may indicate. And yet at Woolwich, where a 
 lightning strike on this same issue broke out on 
 July 3rd, the men won their point in four days. 
 Perhaps a certain crj^tic phrase in a semi-official 
 Austrian message of that same date had something 
 to do with it. 
 
 Thus, with militant suffrage, Ulster gun-runnings, 
 and an average of nearly four disputes a day in 
 industry, did the corporate Ufe of Britain run 
 
6 LABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 smoothly on : and " aimed conflict is not impossible " 
 whispered the Austrian telegram. Unbelievable, 
 however, to the vast majority of Britons it remained 
 for the first half of July ; and even when the not 
 impossible had become the all but actual it was 
 merely " the Balkan cauldron on the boil " again for 
 a certain I^abour newspaper. After all, how should 
 Ivabour — or, for that matter, honourable members 
 of Parliament — know along what strands the blaze 
 might run to Britain ? In any case, for official 
 SociaUsm, including the British National and 
 Independent I^abour Parties, the position had been 
 defined in advance by the International Congress of 
 1907, with a resolution that under a threat of war 
 (any war except the class war) the workers in every 
 country must strive to prevent it 
 
 "by all the means which seem to them most 
 appropriate having regard to the sharpness of 
 the class war and to the general political 
 situation. Should war none the less break 
 out their duty is to intervene to bring it 
 promptly to an end, and with aU their energies 
 to use the political and economic crisis created 
 by the war to rouse the populace from its 
 slumbers and to hasten the fall of capitalist 
 domination." 
 For years past the British I^abour party had been 
 denouncing in general terms the " international 
 competition in armaments," " the race for overseas 
 markets," the entire policy of " imperialist expan- 
 sion," in which it envisaged this country as taking 
 part ; and when during the last days of July the 
 stark certainty of Kuropean war emerged from the 
 confusion of diplomatic issues, rendered the more 
 repugnant by the prospect of a Russian alliance, 
 such denunciation was echoed in resolution and 
 manifesto by innumerable Labour organisations, 
 and reinforced with all the traditional tenets of 
 
CATACIyASM 7 
 
 International Socialism. There was no quarrel 
 between the workers : the workers had no concern 
 in the international struggle : the class war was the 
 only war for them : Britain must not be " dragged 
 in " — and so on, with the explicit approval (for 
 what it was worth) of the International Socialist 
 Bureau which " in assembly of July 29th " con- 
 sidered it "an obligation for the workers of all 
 concerned nations not only to continue but even 
 to strengthen their demonstrations against war in 
 favour of peace " — though precisely how the 
 demonstrations were to be strengthened the Bureau 
 did not venture to indicate. The British Parliament- 
 ary Labour Party was more explicit, calUng upon all 
 Labour organisations " to watch events vigilantly 
 so as to oppose, if need be, in the most effective way, 
 any action which may involve us in war " ; while 
 the Labour Press was growing impatient : " We have 
 had enough resolutions. It is the time for action." 
 At least the Transport Workers might strike ! They 
 could not mobilise without them. Still more urgent 
 was the manifesto of the British section of the 
 Socialist Bureau which, on August ist, over the 
 signatures of Keir Hardie and Arthur Henderson, 
 summoned the " people of Britain " to 
 
 " hold vast demonstrations against war in every 
 industrial centre. Compel those of the govern- 
 ing class and their Press who are eager to commit 
 you to co-operate with Russian despotism to 
 keep silence. . . . Proclaim that for you the 
 days of plunder and butchery have gone by. 
 Send messages of peace and fraternity to your 
 fellows who have less Uberty than you. Down 
 with class rule ! Down with the riile of brute 
 force ! Down with war ! Up with the peaceful 
 rule of the people ! " 
 " Down with class rule ! " So far were we at this 
 stage from the Dictatorship of the Proletariat ! 
 
8 IvABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 On Sunday. August 2nd, the mas^ of protest 
 culminated in a monster demonstration in Trafalgar 
 Square, which by resolution denounced " secret 
 alliances and understandings which in their origin 
 were never sanctioned by the nations nor are even 
 now communicated to them " ; protested against 
 any support of Russia ; more urgently than ever 
 cried " Peace." " During the progress of the meet- 
 ing," says a press report, " a Russian, a German, a 
 Frenchman and a Swiss embraced each other, whilst 
 Cunningham Grahame stepped forward, and they 
 all stood with joined hands, the crowd cheering 
 wildly. Thus was true international amity demon- 
 strated." Not thus altogether. That same after- 
 noon the naval reserves were called up. That same 
 night throngs of excited I,ondoners swarmed down 
 the Mall to Buckingham Palace, " rousing the 
 populace from its slumbers " to some purpose with 
 singing and cheering and other patriotic " demon- 
 strating " continued into the small hours of the 
 morning — albeit it is not recorded that they passed 
 a resolution. 
 
 But while terms and methods might vary, official 
 I^abour was by no means the only camp throughout 
 July opposed to war. " The whole spirit of 
 Gladstonian I^iberalism," says Colonel Repington, 
 "hated war like the plague and most of all Con- 
 tinental war, which was positively anathema to the 
 party in office. . . . Even the Cabinet was not 
 united on the question of war until the violation of 
 Belgian neutrality was an accomplished fact." In 
 the popular estimate, bad enough as had been the 
 Austrian attitude to Serbia, we could fairly wash our 
 hands of it ; but the German attitude to Belgium — 
 by that, stronger forces were let loose in Britain than 
 resolution and ijianifesto could altogether cope with : 
 class-consciousness was merged in a species of con- 
 sciousness somewhat nearer the elemental ; and in 
 
CATACI^ASM 9 
 
 whatever peril divided opinions on the European 
 crisis might have placed the country in July, it 
 was safely passed when Germany, over and above 
 the confusion of diplomatic issues, gratuitously 
 offered an absolutely clear and popular casus helU. 
 Almost in a night — the night of August 2nd-3rd — 
 the popular fear that Britain might be " dragged 
 into " the war was changed to an apprehension lest 
 by any betrayal of her honour she should be kept out 
 of it ; and the Socialist contention that we should 
 stand aside from the Belgian issue also became 
 suddenly as the voice of one crying in a wilderness. 
 On August 4th the German armies entered Belgium. 
 At II o'clock that night Great Britain was at war. 
 And what was lyabour going to do about it ? 
 
 §2. 
 
 At this point we may usefully attempt some 
 answer to the general question many a reader must 
 have framed : what is the precise evidential value 
 of such resolutions and manifestos and other printed 
 or spoken utterances of I^abour as we have just been 
 quoting and shall doubtless have frequent occasion 
 to quote in the sequel ? Well, as far as figures can 
 throw light on it, here they are : 
 British Labour Party : estimated membership in 1914. 
 
 Trade Unions loi 
 
 Trades Councils and I^ocal Ivabour Parties 179 
 Socialist Societies (including I.I^.P) ... 2 
 
 Total affiliated membership ... ... 1,612,147 
 
 of which somewhere about one-thirtieth was then 
 professedly and systematically Socialist ; but the 
 entire membership, both collectively and through the 
 principal constituent organisations, was represented 
 on the International SociaKst Bureau along with no 
 less than 27 other countries. Here then was 
 
10 lyABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 machinery for some two-fifths, let us say, of British 
 Trade Unionism to become articulate on political 
 issues. But if the question be pressed as to what 
 degree of real sanction, on a given occasion, any 
 such articulation possessed, it is evident that figures 
 will not help much towards an answer. Clearly the 
 expression of policy on specific issues must be the 
 business of a representative body, or person ; and 
 when it comes to guessing the actual degree of 
 representation, other than statistical considerations 
 become relevant, and the verdict will vary with the 
 occasion. 
 
 Both in history and present fact, the basis of 
 labour solidarity is the trade, the living ; as an 
 industrial constituency therefore labour rests on a 
 very tangible and definite foundation, from which it 
 can and does exert a very real influence on the 
 industrial field. But as a poUtical constituency 
 there is no such ready-made and tangible foundation ; 
 there is no particular reason why any two 
 trade unionists shotild be of Uke mind in 
 other than industrial issues — except in so far 
 as they have become class-conscious and are imbued 
 with similar ideals. This is not to say that the 
 political solidarity of labour is dependent upon the 
 conversion of working men to revolutionaries. 
 Heaven knows, class-consciousness is not necessarily 
 revolutionary — ^it has been for centuries the basis 
 of British constitutionalism. What does appear is 
 that the political solidarity of I^abour, unlike the 
 industrial, has to be created — even if, in the end, 
 as its would-be creators hope, the political should 
 become exactly coterminous with the industrial 
 constituency. In fact, a process of inculcation and 
 permeation is going on, and much — ^perhaps most — 
 of what purports to be I^abour utterance is not so 
 much Labour speaking as I^abour being spoken to : 
 more exactly it is the conscious element addressing 
 
CATACI.ASM ir 
 
 the semi-conscious or the unconscious. For that 
 reason resolutions and manifestos of an alert minority 
 are not to be valued altogether in accordance with 
 their merely quantitative backing. In the absence 
 of any equally coherent antagonistic centre of 
 consciousness, there is a certain historic presumption 
 that they represent more or less roughly the way the 
 mass will go. Only when — as in the events of August 
 1914 — the tacit rapport between the articulate 
 nucleus and the rest of the constituency is broken 
 by the irruption of normally dormant elements does 
 the clue become less valuable — even then, by no 
 means valueless. 
 
 §3- 
 
 Thus on Tuesday, August 4th, 1914, Great Britain 
 went to war, as near united as on such an issue a 
 modern nation can be : with an army, reservists and 
 Territorials included, equal to about one-sixth of the 
 subsequent enlistment in the British Isles alone : 
 with an annual productive capacity of arms and 
 munitions equal to rather less than a single week's 
 output four years later. Mobilisation had begun 
 on the Monday morning ; and as it were auto- 
 matically, thousands of dockers, stevedores, seamen, 
 firemen, engine drivers, signalmen, and general 
 labourers were drawn to the docks, the railway 
 sidings and the ports, and kept there on special 
 pay-rates — ^some for a week, some for months- — ^to 
 move the armies : to whose services the Premier in 
 Parliament made subsequent acknowledgment. Not 
 only with the utmost speed, but with the utmost 
 secrecy had the task to be carried through : and in 
 proportion as news had to be withheld the atmosphere 
 became heavy with gossip and rumour, oppressive 
 with a vague sense of crisis and mystery, of colossal 
 
12 LABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 forces moving unseen across England, of terrific 
 conflict in progress at her very gates. Troops passed ; 
 through the city streets almost in silence, and only 
 here and there, where perhaps some fool of a drum- 
 major played the reservists out of barracks to the 
 tune of " Dolly Gray," did the older women choke 
 with a poignant recollection of what it all might mean. 
 In such an atmosphere panic and suspicion were 
 inevitable : spy-hunt and German-baiting were 
 another expression of the temper that produced the 
 food panic of early August. 
 
 At the end of the first week of August, says the 
 Labour Gazette, food prices were advanced by 15 or 
 16 per cent. But what the women knew was that 
 the loaf had risen Jd. ; sugar nearly double ; meat, 
 butter, cheese, bacon id. or 2d. on the pound — all 
 growing scarcer. Worse still were rumours, with only 
 too much truth in them, of rich people driving home 
 motor-cars crammed full of eatables — a process sum- 
 marily stopped by Royal Proclamation in Septem- 
 ber. As for prices, the Board of Trade, on advice of 
 traders' committees, pubUshed reasonable maxima 
 from August 7th ; but took no power to enforce 
 them. By September the panic rise had abated, but 
 the real war advance had set in — to continue appar- 1 
 ently to the Greek kalends. Ij 
 
 Thus from the poor people war lost no time iii| 
 exacting its price ; well for those whom it made inl 
 money no poorer. But the invisible foundations of ' 
 I^abour were collapsing. Panic had overwhelmed 
 the Continental exchanges during that last week of 
 July ; by August ist I/)ndon and New York were 
 the only first-rank markets open, British Consols 
 were down six points, Bank Rate up to 10 per cent 
 On the 2nd came the special, on the 6th the general 
 moratorium ; and with locking-up of securities, 
 cancellation of contracts, curtailment of credit, 
 prohibitive freight insurances, and shortage of 
 
CATACI.ASM 13 
 
 money the unemplo3niient lyabour had dreaded 
 became actual. The textile industries, already suffer- 
 ing badly, and, the furniture trades, were first hit ; 
 luxury trades and general export industry followed ; 
 and by the end of the month there were some 18,000 
 additional men unemployed, notwithstanding enlist- 
 ment, in the I^ondon area alone. " In September," 
 to quote the summary given by G. D. H. Cole in 
 " I^abour in War-Time," " out of about 9,250,000 
 wage-earners in industrial occupations, including 
 about 2,250,000 women, 98,000 men and 189,000 
 women were out of work, despite the fact that 
 616,000 such men had joined the forces." And 
 in addition, about one in ten of the persons employed 
 in Jtily had been reduced to short time — and short 
 money — ^by October. 
 
 §4- 
 
 With prices rising, unemployment apparently on 
 the increase, autumn closing in, and a European 
 war in progress, here was scope enough for whatever 
 organisation I^abour could put forward to migitate 
 its own prospect — though " inevitably the Govern- 
 ment got in first " grudgingly remarks our Ivabour 
 historian, as if it were a sort of contest. The 
 Government Committee on Distress was appointed 
 the very day war was declared ; ahd on August 6th, 
 following a peculiarly British tradition in such 
 matters, it inaugurated the system of voluntary 
 local distress committees which should " include 
 representatives of the municipal, education and poor 
 law authorities, distress committees (that is, the 
 peace time unemployment relief committees, of 
 which there were 16 at the end of July) trade 
 unions, and philanthropic agencies, ' ' as well as women ; 
 by which bodies grants from the Prince of Wales' 
 
14 lyABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 Fund were to be administered, public works put in 
 hand, and whatever possible done to maintain 
 employment in their respective areas. Meanwhile 
 Labour had " got in " on August 5th with an ad 
 hoc conference of all the Socialist societies and 
 Labour organisations ; from the conference a " War 
 Emergency Workers' National Committee " was 
 there and then appointed ; which committee met 
 weekly during the rest of the year, and fortnightly 
 for over twelve months after, proving always an 
 alert, sometimes a constructive critic of official 
 policy. 
 
 On some cardinal points, in fact, the Government 
 policy proved so vulnerable that had distress 
 materialised on anything like the scale apprehended, 
 drastic alteration would have been imperative. 
 There was, for example, the almost inevitable defect 
 that relief could hardly be dissociated, on the 
 distress committees, from the idea and the methods 
 -of organised charity ; necessary investigation proved 
 too often inquisitorial, and the least deserving 
 became the most accessible cases. Then there was a 
 running competition between the claims of civil 
 and military applications, in which Labour rightly 
 alleged undue favour was extended to the latter. 
 Worst of all was the absence until the end of October 
 of any uniform principle or scale of relief ; with the 
 result that equally well-meaning committees in 
 neighbouring districts might be working on entirely 
 divergent lines. Fulham and WHlesden, for example, 
 were allowing 12s. 6d. a week for a single adult, 
 while Southwark was giving 3s. and Bethnal 
 Green 4s. Many committees, moreover, attempted 
 on ofiicial advice to give relief in kind only. " My 
 own committee, for instance," wrote a contributor 
 to the Nation on October 31st, " was forced to 
 admit money relief on finding that various recipients 
 of its tickets were sitting in the dark with parcels 
 
CATACI.ASM 15 
 
 of dry tea and uncooked meat, because they had not 
 a penny for coal or gas." On these and many other 
 matters the Workers' Committee " made repre- 
 sentations " to the Government Committee, 
 frequently with effect, and when the latter took 
 in hand the question of a standard relief scale, the 
 lyabour body fought hard for the " pound-a-week " 
 family minimtun. In that it did not succeed : the 
 October scale gave ids. to one adult, 20s. to the 
 family with four children in London ; in the pro- 
 vinces 2s. less ; this being, however, a substantial 
 advance on the original proposals. 
 
 As time went on the Workers' Committee widened 
 its net. It investigated the conduct and costs of 
 Government contracts, and published its findings ; 
 it collected information and by reports or memoranda 
 effectively informed public opinion on the increases 
 in rents, food prices and coal prices ; it encouraged 
 the provision of maternity schemes under the 
 Enabling Act of 1915 ; of meals for school children 
 under the 1914 Act ; and it appointed five members 
 to the central committee on Women's Employment 
 — a committee which, in addition to assisting the 
 redistribution of women in industry, itself handled 
 Government contracts for shirts, body belts and 
 socks, and disbursed in eighteen months over 
 £15,000 in wages through its own work rooms. AU 
 this was work that any I^abour society, whether 
 or no it supported the war, must admit to be 
 necessary ; and the Workers' Committee owed much 
 of its great influence to the fact that after August, 
 1914, it was the only platform on which all the 
 heterogeneous societies could stand together. Its 
 general policy, especially its insistent pressure on the 
 Government in the direction of food purchase and 
 control, was largely dictated by the Fabian Society 
 — " or " (says Mr. Cole) " what is much the same, 
 by Mr. Sidney Webb " ; and though this side of its 
 
i6 IvABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 work brought little direct resvilt, through its effect 
 on public opinion the Workers' Committee was ta 
 prove a decisive power in the political history of 1915. 
 
 §5- 
 
 While the Workers' Committee was thus concern- 
 ing itself with the effect of the war-situation on the 
 industrial population as a whole, the situation was 
 threatening to throw completely out of gear the 
 machinery by which that population was organised ; 
 and on August 24th the executives of the Trades 
 Union Congress, and the I^abour Party, met to con- 
 sider the matter. Briefly, the position was that the 
 abnormal unemployment was causing an insupport- 
 able drain on the resources of the trade unions, at a 
 time when their invested funds could only be realised 
 at a grave disadvantage ; and it was urged that the 
 unions were by now a sufficiently essential part of 
 society to have a valid claim on the State for 
 assistance. Some assistance they were of course 
 entitled to under the National Insurance Act — ^to 
 the extent, under certain conditions, of a refund of 
 one-sixth of their expenditure on unemployment 
 relief ; but far more was becoming necessary. They 
 were hit by the withdrawal on military service of a 
 large proportion of their subscribing members, while 
 of the remainder more and more were being turned 
 over every week from subscribers to claimants. It 
 had been urged by the more zealous Socialist critics 
 of the Government's relief poUcy that the unions 
 should be made the administrative agencies for a 
 State reHef scheme ; but in fact the unions could 
 hardly cope with the claims of their own members, 
 and were practically compelled to desist from 
 accepting any additional responsibilities. This was 
 the case put before the Prime Minister on August 
 
, CATACI.ASM 17 
 
 27th, wdth a request for State aid in realising trade 
 union funds at short notice and for additional 
 subsidies to palliate the emergency. The latter 
 were granted in October with retrospective effect 
 as from the outbreak of war ; unions sufiEering 
 abnormal unemployment were enabled, provided 
 they made a special levy on their employed of id. 
 or 2d. weekly, to obtain a maximum refund of one- 
 sixth or one-third of their expenditure — that is, 
 with the one-sixth already obtainable, one-third or 
 one-half in all. Undoubtedly the scheme pressed 
 hardest on the unions that most needed help ; it 
 would hardly have sufficed for a long-period drain, 
 and the turn of events rather than the State subsidies 
 saved the unions. As it was, after eight months of 
 war, 182 unions had received in all some £76,756 — 
 a small enough total seeing that in some cases the 
 tmemployinent expenditure exceeded £20,000 in the 
 last quarter of 1914. 
 
 §6. 
 
 Yet despite widespread unemployment and dis- 
 tress among the rank-and-file of labour and the 
 many practical difiiculties with which its leaders 
 had as best they could to contend, not these things 
 but the universal tide of active patriotism wUl 
 remain the dominant impression of this momentous 
 autumn. Volunteers from all trades and classes 
 were enlisting at the rate of nearly 100,000 a week : 
 174,901 during the first week of September ; so that 
 many a regiment would make a favour of it to put 
 your name on a long waiting list, and many a dep6t 
 had to close its doors on a press of volunteers much 
 as in peace time the dock gates used to close on a 
 press of willing labourers. Outstanding industrial 
 disputes were broken off, compromised, referred to 
 
i8 LABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 arbitration or waived altogether. Already in the 
 first fortnight of August, employers and trade 
 unionists on Clyde and Tjme had mutually agreed to 
 assist in every possible way the execution of all work 
 essential to the war — ^in the latter area, had even 
 recommended the removal of " all working restric- 
 tions." Other unions were taking up a similar 
 attitude ; and the I^abour Conference of August 
 25th, before it approached the Government, for 
 assistance for the union funds, had embodied the 
 general opinion in a resolution " that an immediate 
 effort be made to terminate all existing disputes, 
 whether strikes or lock-outs, and whenever new 
 points of difficulty arise during the war-period, a 
 serious attempt should be made by all Concerned 
 to reach an amicable settlement before resorting 
 to a strike or lock-out." From 72,000 men involved 
 in various disputes in mid- July the number fell to 
 " practically nil " by the following February: for 
 99 new disputes originating in July there were only 
 14 in August. This was the industrial truce, loyally 
 observed in spite of grave provocation during the 
 first winter. 
 
 And lest it be thought that this was a small matter, 
 an obvious and unimportant concession, let it be 
 recalled that the three years preceding the war were 
 years of intense industrial struggle in which for the 
 unions principles as well as pence were at stake; 
 and that, even as regards wages alone, the truce 
 involved the spontaneous surrender of the essential 
 factor in their bargaining power, in sheer reliance 
 on the goodwill of employers and the State. What- 
 ever amelioration of the average working class 
 standard of living the next few years might have 
 brought was thus staked on the hazard ; and it was 
 a stake that the war-bonus principle of subsequent 
 wage advances did not in fact redeem. 
 
 To the political truce also, under which Parlia- 
 
CATACI.ASM 19 
 
 mentary vacancies were to be refilled without 
 contest, official I^abour was a party ; and when at 
 the end of August a parliamentary recruiting cam- 
 paign was inaugurated, the National I^abour Party 
 wholeheartedly supported it, recommending all its 
 affiliated organisations to do the same, and placing 
 its staff and its offices at the service of the campaign. 
 The executive of the Trades Union Congress now 
 stated its opinion that " upon the result of the 
 struggle in which this country is now engaged rest 
 the preservation and maintenance of free and 
 unfettered democratic government " ; and by the 
 middle of October practically the whole official 
 I^abour movement had realised that " the victory of 
 Germany would mean the death of democracy in 
 Europe." Almost alone the Independent I^abour 
 Party continued to wave the standard of Socialist 
 idealism : " Out of the darkness and the depth we 
 hail our working-class comrades of every land. Across 
 the roar of guns we send sympathy and greeting to 
 the German socialists. ... In tears of blood and 
 bitterness the greater democracy wHl be born. With 
 steadfast faith we greet the future ; our cause is 
 holy and imperishable, and the labour of our hands 
 has not been in vain. I^ong live Freedom and 
 Fraternity ! I/ong live International Socialism ! " 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Generai, Post. 
 
 §1- 
 
 From what men are thinking and sajdng to what 
 they are doing is in England generally a. far cry. 
 It is apt to be farthest when, as in the time we have 
 now to record, they are acting under the immediate 
 pressure of unforeseen events, and being driven, 
 against their declared will, to strain their old systems 
 to breaking-point. These were days in which news 
 of the fighting came through only in carefully edited 
 reports, disseminated with a view not so much to 
 accurate information as to the manufacture of a 
 certain public opinion ; and when no authentic 
 estimate of progress on the home front as regards 
 either men or munitions was allowed to appear at all. 
 They were the days of imaginary Russians in 
 England, of naval battles that were never fought, 
 and German landings that were never seen ; days 
 when it was commonly said that war on such a scale 
 could hardly last twelve months, and Kitchener's 
 December hint of three years came as a shock to 
 recruits who had considered that a remote alter- 
 native to " the duration "; days, in short, when no 
 dimmest prevision of what England could and would 
 do in the way of simultaneous fighting and working 
 
GENERAI. POST 2t 
 
 was possible to any man. Small wonder that the 
 winter of 1914-15 presents something like a seething 
 chaos to the historian. 
 
 For clue we shall follow at first the official totals 
 and averages compiled mostly after the event ; but 
 for any good that may come of the venture we must 
 invoke the aid of the instructed imagination, in 
 constant reminder that the truth of these things is 
 only the generalised truth of the mathematician, and 
 that we are dealing not with masses of abstract 
 " labour " computable under a few score headings 
 in round numbers or precise percentages, but with 
 live men, women and children, parents, wives, 
 brothers, sisters, friends of the men in France ; folk, 
 most of them, to whose lives leisure, comfort, culture, 
 as elsewhere understood, were largely foreign, to 
 many of whom an eight-hour working day was a 
 remote desideratum, among whom what skill at lathe 
 or forge or loom a man had gained was his one precious 
 possession, to be protected against exploitation as a 
 richer man might guard his jewels against the thief ; 
 folk from whom industry as well as war had already 
 claimed its casualties by thousands, and to whom 
 the industrial recovery was to mean breaking-up 
 of homes, and journeyings to strange parts, and 
 loss of old companions, and protracted hours of toil 
 by day and night, and small thanks, and for four 
 years no respite. 
 
 §2. 
 
 With the aid of the aforesaid abstractions, it is 
 possible to make a rough general analysis of the 
 intricate process of labour resettlement, which can be 
 mdicated most clearly in imaginary diagram form. 
 Visualise, then, two parallel columns or tubes, open 
 above, closed by* stop-cocks below ; and let the one 
 
22 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 contain the total available supply of male labour, 
 the other the total volume of employment as 
 measured by jobs actually filled. It would be better 
 if this second column could represent the total 
 demand for labour, but there is no measuring the 
 imsatisfied as well as the satisfied demand ; certain 
 indications of it we shall adduce later. The custom 
 had grown up of adjusting the level of the first 
 column to that of the second, with the result that 
 there was normally a labour surplus or margin. 
 This surplus amounted at the outbreak of war to 
 some 3.6 per cent, of the total volume in our first 
 column ; but for the moment we will ignore it and 
 assume, as the official statistics do, that the two 
 columns start level ; and we will call the level 100. 
 Then the taps are opened and the drain begins. 
 Actually the collapse of credit and consequent 
 decline in industry begin to teU on the second colmriQ:. 
 a week or more before recruitment begins to drain 
 the first. By August 5th the dual process is well 
 started ; and what we may consider the first phase 
 consists in the downward race of the two levels. 
 
 For three months the level of the second column 
 falls below that of the first, creating an abnormal 
 surplus of labour supply. At the end of August 
 the labour level is down to about 97.7, while the 
 second column has fallen to 95 . i . During September 
 both levels fall still faster, but the discrepancy , 
 decreases ; 91.2 and 89.8 are the readings. A month ' 
 later the levels stand at 89.3 and 89.2 ; and by the 
 end of November the two columns are practically 
 level again, though still falling. In other words, 
 abnormal male unemployment has disappeared. 
 
 After November the level of the first column tends 
 to fall below that of the second, and the excess passes 
 to the other side. The drain of enlistment continues 
 
GEKERAI, POST 23 
 
 at the rate of over 30,000 a week ; but a partial 
 industrial recovery has diminished the drain on the 
 volume of employment, while the special require- 
 ments of the war are all along being poured in increas- 
 ing measure into the top of the second column, so 
 that the net downward movement is now very small. 
 In December the first column is down to 86.7, while 
 the second stands at 89.1 ; with the result that fresh 
 labour is now being poured into the first column to 
 counteract the deficiency. "If we ask," says Mr. 
 Cole, " whence this new male labour has come, the 
 answer is that it has conie partly from the absorption 
 of those who were unemployed last Jtdy " — that is, 
 the original surplus that we agreed to ignore in our 
 comparison — " and partly by the entry of new labour 
 into the industries concerned. This has taken the 
 form both of a return to work of men who had 
 ceased to be so employed, and of a transference of 
 labour from commercial and other occupations to 
 industry." 
 
 Now it has been pointed out that the level of our 
 second column, representing the volume of employ- 
 ment, gives us practically no indication of the total 
 satisfied and unsatisfied demand for labour. I/Ong 
 before February it was evident that the level of the 
 second column was tending to rise to a higher point 
 than the first column could possibly attain by the 
 process of simple replacement. The enhanced depen- 
 dence of the greater part of the available labour on a 
 small number of skilled trades was limiting the whole 
 effective supply to the level they attained ; and as in 
 them, under the existing system of prodtiction, the 
 limits of replacement were approachfed, the problem 
 of adjusting the labour supply here entered on its 
 third and most exacting phase : the phase generally 
 associated with the term " dilution." 
 
24 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 §3. 
 
 The interpretation of this diagram (for it is no 
 more, and barely adequate at that) in terms of par- 
 ticular reality has to reckon first with the fact that 
 the two simple columns we have posited were actually 
 composite and partly heterogeneous. The first 
 column, representing labour supply, averages up- 
 wards of 500 separate trades and vocations, of which 
 some two or three dozen (including the skilled 
 engineering and shipbuilding trades, and coal-mining) 
 were practically watertight, a large ntunber of 
 unskilled trades permeable in normal circumstances, 
 and the rest permeable under varying degrees of 
 pressure. Further, there was a certain causal depen- 
 dence between the small number of " watertight" 
 trades and the occupations usually associated with 
 them : on 23 skilled mechanics, for example, in 
 a particular factory in the spring of 1915 depended 
 the employment of 900 juveniles ; and as women 
 were increasingly brought in, the ratio rose even 
 higher. 
 
 To trace the progress of the drain of recruitment 
 in each case is not possible. The available data are 
 classified under industries, and in any case, so far as 
 the proportionate drain is concerned, we have no 
 means of knowing the original proportions of fit men 
 of military age each trade comprised. But it is 
 clear in the first place that the drain bore no direct 
 relation to the state of emplo5anent : it was not the 
 dread, nor the passing reality, of unemployrnent 
 that sent men into the Army, but a great positive 
 response to the call for volunteers. There is little 
 correspondence between the loss of men in the various 
 industries and the respective tmemployment figures 
 for the end of July. The shipbuilding trades, for 
 example, were then suffering nearly double the 
 
GENERAIv POST 25 
 
 unemployment in the engineering group, but the 
 latter sent a greater proportion of its men to the 
 army ; the same paradox holds between the building 
 trades and the coal miners, and the timber trades 
 and the miscellaneous metal trades, and other pairs 
 in which the fitness of the men would be approxi- 
 mately equal. " It is very far from being the fact," 
 said the Nation in December, " that this reply (to the 
 appeal for. recruits) is a measure of falling trade. 
 This might be said of one or two districts. But not 
 of Manchester, where trade is reviving, and the men 
 still pour into the new battalions. Nor of the Dur- 
 ham mining centres, where collieries have been closed 
 down through the loss of soldier-workers. Not of 
 the Welsh tin-plate industry, which is full of orders 
 and where no rise of wages can stop the flowing away 
 from works going at full pressure. It is not for lack 
 of inducement that men are leaving : £7, £8, and 
 even ;^io a week have been offered and refused." 
 Taking the country over, it was precisely the dis- 
 tricts of densest industry that gave the highest 
 proportion of men ; and the fact drives home the 
 second point that the drain was proceeding irrespec- 
 tive also of the value to war-requirements of the 
 trades in which the men were engaged. And therein 
 lay the fundamental danger. 
 
 The situation arose that while in certain trades 
 the first phase (of labour excess) persisted for 
 months, in others the second phase (of deficiency) 
 supervened within a few weeks, and in some the third 
 phase (of dilution) was already becoming imminent. 
 After six months of war the only trades remaining 
 in the first phase, so far as regards men, were those 
 concerned with building and building materials, 
 furniture, and tin-plate ; while the second phase 
 was pronounced in all trades engaged in ship-bijilding, 
 iron and steel, engineering, leather, woollen textiles, 
 chemicals, saw-milling, food supply and coal-minipg. 
 
26 LABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 The effect was to raise the possibility of labour 
 adjustment to the level of a first rank national 
 problem, in which both the geogra;phical and the 
 inter-vocational mobility of labour were involved. 
 
 Although what we may assume to have been the 
 most mobile section of labour was rapidly demonstra- 
 ting its mobility by getting into khaki, redistribution 
 up to a point went astonishingly well. The labour 
 exchanges, the trade unions, even the newspapers 
 acted as channels by which an excess here could be 
 connected with a deficiency there. By the end of 
 November war-unemployment had disappeared, and 
 the surplus was only normal. Succeeding months 
 saw the amount steadily reduced still fartiier, until 
 with the figure going below i per cent, in May there 
 is an end of unemployment for the war-period — ^if the 
 men only are considered, it was at an end by the 
 new year. Before 1914 was out, workpeople were 
 finding it difficult to get any sort of accommodation 
 at such centres as Woolwich, Erith, Barrow and the 
 Clyde. 
 
 The extent of the general movement may be 
 inferred from the enormous intake of new labour in 
 the principal industries. In six months the leather, 
 chemical and explosive, and woollen textile industries 
 had gained more labour than they had lost, and were 
 employing more workpeople than in the previous 
 July ; while in the ship-building, the iron and steel, 
 and other trades the drain had been made up to a 
 much larger extent than their original unemployed 
 excess would account for, and what spare labour 
 remained — as in the Ivancashire cotton area — was 
 either non-usable as yet, or non-mobile. But whereas 
 the excess in the unskilled and the semi-skilled trades 
 could be practically pooled for replacement where it 
 was needed, for the all-important " water-tight " 
 trades there was only the strictly relevant and 
 limited surplus to draw on ; and as this was exhausted 
 
GBNBRAI, POST 27 
 
 the search for fresh labour was pushed to unpre- 
 cedented courses. Belgians were taken on, as 
 temporary members of the trade unions earning 
 the standard district rates : Board of Trade ofiEicers 
 were sent to collect men — did collect and bring over 
 a few hundreds — from Holland, even from Canada ; 
 while at home, fresh supplies having dried up, 
 armament firms were endeavouring to divert labour, 
 and private firms endeavouring to retain it, by sheer 
 competitive wage-offers. And all the while the 
 drain was going on and the deficiency growing more 
 and more perilous. Krupp's had solved the problem 
 by the time it was seriously tackled in Kngland. 
 All their expert gun-makers had been promptly 
 ordered out of the army, and by April 10,000 more 
 men were said to be at work in Essen than when the 
 war began. From the British Army some few men, 
 at the instigation of the armament firms, were being 
 asked, not ordered, to return in January ; and 
 recruiting officers then received their first instructions 
 to pass over certain trades. But the only need made 
 public, and the only one recognised by the Secretary 
 for War, was for soldiers and ever more soldiers. 
 Recruiting ofiicers might or might not observe the 
 half-hearted instructions, but in any case there were 
 the unofficial agencies, and the irresponsible women 
 with their " king and country want you " and their 
 white feathers and their myopia that could see no 
 good in any male thing out of khaki. For one voice 
 that might persuade a man to stay, there were dozens 
 that would urge him to go. And if he so decided 
 there was no authority could stop him, nor in the 
 army either will or means to send him back again. 
 
 §4- 
 How all this was checked and complicated by the 
 
28 IvABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 incidence of the war-demand, a rough analysis of the 
 second column of the diagram will show. I^ike the 
 first, this column disintegrates — taking only the 
 most general classification — ^into some seventy odd 
 groups of industries, through which, as through the 
 various trades, the drain of the war and the incidence 
 of the war demands were very unevenly distributed, 
 not orily as between one industry and another, but as 
 between different sections or areas of the same 
 industry. See, for instance, how the catastrophe 
 played havoc in that fairly compact business, coal- 
 mining. The sudden cessation of export trade, due 
 partly to the closing of the foreign markets and 
 partly to the dearth of shipping to carry what could 
 have been taken, made at once for reduction of 
 employment. Then the warm weather and the 
 general depression diminished the demand for 
 domestic supplies, and the closing down of factories, 
 particularly in the cotton trade, diminished the 
 demand for industrial supplies ; many of the miners 
 who remained, especially in the north of England, 
 had to work short time. On the other hand, heavy 
 Admiralty orders were coming in, and Welsh pits 
 on naval supply were set going full pressure, while 
 the demand for anthracite for the European market 
 recovered after the first week or two ; with result 
 that private shippers were short of best coal, and 
 while some mining areas could not find enough 
 labour, others were still unable to employ on full 
 time what labour they had. Or take again the boot 
 and shoe industry — one of the first to suffer by over- 
 enhstment. Here, of course, army contracts held 
 the field, and orders from the French Government 
 were taken in September ; but the war demand, as 
 in many other cases, differed from the peace demand, 
 and while the men's trade was working overtime 
 in Northampton, many of the women's firms were 
 suffering at London and I^eicester — until they could 
 
GENERAL POST 29 
 
 iustal heavy machinery and get the army work to 
 do ; while the box-makers — Government boots not 
 wanting boxes — were left at a standstill. So also 
 in the clothing trades : where firms could take, or 
 could adapt their plant and instal fresh plant to take, 
 the huge army contracts, overtime was being worked 
 and sh(Jrtage of labour complained of ; while in 
 other branches of the industry where adaptation was 
 less easy or contracts had not as yet begun to arrive, 
 short time and unemployment were still on the 
 increase, and large numbers of the women had 
 recourse to the relief committees' workrooms. Among 
 industries such as chemicals and glass manufacture, 
 the shortage of foreign supplies hit the small firms 
 at once, though the larger ones could manage to 
 carry on at full pressure ; while the building and 
 food trades were already responding in certain areas 
 to the beginnings of the great army camps. 
 
 But it was mainly in regard to the armament 
 and munitions supplies that the distribution of the 
 war demand became crucial ; and in this matter 
 the gradual straining of the old system to breaking 
 point is even more clearly traceable than in regard 
 to labour organisation. In 1914 the country de- 
 pended for its war material on three principal 
 Government factories and about 21 private armament 
 firms, whose works were concentrated in a small 
 number of areas — the banks of the Clyde, Thames, 
 and Tyne, Birmingham, Sheffield, Coventry, lyceds, 
 and one or two other towns ; and to these centres the 
 huge increase in the demand was mainly directed. 
 Sub-contracting of Government work was discoun- 
 tenanced by the War Office in peace time, but it had 
 been sanctioned, on condition that entire responsibi- 
 lity was retained by the principal firm, as part of the 
 Government plan for meeting unemployment in 
 September, 1914. Under the pressure of necessity, 
 q,nd on official authority, the system was vastly 
 
30 LABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 extended during the next six months — so widely, 
 in fact, that between 2,500 and 3,000 firms were 
 engaged wholly or in part on war supply. But 
 despite the extension, sub-contracting remained 
 an unpopular system. It was unpopular with the 
 War Office, which distrusted the allocation of impor- 
 tant work to firms it knew not, and considered 
 inexperienced ; it was unpopular with the armament 
 firms, whose private harvest after long, lean years of 
 peace was just beginning to be reaped, and'who might 
 reasonably object, moreover, to sub-letting work for 
 which they had to retain responsibility, both as 
 regards delivery and quality ; and it was unpopular 
 with both masters and men in the sub-contracting 
 firms, who alleged that prices and profits were cut 
 ruinously fine, while the principal firms made for- 
 tunes. It was also liable to certain abuses in respect 
 both of finance and employment on which the 
 Workers' Committee kept a vigilant eye ; and as a 
 system it proved a definite failtire. 
 
 Failure was in fact foreshadowed, as the Govern- 
 ment afterwards admitted, in December, 1914, when 
 shortage of supplies and non-delivery of contracts 
 were already proving disastrous to the batteries in 
 France. None the less, the old system of centraUsa- 
 tion was adhered to by the War Office, despite 
 increasing pressure from sub-contracting firms, from 
 the Army Command in France, and even from other 
 Government departments. To the difficulty arising 
 from the growing scarcity of skilled men was thus 
 added the difficulty of concentrating at the existing 
 centres what men were available. At the end of March 
 the efforts of armament firms to divert labour from 
 private work were reinforced by Government appeals 
 both to the trade unions and to the private employers. 
 
 Enquiry after enquiry was made into the amount 
 of fresh labour that could be drawn from private 
 sources, and as a last attempt to buttress the system 
 
GENBRAIv POST 31 
 
 of concentration the Government took power, in the 
 Defence of the Realm (Amendment) Act No. 2 (i6th 
 March) " to regulate or restrict the carr5dng on of 
 work in any factory or workshop, or remove the 
 plant therefrom, with a view to increasing the pro- 
 duction of war materials in other factories or work- 
 shops. ' ' Private employers were given protection from 
 any penalties that non-fulfilment of their contracts 
 might entail ; and an Armaments Output Committee 
 was appointed by Ivord Kitchener (31st March) to 
 supervise and facilitate the diversion of labour. 
 
 The task tackled on such lines proved impossible. 
 Under the new Act the Government had power to 
 take machinery out of a private works at Falmouth 
 and set it up in a munitions factory at Aberdeen — 
 but it could not compel the men who worked it to 
 move into the next street. The competition for 
 labour attained the pitch of fever. By poster, by 
 press advertisement, even by personal appeal, the 
 Admiralty and the armament firms ran up the 
 auction price of skilled labour in all the Chief industrial 
 centres, while the War Ofiice chose this very moment 
 for a special effort to recruit aU skilled men not 
 actually on war work. 
 
 In the northern centres from a third to a half of 
 the men thus drawn to munitions work proved 
 disastrously mobile — until the frantic progress was 
 stopped short by a regulation under the Defence of 
 the Realm Act (29th April), which made canvassing 
 labour alrea,dy engaged on war work illegal. 
 
 Still the problem remained, and no merely negative 
 effort could solve it. Bnough harm had already 
 resulted in regard to the level of wages and to the 
 temper of the men ; more than enough in regard to 
 the supply of munitions. Neither from the country 
 nor the Cabinet could failure any longer remain 
 concealed. For the old systems, both of labour 
 supply and of production.breaking-point had arrived. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Getting Down To It. 
 
 §1- 
 
 The phrase " trade practices " — or as it is fre- 
 quently put, " trade restrictions " — covers that mass 
 of rules and customs by which, broadly speakiijg, the 
 skilled trade unions safeguard their status in industry. 
 Those rules have developed mainly by tradition and 
 continuous adjustment to meet the changing circum- 
 stances of employment — ^in at least one case they can" 
 be traced back well over a century. They are part 
 written, part understood, and frequently vary be- 
 tween different districts of the same trade, for which 
 reason the local branch rather than the head office of 
 a union tends to become their repository. In general 
 they aim at defining an industrial field as the 
 preserve of the skilled man, and at fixing a maximum 
 proportion of apprentice or less skilled labour that 
 shall be set to work in conjunction. They specify 
 individual operations in a machine-shop, for example, 
 that only skilled men shall perform (in some cases 
 particular tj^es of work are claimed by, and allotted 
 to, the members of certain specified unions) ; they 
 state the maximum number of machines that shall 
 be " set up " or tended by one mechanic ; they 
 define the conditions on which a man shall be entitled 
 
GETTING DOWN TO IT 33 
 
 to recognition as " skilled " ; they limit, in many 
 cases, the number of shifts or the amount of overtime 
 that certain classes may work ; and in a host of 
 minor directions they limit the power of the employer 
 to dispose freely of his most highly trained labour. 
 Behind them, more than behind any other aspect of 
 trade unionism, lies the full force of organised skilled 
 labour jealous of its " one precious possession " ; and 
 through them more immediately than in any other 
 fashion does the reality of trade unionism come home 
 to the average worker. To the frequent argument 
 of the employers, valid within certain limits, that 
 the rules tend to quantitative restriction of output, 
 the unions reply that they provide a qualitative 
 guarantee for both present and future. 
 
 Under war conditions, as we have seen, the 
 quantitative restriction became speedily apparent. 
 As early as October, 1914, employers on the Clyde 
 were endeavouring without success to negotiate a 
 relaxation of demarcation rules with the skilled 
 unions. At successive conferences in both the 
 shipbuilding and the engineering trades the same 
 attempt was made with the same result. Not that 
 the Labour leaders did not recognise the difficulty ; 
 an " unprecedented situation," they allowed, had 
 arisen, and with it a " very difl&cult problem indeed," 
 which there is reason to suppose they foresaw could 
 be solved by nothing less than the ultimate sacrifice. 
 But it was not their office to offer that out-of-hand ; 
 their raison d'etre as executive bodies was to pre- 
 serve these very safeguards. And even if they 
 recommended the surrender, would the thousands of 
 individual' workers whose prospects were affected 
 consent to make it ? Or would they repudiate 
 leaders who in their opinion had " sold the pass " 
 too lightly ? At all events, the leaders' immediate 
 and obvious pohcy was to examine and put forward 
 every possible alternative. 
 
34 IvABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 The Sheffield engineering conferences ia December 
 and January will illustrate as well as any others 
 what was going on. The federated employers begin 
 by stating as a body that they can employ 12,500 
 more men at once and 15,000 before long, and propose 
 " that in consequence of the unions' inability to 
 supply the requisite amount of labour they agree to 
 remove certain trade restrictions without prejudice 
 during the continuance of the war." Counter- 
 proposals are put forward by the unions ; nothing is 
 agreed on. Then on January 2nd an official letter 
 requests both parties to give their " immediate 
 attention " to these matters. The employers, offer- 
 ing substantial guarantees as to restoration and 
 security, now advance a definite set of questions 
 which " shall not be pressed to an issue " during 
 war-time ; namely, the manning of machines, includ- 
 ing the number to be tended by one man ; the 
 manning of hand operations ; the demarcation of 
 work between trades ; the emplojTnent of non- 
 union and female labour ; the limitation of over- 
 time. To which the unions make counter-sugges- 
 tions : that firms not doing war-work should be 
 given contracts (notice how the deficiency of the 
 system was already observed by the men) ; that 
 firms working short time should transfer their men 
 to Government work ; that the Government should 
 offer subsistence allowances to induce men to move 
 (note again the defective incidence of the war- 
 demand) ; that skilled men should be brought over 
 from Canada and South Africa, even from Australia ; 
 that the skilled men already in the army shotdd be 
 sent back. 
 
 Action along all these lines except the first was, 
 as we have seen, attempted during the winter ; but 
 without yielding any hope to either side that it would 
 be sufficient. Only in. one case was any agreement 
 touching the essential problem reached as yet ; 
 
GETTING DOWN TO IT 35 
 
 Messrs. Vickers at Crayford obtained in November 
 the sanction of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers 
 to the emplo37ment of wonien — not in place of skilled 
 labour — but on " purely automatic machines used 
 for the production of repetition work." Elsewhere, 
 on Clyde and Tyne, and even in lyondon, where 
 union leaders had been in negotiation with Govern- 
 ment officials, was nothing but deadlock. In the 
 men's view, any sacrifice they might make would 
 certainly result in enhanced profit for the firms in 
 which they made it ; and no guarantee as to restora- 
 tion coming from the very people who stood to gain 
 by the concession was acceptable. Further, it may 
 be argued that just as priyate employers were bound 
 to resist a diversion of labour that involved the 
 setting aside of their obligations to their shareholders, 
 so the trade union leaders were bound to resist the 
 grant of concessions that involved the setting aside 
 of their obligations to their constituents. It is true 
 that only in the former case had the obligations a 
 legal sanction ; but they were if anything the more 
 binding for the absence of it in the latter. And as in 
 the one case the ultimate responsibility had to be 
 shouldered by the State itself, so, and rightly so, it 
 had eventually to be accepted in the other. It 
 was both logical and necessary that the Government 
 should be associated with the abrogation of the trade 
 practices and w;ith the pledge to restore them. 
 
 §2. 
 
 The Government, however, was far from eager 
 to venture in a region than which, in its own view, 
 "it would be difficult to name a more perilous field 
 for even the slightest advance of Goverimient inter- 
 ference." " I can only say," adds lyord Askwith, 
 " that it had to be attempted " ; and accordit^ly 
 
36 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 on February 4th, 1915, the Treasury " Committee 
 on Production," consisting of Lord (then Sir George) 
 Askwith, Sir Francis Hopwood for the Admiralty, 
 and Sir George Gibb for the Army Council, was 
 instructed to enquire and report 
 
 " after consultation with the representatives of 
 employers and workmen, upon the best steps to 
 be taken to ensure that the productive powers of 
 the employees in the engineering and ship- 
 building establishments working for Government 
 purposes shall be made fully available." 
 Pretty much as we have stated it already, each 
 side argued its case at length before the Committee ; 
 and the latter, doing what it could at once, produced 
 first a recommendation (which shortly became the 
 basis of an agreement) as to the making up of broken 
 squads of rivetters in the shipyards, and next a series 
 of proposals in regard to the production of shells 
 and fuzes. These proposals, which got nearer the 
 essential problem, were briefly that the employers 
 concerned should give an undertaking to the com- 
 ' mittee as representing the Government (not, observe, 
 merely to the unions) that the enhanced earnings of 
 the men on piece work should not be taken as sub- 
 sequent ground for cutting the rates — ^it being hoped 
 that the removal of this apprehension would induce 
 the men to higher output ; and that female labour 
 should be more widely used. The Committee also 
 recommended that each contracting firm should give 
 an undertaking to the Government " to be held on \ 
 behalf of the Unions " that any departure from trade 
 practice made during the war should not be allowed 
 to prejudice the position of the workers or their 
 societies in regard to the subsequent restoration of 
 the status quo ; and that no dispute arising on 
 Government work should be allowed to go the length 
 of strike or lock-out, but failing other settlement 
 should be referred to a Government arbitration 
 
GETTING DOWN TO IT 37 
 
 tribunal — which tribunal the Committee itself 
 became. 
 
 Early in March, 1915, the Engineering Employers' 
 Federation and the Trade Unions concerned con- 
 cluded on these lines the " Shells and Fuzes Agree- 
 ment " (confirmed by ballot of the men on April 8th). 
 For the first time the unions now agreed that skilled 
 men setting up machines or making tools and gauges 
 might be supplemented by other " competent " 
 workmen ; and that in suitable cases semi-skiUed 
 or female labour might be employed on what had 
 been " skilled " work. Among the safeguards 
 prescribed was the stipulation that any employer 
 making use of the agreement should notify his 
 acceptance of all its provisions to the local offices of 
 the unions concerned ; and it is noteworthy that the 
 employers, also agreed " to take all possible steps to 
 ensure distribution of Government work throughout 
 the kingdom." 
 
 The next step taken by the Committee went still 
 farther in recommending (8th March) a broad waiving 
 of demarcation rules between trades on Government 
 work, and a wider use of unskilled or semi-skilled 
 labour. And a fourth report, which, according to 
 lyord Askwith, the Government dechned to publish 
 in spite of strong pressure from the Committee, got 
 to the root of the matter with proposals for Govern- 
 ment control of the armament and shipbuilding 
 firms and the limitation of profits. 
 
 Meanwhile the somewhat protracted negotiations 
 suffered a startling interruption. 
 
 §3- 
 
 Scotsmen were wont to boast that the Glasgow 
 tram was the cheapest conveyance in the kingdom. 
 Certainly there was no vehicle that could reveal such 
 
38 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 leagues of Gehenna for a penny. Nowhere has the 
 tyranny of the machine come so near completion as 
 in these drab and dreary vistas under the everlasting 
 smoke-drifts, where the very earth is hideous,, and 
 over mile on mile of foundry, factory, shipyard, the 
 passage of day and night, summer and winter, year 
 in, year out, is measured by whistle and siren in 
 monotonous lengths of labour. Even in normal times 
 this material uniformity of circumstance tends to 
 instil in the workers in this region a certain psycho- 
 logical homogeneity, a mental solidarity in which 
 local issues speedily gather the momentum of mass- 
 impulse, and opinions that in a more varied com- 
 munity might be merely sectional spread by an 
 almost unchecked contagion through a vast popula- 
 tion. Under war conditions, when extra labour of all 
 sorts was being crowded into an already congested 
 area, and work was being pressed with an ever- 
 increasing intensity, this regional characteristic was 
 inevitably accentuated. It is this psychological 
 homogeneity that has always rendered the Clyde^— 
 and some of the South Wales mining areas — difficult 
 to manage even by the I^abour leaders ; and although 
 in these areas, as in all others, the patriotic stimukis 
 was felt and responded to, the circumstances of 
 the war added much to the difficulty of control. 
 Here were thousands of people who were affected by 
 the lack of housing accommodation, the extension 
 in working hours, and the rise in prices, all in very 
 much the same way. The propaganda of the 
 Workers' War Emergency Committee was having its 
 effect. The wage question was becoming an urgent 
 matter in a number of different trades at once ; 
 dilution was already a dangerous topic ; and there 
 was the vague suspicion that the employers or the 
 Government might take advantage of the war still 
 further to worsen their conditions ; that, in fact, 
 the latter had actually begun to do so by attempts 
 
GETTING DOWN TO IT 39 
 
 to " buy off " their leaders, who in any case were 
 pledged to the industrial truce, the political truce and 
 the recruiting campaign. But by far the most potent 
 factor of all was the question of the profits made by 
 the armament firms : the suspicion — ^to quote an 
 ofiicial report* — " that while they (the workers) were 
 called upon to be patriotic and refrain from using 
 the strong economic position they occupied, em- 
 ployers, merchants and traders were being allowed 
 perfect freedom to exploit to the fullest the nation's 
 needs." 
 
 Such were • some of the causes that raised the 
 monthly total of fresh wage disputes from 11 in 
 January to 47 in February, 1915. But on the Clyde, 
 which saw the gravest of them, the immediate cause 
 was the refusal of the engineering employers to 
 concede a wage increase which the Glasgow district 
 committee of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers 
 had decided to apply for before the war began. 
 Trouble on this question had been brewing since 
 the beginning of December. At the end of January 
 the men in some 15 shops refused to work overtime 
 as a protest against the inadequacy of the employers' 
 offer. The trade union officials failed to secure a 
 change in their attitude, and the subsequent strike 
 was led by a " Central Withdrawal of I^abour Com- 
 mittee " composed largely of the local shop stewards. 
 Between 8,000 and 10,000 of the engineers came out 
 on February i6th, and stayed out for a fortnight, 
 in defiance of the trade union executives and the 
 Government, who were bringing all possible pressure 
 to bear on them. The dispute was settled early in 
 March by the Committee on Production, whose 
 decision the men had agreed in advance to accept. 
 The awards given, stated the Committee, were " to 
 be regarded as war wages, and recognised as due to 
 and dependent on the existence of the abnormal 
 
 * See Askwith : Industrial Disputes. 
 
40 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 conditions now prevailing " — a qualification which 
 left the standard pf living unaffected, save in so far 
 as the earnings on overtime might temporarily 
 raise it. 
 
 This same month saw serious trouble among the 
 lyondon dockers, Edinburgh navvies, Dundee jute- 
 workers and other trades. It marked the end, in 
 fact, of the truce in industry, and started in certain 
 sections of the " popular " press an undiscriminating 
 campaign against Labour. In some quarters indus- 
 trial conscription was urged on the Goverimient, 
 and the cry was " put 'em in khaki." The effect was 
 doubly unfortunate. The Clyde workers were already 
 distrustful enough of their ofl&cial leaders, of their 
 employers, of the Government ; they had had to 
 fight their own battle for the recent wage increase — 
 which, but for the fight, it looked as though they 
 would never have got ; and when the demagogic 
 press rained pitiless abuse upon them, with the 
 implication that they alone, and not their masters, 
 were to blame for the stoppage, little wonder if the 
 more ardent spirits came to the conclusion that for 
 the rest of the war it was likely to be the worker 
 contra mundum. For the subsequent intensification 
 of " class-consciousness " the blame cannot be 
 confined to one side only. 
 
 Such was the atmosphere in which the final negotia- 
 tions for dilution had to be carried through — not, as 
 it turned out, by the Committee on Production, but 
 by the Government in propria persona. 
 
 §4- 
 
 The Cabinet decision to take the final negotiations 
 for dilution out of the hands of the Committee on 
 Production was arrived at, according to Lord 
 Askwith, on March nth. It appears that in view 
 
GETTING DOWN TO IT 41 
 
 of the state of I^abour opinion, of the urgency of the 
 matter, and of the unlikelihood of anything save the 
 very strongest of appeails availing to move the rank 
 and file, the Government had decided that a direct 
 Ministerial approach to the leaders was necessary. 
 If nothing else were gained, one result of any agree- 
 ment so reached would be to deprive further labour 
 " unrest " of the ofiicial support of the trade union 
 executives, on at least the questions dealt with. 
 Further, the Government may not unreasonably 
 have hoped to strengthen the hands of the executives 
 in the difficult task that they alone could carry 
 through by an absolutely unqualified recognition of 
 their importance. But more immediately relevant 
 was the fact that in proportion as the Committee On 
 Production approached the general question of 
 dilution it would find itself increasingly " up against " 
 fundamental matters of policy as to which it could 
 not negotiate. Particularly was this the case in 
 regard to the question of war-profits^a question 
 which the Board of Trade had been considering in 
 detail for some time past. And the fact that the 
 Board was already engaged on intricate negotiations 
 with the armament firms would at this stage have 
 rendered abortive any attempt to discuss the 
 general problem in the presence of both sides. It 
 may be pointed out, however, that the delay in 
 applying the principle of the limitation of war 
 profits was probably the fundamental cause of the 
 industrial unrest of 1915. The fact that action, 
 when it came, was retrospective, did not diminish 
 the labour difficulties that arose in the meantime. 
 On March 17th Mr. lyloyd George, Mr. Runciman, 
 and other representatives of the Government and 
 the Opposition met the delegates of the Trade 
 Union Congress, the General Federation of Trade 
 Unions, and thirty-three other societies concerned 
 in engineering, shipbuilding, metal, wood, leather 
 
42 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 and textile trades, transport and general labour ; 
 and after three days' debate the workmen's repre- 
 sentatives (with the important exceptions of the 
 Amalgamated Society of Engineers and the Miners' 
 Federation) " agreed, to recommend to their mem- 
 bers " proposals for the reference, without stoppage 
 of work, of all disputes affecting war-supplies to 
 arbitration — failing settlement by other means — ^by 
 tiie Board of Trade or the Committee on Production ; 
 for the appointment by the Govermnent of an 
 advisory committee representing the organised 
 workers ; also, provided the Govermnent made 
 certain safeguards applicable to all its contracts, for 
 the " relaxation of the present trade practices," 
 which the representatives at the conference declared 
 to be " imperative " and recommended their unions 
 to " take into favourable consideration." Thus — 
 on paper — the ultimate sacrifice was agreed on. 
 But the miners withdrew altogether from an under- 
 taking that appeared to involve compulsory arbitra- 
 tion ; while the engineers were only brought in at a 
 second conference a week later when the Government 
 representatives gave a definite undertaking as to the 
 limitation of profits " with a view to securing that 
 benefits resulting from the relaxation of trade 
 restrictions or practices shall accrue to the State." 
 It is noteworthy that lyord Kitchener, speaking in 
 the House of lyords on March 15th, had made what 
 was generally interpreted as a promise to the work- 
 men of a share in the abnormal profits, and that the 
 workers' representatives at the first Treasury con- 
 ference had intimated that profit-sharing schemes 
 were not what they wanted. 
 
 The I/abour Advisory Committee indicated in the 
 agreement was promptly set up, with Mr. Arthur 
 Henderson, M.P., who had presided over the workers' 
 side of the Conference, as its chairman. For some 
 months that body was the only tangible result of 
 
GETTING DOWN TO IT 43 
 
 the proceedings. lyittle was done — ^in some cases 
 less than nothing — to facilitate dilution ; and neither 
 side appeared to be in any particular hurry to carry 
 out the bargain. The agreement of the engineers 
 was not confirmed by ballot of the men until June 
 i6th ; the Government pledge to limit profits was 
 not put into effect xmtil July 2nd. In the meantime, 
 as British gunners will not forget, Ypres and Neuve 
 Chapelle and Festubert had made their caustic 
 comment on the whole procedure. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Push and Go. 
 
 §1- 
 
 " The psychology of the public," remarked the 
 Under Secretary for War on June loth, 1915, 
 "is a peculiar and recondite study." Coming 
 from that quarter, the remark had a plaintive 
 tone. An under-informed public opinion and 
 an over-censored press had taken, in the 
 second week of May, their sudden and spec- 
 tacular revenge ; and it is an ominous sjrmptom of 
 the condition of British government at the time that 
 effective criticism of the conduct of vital affairs 
 should have been made by none of the official cus- 
 todians of the national safety, but by way of a 
 newspaper " exposure." Yet it was no news to some 
 members of the public and of the Government that 
 " the want of an adequate supply of high explosive 
 shells was a fatal bar to our success " ; though the 
 fact that less than 16 per cent, of the shell contracts 
 entered into by the business men of the coimtry 
 were being fulfilled to time in May was not then 
 public property. 
 
 With regard to the relative importance as factors 
 in the munitions failure, of the sub-contracting 
 system of supply on the one hand and the trade 
 
PUSH AND GO 45 
 
 union restrictions on the other, it is now possible 
 to speak with some certainty. During the period 
 May to December, 1915, the proportion of shell 
 contracts punctually fulfilled rose from 16 to 80 per 
 cent. ; the output of machine-guns increased in the 
 ratio pf I to 5 ; while engineering firms not pre- 
 viously on munitions work produced in the third 
 week of December three times as many high explosive 
 shell bodies as was turned out by all the arsenals and 
 works in the United Kingdom in the month of May. 
 Much of the increase under the first two items was, 
 of course, due to the completion of arrangements 
 inaugurated under the old system. The effect of 
 the new material organisation was not pronounced 
 until the autmnn. But during this same period the 
 number of cases of substitution of female and 
 unskilled for skilled labour in existing establishments 
 (apart from the national factories) was nearly 20 
 per cent, lower than in the lowest of the three succeed- 
 ing half-years. The maximum periods of " dilution ' ' 
 were the second quarters of 1916 and 1917, when it 
 took place in direct response to the withdrawal of 
 men from the workshops to the fighting forces. 
 During the later months of 1915, when the national 
 organisation of supply was being built up, the amount 
 of actual " dilution " was comparatively negligible. 
 As late as December 20th, 1915, Mr. I/loyd George 
 was complaining that in spite of negotiations and 
 agreements, the substitution of unskilled for skilled 
 labour had made practically no progress. In other 
 words, the first great increase in munitions output 
 was obtained mainly under the existing rules of trade 
 unionism ; and though it was undoubtedly true that 
 a still greater increase might have resulted from, an 
 earUer relaxation of the trade practices, ior the 
 initial deficiency not the labour custom but the 
 system of production was primarily responsible. 
 The realisation of this fact by the men concerned 
 
46 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 tended not a little to weaken the subsequent position 
 of the Government as a critic of I^abour. 
 
 §2- 
 
 The principal stages in the readjustment of the 
 labour supply during the spring of 1915 have already 
 been indicated ; it remains now to show in brief 
 outline the process by which the system of production 
 was reorganised. 
 
 In the Defence of the Realm Amendment (No. 2) 
 Act (March i6th, 1915) the Government had extended 
 the power it possessed under the Act of 1914 to cover 
 firms that were not actually on war-work ; its 
 immediate motive would seem to have been the 
 enforcement of the centraUsed system of production 
 by the restriction of private work, and the consequent 
 indirect compulsion of labour to munitions supply. 
 Mr. lyloyd George had assured the House of Commons 
 that the Act would not be administered without the 
 co-operation of the manufacturers ; and " we are 
 on the look-out," said he, "for a good, strong 
 business man with some go in him, who wiU be 
 able to push the thing through." The War Office 
 Armaments Output Committee had accordingly been 
 set up under Mr. G. M. Booth ; and what Mr. Booth 
 was originally intended to " push " was undoubtedly 
 labour. 
 
 The limits to which labour could be " pushed," 
 however, were already ominously apparent ; and it 
 became evident that if the old system of contracts 
 was dependent on the further mobility of labour 
 either it or the war would have to be abandoned. 
 Even Parliament was beginning to realise the 
 position. On April 21st, for example, the House of 
 Commons had debated a resolution : 
 
PUSH AND GO 47 
 
 " That this House, while welcoming well- 
 considered steps for increasing the mobility and 
 ejB&ciency of labour, is of opinion that it is 
 urgently necessary that the resources of all firms 
 capable of producing or of co-operating in pro- 
 ducing munitions of war should be enlisted under 
 a unified administration in direct touch with 
 such firms." 
 Mr. Hewins, iii moving the resolution, stated 
 bluntly that " the Government had got hold of the 
 wrong end of the stick in trying to deal with the 
 transfer of great masses of labour from one works 
 to another or from one district to another." Apart 
 from the workmen's point of view, firms would 
 often go on paying trade union rates for years at 
 a loss rather than disperse the labour forces they had 
 got together ; and, in short, the needful next step 
 was not the concentration of labour, but the dis- 
 tribution of work. Mr. lyloyd George expressed his 
 general agreement with the motion ; it may safely 
 be assumed that his agreement actually extended 
 to the obvious inference. The necessity of some 
 modification would appear to have led to the appoint- 
 ment, on April 8th, of the Treasury Committee on 
 Munitions, under Mr. I^loyd George himself. This 
 Committee was, in fact, a poHcy committee Avith wide 
 and independent powers, while the War Ofiice 
 Committee became in practice its executive organ. 
 The failure of the sub-contracting system was 
 candidly described by Mr. I^loyd George in the 
 House of Commons on April 21st ; and vmder the 
 direction of the Treasury Committee the problem 
 was at last changed from centralising the labour 
 supply to re-distributing the work. 
 
 It is not necessary to trace the various steps by 
 which the final plan of re-distribution was arrived at. 
 Both the labour problem and the problem of super- 
 vision made it evident that some geographical basis 
 
48 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 of classification would be necessary. At first a 
 scheme of A and B areas was contemplated — ^the A 
 area to consist of a twenty-mile radius from any of 
 the principal armament factories, the B area to 
 comprise the smaller firms who might be encouraged 
 to produce by co-operation what none of them could 
 produce independently. But it appeared that the 
 scheme could work well only while the B areas — ^in 
 which lay the firms new to war-work — ^were un- 
 developed ; in proportion as their capacity expanded 
 the system of division was likely to create more 
 trouble than harmony. Some grouping, however, 
 was essential if the productive capacity of the smaller 
 establishments was to be utihsed ; and after various 
 tentative classifications, a total of twelve areas was 
 decided upon (two each in Scotland and Ireland), 
 in each of which a small panel of employers was to 
 act as a board of management, consulting the 
 Government authorities in regard to production, and 
 the local I^abour committees, set up under the 
 National I^abour Advisory Committee, on matters 
 affecting employment. 
 
 But the key to the system was meanwhile being 
 forged at I^eeds. It took the shape of a scheme for 
 a National Shell Factory. And it was accepted by 
 the Government on May 13th — the day before 
 Colonel Repington's famous message appeared in 
 The Times. 
 
 §3- 
 
 Meanwhile, the labour problem had entered on a 
 phase of serious difiiculty. The Clyde strike had 
 been followed by a series of wage demands which 
 were pressed with considerable resolution, in several 
 cases to the length of a dispute. Neuve Chapelle 
 had roused the public to a vague sense of danger ; 
 
PUSH AND GO 49 
 
 and in the absence of complete information as to 
 the munitions situation, attention was focussed 
 almost exclusively on labour troubles. At the same 
 time. Labour opinion was aggravated by a series of 
 unfortunate events'. 
 
 First, there was Mr. Asquith's speech in the food 
 prices debate of February nth, expressing a non 
 possumus attitude in face of the Labour request for 
 control. There was, said the Prime Minister, no 
 evidence of a serious shortage of meat ; there was 
 no likelihood of a serious shortage of wheat — " after 
 next June " ; sugar was more likely to fall than to 
 rise any farther ; and, in short, there was nothing 
 the Government could do except recommend the 
 country " to make the sacrifices which patriotism and 
 public spirit demand." This was the official reply 
 to the campaign of the Workers' War Emergency 
 Committee ; it came at a moment when the rise in 
 prices was being sharply felt, when wage demands 
 were being generally resisted, when nothing whatever 
 had been done in regard to the limitation of profits, 
 and when the labour supply problem was severely 
 testing the temper of the workers. The exasperation 
 it aroused was directed against the Labour party 
 as well as the Government. 
 
 A second step that met with the disapproval of 
 organised labour was the issue on March i6th by the 
 Board of Trade of a circular inviting women who 
 were " prepared, if needed, to accept paid work of 
 any kind — ^industrial, agricultural, clerical, etc. — to 
 enter themselves upon the register of women for 
 war-service at the Labour Exchanges." 40,000 
 women and girls were still registered as unemployed, 
 and the labour opposition was based on the fear 
 that by the tapping of new sources of female labour 
 the general , standard of living would be lowered. 
 The immediate result was an energetic campaign to 
 organise the women, in which the men's societies 
 
50 lyABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 gave material assistance. One or two societies, of 
 which the most important was the N.U.R., them- 
 selves admitted the women to membership. Others 
 followed the lead of the A.S.E. in referring the 
 women to the National Federation of Women 
 Workers or to the organisations of unskilled labour. 
 In some cases, as among the dockers at I^iverpool, 
 the lyondon compositors and other crafts, the men 
 opposed the introduction of women's labour with 
 success ; but in the vastly expanding field of 
 munitions the practice of employing women on 
 repetition work in the engineering shops secured a 
 wide tacit approval before the principle of dilution 
 was at all generally conceded ; though the proportion 
 of women placed from the special register, despite 
 the enrolment of 33,000 in the first fortnight, was 
 not above 10 per cent. 
 
 From the I^abour point of view a more sinister 
 omen now arose at I^iverpool, where a section of the 
 dockers had been refusing to work overtime. lyord 
 Kitchener, through their trade union leader, appealed 
 to the men to revise their decision in view of the 
 congestion at the port, and added : "If this appeal 
 has no effect I shall have to consider the steps that 
 will have to be taken to ensure what is required at 
 Liverpool being done." The appeal had no effect, 
 despite its endorsement by Mr. Sexton ; and in 
 April lyord Derby hit upon the idea of enrolling a 
 military battalion to carry on the Government work, 
 from the ranks of the Dockers' Union. The battalion 
 was inaugurated on April 12th, with 350 volunteers 
 who were guaranteed both civU and military pay. 
 The strike ended. The fear of " industrial conscrip- 
 tion " remained. And as often happens in such 
 cases, the events at I/iverpool, though involving only 
 a very small section of the workers, contributed to 
 the embitterment of general opinion on both sides. 
 
 But by far the most important development on 
 
PUSH AND GO 51 
 
 the psychological side was the drink agitation. The 
 effect of excessive drinking on time-keeping in the 
 armament factories and the shipyards had been 
 discussed at the first Treasury Conference. It was 
 revived on a much wider scale when the question of 
 munitions output began to attract press attention 
 in March. On the 29th a deputation of the leading 
 shipbuilding employers pressed the matter on the 
 attention of the Government. The next day a letter 
 from the King to Mr. lyloyd George expressed His 
 Majesty's " deepest concern " at the " grave situation 
 now existing in Our armament factories," and made 
 an offer of total renunciation on the part of the Royal 
 Household. The campaign was followed up vdth 
 undiscriminating vigour and less tact by the majority 
 of the Press and many public speakers ; the general 
 anxiety about munitions found a palliative . in 
 sweeping accusations of " slacking " and drunken- 
 ness among the workers. The case against I^abour 
 was formally presented to Parliament and the 
 country in a Command Paper, published on May ist, 
 wherein the evidence of the employers and many 
 Government officers was set forth. 
 
 The natural and evident result was to enrage 
 lyabour : to such an extent, in fact, that even before 
 the notorious White Paper appeared both Mr. 
 Asquith and Mr. lyloyd George were at pains to 
 narrow down the scope of the accusation. From, 
 the I^abour side it was pointed out that the official 
 report contained the statements of one side only; 
 that even these were far from justifying the campaign 
 of abuse. In any case, so sweeping a writ of accusa- 
 tion would not run ; and, as regards the truth of the 
 matter, it must be recalled that though much time 
 had undoubtedly been lost, it was not proven that 
 the prohibition of drinking facilities would have 
 saved it all, or even a major part of it. I^arge num- 
 bers of the fittest men had been withdrawn from 
 
52 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 industry ; the remainder were working at unpre- 
 cedented pressure, earning much extra money on 
 overtime, and secure of emplqjnnent ; the canteen 
 system was undeveloped, and the systematic study 
 of welfare and industrial fatigue hardly begun. 
 The quality of food had deteriorated, facilities for 
 getting it were curtailed, and the hours of labour 
 both excessive and ill-adjusted. The drink question 
 was undoubtedly a real one, and at a later stage was 
 successfully dealt with ; but it does not appear tha,t 
 the Press contributed very materially to the final 
 solution. The proposals for liquor taxation intro- 
 duced as a sequel to the Command Paper proved 
 distinctly unacceptable to the House of Commons 
 and to general opinion ; and the sole net result of 
 the episode was to embitter the workers. Seeing that 
 dilution had yet to be carried into effect, to which 
 end the co-operation of the workers was admittedly 
 essential, the affair constituted a first-class psycho- 
 logical blunder. 
 
 §4- 
 
 A more hopeful development was now in progress 
 on the Tyne. During April local committees were 
 set up in Newcastle and Glasgow to deal with the 
 general question of munitions production, and on the 
 2ist of that month the Newcastle Committee (on 
 which the Government, the employers and the 
 workmen were equally represented) launched its 
 campaign of enrolment for a " King's Squad " of 
 munition workers. Skilled men not on war work 
 were invited to offer their labour wherever it was 
 wanted on telegraphic instruction from the com- 
 mittee ; were guaranteed their district rate of wages 
 as a rrinimum, and also that long-desired and long- 
 withheld inducement, a subsistence allowance. The 
 
PUSH AND GO 53 
 
 scheme proved a distinct success, both as regards 
 quantity and quality of the men enrolled ; and an 
 application of the same idea on a national scale 
 seemed to promise a solution of the labour difficulties 
 which the new production programme appeared 
 likely to intensify. 
 
 Meanwhile, among the minor consequences of the 
 policy of " push and go," the political crisis had 
 supervened. On May 13th Mr. Asquith had denied 
 that a Coalition Government was contemplated, and 
 " I am not aware," he added, " that it would meet 
 with general assent." Within a week he announced 
 its formation ; and when on June 3rd a somewhat 
 exasperated House of Commons reassembled after 
 the Whitsun recess, its immediate sanction was 
 requested for a fait accompli. Already it was known 
 that among the changes proposed was the elevation 
 of the chairman of the Munitions Committee to 
 Ministerial rank ; and on June gth Mr. I^loyd George 
 duly became Minister of Munitions. Fourteen days 
 later he introduced the Bill by which voluntarism 
 in munitions supply was to reach its overdue end. 
 General industrial compulsion had in fact been freely 
 talked of, in some quarters strongly urged ; and it 
 was as a final effort to avert it that the War Munitions 
 Volunteer scheme was given a trial. Mr. I^loyd 
 George was candid on the subject : 
 
 " We had a very frank discussion between the 
 leaders of the Trade Unions and myself, and I 
 was bound to point out that if there were an 
 inadequate supply of labour . . . compulsion 
 would be inevitable. They put forward as an 
 alternative that the Government should give 
 them the chance of supplying that number of 
 men. They said, ' Give us seven days, and if 
 in seven days we cannot get the men we will 
 admit that our case is considerably weakened.' 
 . . . We have arranged terms upon which the 
 
54 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 men are to be enlisted, and to-morrow the seven 
 days begin. Advertisements will appear in all 
 the papers. An oflSce has been organised, and 
 the trade union representatives are sitting there 
 in council directing the recruiting operations. 
 . . . We have i8o town halls in different parts 
 of the country placed entirely at our disposal 
 as recruiting , offices. ... If there are any 
 honourable friends of mine who are opposed 
 to compulsion, the most effective service they 
 can render to voluntarism is to make this army 
 a success." 
 
 The " army " was a success — on paper. 46,000 
 volunteers had enrolled for the six months' contract 
 of service during the first week. By the end of July 
 the number had reached 100,000. But on examina- 
 tion of the returns it appeared that four-fifths of the 
 men were already engaged on Government work of 
 one sort and another ; and of the remaining one- 
 fifth, when employers' protests and the men's 
 qualifications and other limiting factors had been 
 considered, only a few thousands were available to 
 increase the munitions supply. 
 
 Before this result had emerged, however, the whole 
 field of munitions industry had passed under a 
 drastic, though loosely defined measure of State 
 control. On July 2nd the Royal Assent was given 
 to "an Act to make provision for furthering the 
 efficient manufacture, transport, and supply of 
 munitions for the present war ; and for purposes 
 incidental thereto." 
 
 §5- 
 
 The Munitions Act of 1915 has been described as 
 the most decisive step in State control of industry 
 taken during the war. It has also been described'as 
 
PUSH AND GO 55 
 
 the " Slavery Act," and as a " highly dangerous 
 measure, none the less because Mr. Ivloyd George 
 succeeded in persuading many of the trade union 
 leaders to accept it."* Its labour provisions were 
 cordially and increasingly disliked on the Clyde and 
 in other large centres ; yet it and the succeeding 
 Acts " were accepted by overwhelming majorities at 
 successive trade union and I^abour party con- 
 ferences . " t By the greater part of moderate opinion 
 it was heartily welcomed ; and justly, since it 
 recognised the logical consequences of the position the 
 Government had already taken up in industry. It 
 gave an admittedly dictatorial control to the 
 Minister of Munitions over a very large field ; but 
 it was an admittedly necessary control such as no 
 other office, and least of all Parliament itself, could 
 have exercised. And in its main purpose, if in 
 politics that dangerous plea may ever be admitted, 
 the end attained amply justified the means. 
 
 As regards labour, the Munitions Act provided 
 that any dispute between employers and employed, 
 or between different sections of workpeople, affecting 
 wages or conditions of employment in munitions 
 work, might be referred to the Board of Trade, failing 
 other settlement ; that no strike or lock-out should 
 take place wi^in three weeks of such reference ; 
 and that the Board of Trade's award should be 
 binding on all parties. The provision might also be 
 appUed by Royal Proclamation to disputes in other 
 industries directly or indirectly affecting the muni- 
 tions supply. As regards capital, the Minister of 
 Munitions received power to " control " munitions 
 establishments by order ; and the application of 
 control entailed the surrender to the State of four- 
 fifths of the profit made in excess of the average of 
 the last two normal years. It also entailed the 
 
 • Cole : Labour in Wartime. 
 
 t Webb : History of Trade Uuiouiam. 
 
56 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 suspension of " any rule practice or custom not 
 having the force of law which tends to restrict pro- 
 duction or employment," and the punishment of 
 any person who induced others to continue the 
 suspended practice. It entailed the acceptance by 
 the employer of a schedule of conditions providing 
 for the record of war-time changes in practice, con- 
 sultation with the workmen concerned in regard to 
 proposed changes, and the eventual restoration of 
 pre-war conditions. And it necessitated the approval 
 by the Minister of Munitions of changes of wage- 
 rates in controlled establishments. 
 
 Further, no-one might employ a workman who 
 within the previous six weeks had been employed 
 on munitions work, unless the man held a certificate 
 granting the consent of his previous employer to his 
 departure, or the certificate of a munitions tribunal 
 stating that the consent had been unreasonably 
 withheld ; provision being made for the appoint- 
 ment by the Minister of Munitions of tribunals to 
 which the workman, or his trade union representa- 
 tive, might appeal. The six months' contract 
 entered into by the War Munitions Volunteers now 
 became legally enforcible, and the authorisation 
 of badges for war-work was sanctioned. I^astly, 
 the power taken in the Defence of the Realm (Amend- 
 ment) Act of April, 1915, as regards the regulation or 
 restriction of work in engineering establishments, 
 was now extended to cover the employment of 
 labour ; power was also taken " to regulate and 
 control the supply of metals and material that may 
 be required for any articles for use in war." The 
 Act was to have effect only so long as the office of 
 Minister of Munitions and the Ministry existed ; 
 except that the provisions relating to disputes were 
 to continue in force for " twelve months after the 
 conclusion of the present war," so far as the restora- 
 tion of trade practices was concerned. 
 
PUSH AND GO 57 
 
 Such were the main provisions of the measure 
 by which the production of munitions was at last, 
 in some degree, made a national concern. As 
 regards the labour engaged therein (mining and tex- 
 tile industries not being included) control was 
 imposed by means of the pressure put on the 
 employer. Compulsory arbitration was indeed estab- 
 lished in munition trades ; with the effect of render- 
 ing all subsequent strikes nominally " unofficial " 
 and therefore not entitled to assistance from the 
 funds of the unions — this effect being confirmed in 
 advance by the consent of the union leaders to the 
 Act. Industrial conscription was not as yet applied. 
 The workman outside the munitions industries was 
 still free to enlist, to continue at his work, to dispose 
 of his labour as he pleased. The workman on 
 munitions work was indeed made liable to a penalty 
 of six weeks' unemployment if he left it without his 
 employer's consent ; but in the absence of military 
 conscription, he could, if he chose and could afford it, 
 simply wait the time out. As regards the suspension 
 of trade practices, the Act clinched the Treasury 
 agreement — on paper ; but no legislation could 
 enforce the suspension, or prohibit " ca'canny," or 
 compel the introduction of dilutees in practice. As 
 regards the actual effort put forward by the workers, 
 therefore, the problem was, as it had always been, 
 fundamentally psychological ; and on this aspect of 
 it a brief comment may be made in conclusion. 
 
 We have seen how in August, 1914, the national 
 sense rose suddenly predominant over practically 
 all other forms of " group consciousness." The 
 psychological problem of succeeding months was 
 to maintain that predominance ; and as the strain of 
 the war-effort in industry began to tell, and the 
 pressure of new circumstances tended to stimulate 
 sectional modes of feeling, an increasingly effective 
 presentment of the war was necessary. Instead, the 
 
58 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 problem was interpreted simply as a matter of main- 
 taining and inflating public optimism. That inter- 
 pretation was too shallow. It was based on a gross 
 under-estimate of the national will to victory. The 
 memory of what Majuba meant in the Boer wars 
 might have suggested that misfortune had in Britain 
 its tonic value. The suppression of bad news, 
 including much that neutrals and even the enemy 
 were allowed to know, defeated even the inadequate 
 policy it was meant to serve, for bad news coming 
 late and vague is far more depressing, far more 
 alarming, than the prompt frank statement. And 
 nothing could so much have reawakened the pre- 
 dominant national sense as a more general awareness 
 of imminent danger. 
 
 In this connection it must be pointed out that the 
 Government was obliged to make its most exacting 
 appeals to precisely that part of the population in 
 which the national sense was most liable to be sub- 
 merged. The vantage-ground from which the appeal 
 was made had been undermined by the long delay 
 over price and profit-regulation ; indiscriminate 
 popular criticism and abuse of the class appealed to, 
 directly invited failure of the national sense. It is a 
 vaUd criticism of Lord Askwith's that the present- 
 ment of the situation by which Mr. I^loyd George 
 secured the assent of the I^abour leaders to dilution 
 never reached the rank-and-file ; and that time should 
 have been allowed — as in the end it had to be — for 
 that reaUsation to deepen and broaden. 
 
 Not that I/abour, and especially I^abour leaders, 
 had not made mistakes, though theirs was originally 
 a more generous error. It would perhaps have been 
 better for all parties had I,abour leaders clearly realised 
 that their first national duty, to which all other con- 
 siderations should have come second, was to maintain 
 the closest possible touch with their constituents. 
 The participation of the I^abour party in the Coalition 
 
PUSH AND GO 59 
 
 Government was for this reason of doubtful expedi- 
 ency. Whether it was necessary at so early a stage 
 for the War Emergency Committee to proceed so 
 largely by way of agitation is a matter of opinion ; 
 the propaganda did not achieve so much as to put 
 quieter and more conservative methods out of court. 
 At least both Ministers and I^abour leaders would 
 have done well to remember that in proportion as the 
 latter were used to govern, rather than to represent 
 their peculiar constituencies, the way was being 
 prepared for trouble of an exceptionally difficult 
 nature. 
 
 None the less, despite the impression created by 
 Press and Government utterances at the time, and by 
 the necessary ^attention history must devote to 
 difficulties, the nation had on the whole done well. 
 Strikes and disputes had interrupted only the 
 smallest proportion of the industrial effort. Greater 
 exertion was yet to be called for, and ultimately 
 secured ; but for the major effort the nation was at 
 last prepared to set its house in order. 
 
PART TWO. 
 
 From the Munitions Act to the I^abour 
 
 War-Aims Conference in I/)ndon, December 
 
 28th, 1917. 
 
 I/caving Certificate in force 
 South Wales Miners' Strike 
 Fairfield Shipwrights' Strike ... 
 Central I^abour Supply Committee 
 Balfour-Macassey Report published 
 
 Munitions Amendment Act 
 
 Military Service Act 
 
 Parkhead Strike 
 
 Trade Union Congress ... 
 
 Conferences on Dilution 
 
 German Peace Overtures 
 
 1915- 
 July 14 
 
 July 
 
 Aug. 
 Sept 
 Dec. 
 
 15 
 26 
 20 
 
 14 
 
 First Russian Revolution 
 
 Tyne Engineers' Strike 
 
 Barrow Engineers' Strike 
 
 Albert Hall Pro-Russian Demonstration 
 
 Schedule of Protected Occupations 
 
 Unofficial Strikes in Munition Industries May 
 
 1916. 
 
 Jan. 27 
 
 Mar. 17 
 
 June 30 
 
 Oct.-Nov. 
 
 Dec. 13 
 
 1917. 
 
 Mar. 15 
 
 Mar. 20-23 
 
 Mar. 2i-Apl. 4 
 
 Mar. 31 
 
 Apl. 21 
 
6i 
 
 Shop Stewards' Conference at Birming- 
 ham 
 
 Commission on Industrial Unrest 
 appointed 
 
 First Whitley Report 
 
 I^abour Party Conference on Stockholm 
 
 Munitions Act 
 
 Com Production Act 
 
 First Inter-Allied Socialist Conference 
 
 The 12J per cent. Bonus awarded 
 
 Leaving Certificate abolished ... 
 
 Soviet Revolution in Russia ... 
 
 Coventry Strike of Shop Stewards 
 
 Shop Stewards' Agreement with Engi 
 neering Employers 
 
 London War- Aims Conference 
 
 1917. 
 
 June 9-10 
 
 June 
 
 12 
 
 June 
 
 29 
 
 Aug. 
 
 10 
 
 Aug. 
 
 21 
 
 Aug. 
 
 28 
 
 Oct. 
 
 13 
 
 Oct. 
 
 15 
 
 Nov. 
 
 7 
 
 Nov. 
 
 26 
 
 Dec. 
 
 17 
 
 Dec. 
 
 28 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Vai,i,ey of the Shadow. 
 
 All things considered, the summer of 1915 was 
 for Britain the most dangerous period of the war. 
 In the wfest the first phase was over, and the prospect 
 of an early decision was receding before the, infinity 
 of effort and sacrifice involved in the ghastly process 
 of " attrition." German spirits were sustained by 
 the successes of the eastern frontier, where Hinden- 
 burg and Mackensen were shattering, blow on blow, 
 that " Russian steam-roller " on which so many 
 wanton British hopes were riding. But British 
 policy in the near East, ill-devised and ill-supported, 
 had to withstand successively the defection of 
 Greece, the hostility of Bulgaria, the annihilation 
 of the Serbs, and the tragedy of Gallipoli. 
 
 §1. 
 
 At home the party truce seemed merely to have 
 paved the way for bitter personal and departmental 
 feuds that were hardly concealed from Press or 
 ParUament, while remaining unchecked by free 
 responsible criticism. Folk were already doubtful 
 whether constitutional representative government 
 must not be included in the casualty list, and, in 
 
THE VAIvI^EY OF THE SHADOW 63 
 
 fact, the issues of the war were debated in a clearer 
 atmosphere, with more sincerity, and to better 
 purpose by the Trade Union Congress at Bristol, 
 than by the House of Commons at Westminster. 
 In the country at large a recruiting system that was 
 neither voluntary nor conscriptive was securing the 
 minimum of result with the maximum of irritation — 
 at the cost indeed of more irritation than conscription 
 itself would have produced, since the constant 
 flagellation of the national spirit tended at last to 
 impair its essential soundness. The procedure may 
 perhaps have been designed so to sicken the nation 
 of voluntarism as to make conscription when it came 
 the less unwelcome. If so, it was a timorous and 
 foolish plan. It is well known how a man engaging 
 himself upon an exhaustive task of endurance will 
 lash his resolution to the mast of some artificial 
 constraint, foreseeing that there may come times 
 when that alone will prevent a temporary failure 
 of the will betraying his primal purpose. So armies 
 emerge with victory from the insupportable ordeal 
 of war, and, so nations themselves are best enabled 
 to sustain their hour of crisis. The discipline is 
 the effective expression of a general purpose, and to 
 the private individual, though he may not know it, 
 mitigates and renders tolerable the strain. It was 
 in this respect the misfortune of the workers that no 
 such accepted discipline was possible throughout 
 industry, the instrument of its execution not having 
 been evolved. 
 
 Coercion had indeed been charged with more 
 than it could possibly accomplish, and its inadequacy 
 left no safeguard against the failure of the contingent 
 will But to argue from that occasional failure a 
 desertion of the common purpose ; to indulge, as did 
 certain journalists, in frothy rant about German gold 
 and British traitors, was to render very traitorous 
 disservice to the common weal, and to insult the 
 
64 IvABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 vast majority of working-men. Antagonism to the 
 general purpose there was, though little as yet, and 
 less at any time than there appeared to be ; but 
 it cotdd not safely be inferred from every industrial 
 dispute, and the inference, as we shall see, was 
 indignantly and passionately repudiated even by 
 the strikers of the Clyde. 
 
 By June, 1915, circumstances were already putting 
 the " contingent will " in industry to a severe strain. 
 The limitation of employers' profits to 20 per cent, 
 above what was made " during the greatest boom in 
 British engineering " had not commended itself to 
 all the workers as an adequate quid pro quo for the 
 sacrifice of their normal peace-time traditions. It 
 might of course be argued that the sacrifice should 
 have been made out of hand ; and so it would have , 
 been had human beings been other than human — 
 save that in that case there would have been no war. 
 But apart from dilution, food prices were advanced 
 by over 30 per cent, in July, 1915 ; and while there 
 was as yet neither control nor promise of control, 
 there was plenty of evidence of profiteering. Spec- 
 tacular cases, like that of the firm of millers who in 
 May, 1915, paid additional dividends of xy\ per 
 cent, on their ordinary shares and still carried forward 
 a balance equivalent to 54 per cent., or such cases of 
 coal and shipping profits as the Workers' Committee 
 published, increased the anxiety of the workers. 
 Wage advances had hitherto been sporadic, and what 
 I^rd Askwith calls the first cycle had hardly begun. 
 Piece-workers were in many cases doing well, and 
 better than the time-workers, among whom were the 
 most highly skilled trades — ^whence further discon- 
 tent ; but in very few cases were the rates advanced 
 proportionally to the cost of living, and the extra 
 money was at least as hardly earned as that extra 
 20 per cent, of the employers. Behind all this lay 
 a change in the general point of view : the transition. 
 
THE VAIvLEY OF THE SHADOW 65 
 
 namely, from the hope of an early issue to the war, 
 when the normal conditions could be resumed with- 
 out much difficulty, to the realisation that the abnor- 
 mal circumstances might last for years, and pre-war 
 status never perhaps be reattainable. This meant a 
 painful readjustment in the standpoint of almost 
 every individual, and its effect among the workers 
 was to sharpen the intensity with which new 
 developments were scrutinised and to put a stricter 
 insistence into wage or other demands. 
 
 At this happy conjuncture of circumstances came 
 the manifesto of the German Social Democrats, 
 explaining in apologetic fashion their attitude to- 
 wards the German war-credits, and calling upon 
 their government " in the name of culture and 
 humanity," to " show their readiness to enter upon 
 peace negotiations." The document was aimed 
 expressly at the British Socialists. It was widely 
 quoted both in the general and in the lyabour press, 
 and to more damaging effect than would have 
 followed the release of the much demanded despatches 
 from Gallipoli. No concerted reply from the British 
 I^abour Party proved possible — to the disappoint- 
 ment of its left wing. The majority was as keen on 
 wiiming the war as the House of Commons. But 
 war- weariness was reinforcing the theoretical objec- 
 tions of the minority. " No-conscription Fellow- 
 ships," " Stop-the-war Committees," " lycagues 
 against war," " Fellowships of Reconciliation " were 
 springing up. Certain I.I/.P. branches were rein- 
 forcing the Union of Democratic Control in opposition 
 first to conscription and second to war itself ; and 
 the old heresy of the " workers having no quarrel " 
 lifted its head again. There were those, of course, who 
 sincerely believed in that fallacy. There were 
 others who knew enough of the psychology and 
 philosophy of politics to recognise it for the specious 
 nonsense it was, and who yet used it as propaganda 
 
66 lyABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 to the end of their wished-for revolution. To such 
 propagandists the long delay of the Government in 
 facing what everyone knew to be inevitable gave 
 exactly the right atmosphere and the golden 
 opportunity. 
 
 Yet under this ill-favoured crust of circumstance 
 the means of ultimate victory were forming— rather 
 were being formed by a miracle of human impro- 
 visation. The subsidised extensions of existing 
 armament works inaugurated under War Office 
 regime were now nearing completion, and the pro- 
 portion of fulfilled contracts was improving. The 
 district Boards of Management were now being 
 assembled under the Ministry of Munitions, capacities 
 of individual firms more closely ascertained, con- 
 tracts more widely distributed, and supervision 
 decentralised. By the beginning of September, 
 i6 new national factories had been organised ; the 
 majority being existing establishments, or parts of 
 establishments, taken over as going concerns by the 
 Ministry of Munitions, and extended or altered in 
 accordance with the other production of their dis- 
 tricts. By December the number had risen to 33. 
 In such of these as were devoted principally to 
 shell-making the employment of women on repetition 
 work was now increasing. In addition, over 2,000 
 firms, comprising ij million workers, had been 
 brought under control by the end of 1915, the 
 operation entailing, by the Munitions Act, limitation 
 of profits and the suspension of trade practices. 
 But in the latter respect there was as yet little that 
 was hopeful to report : in fact, the latter half of 
 1915 may be envisaged as a period of not too 
 encouraging experiments in the possibilities of the 
 control of labour by means of the Munitions Act. 
 
THK VAI^IvKY OF THE SHADOW 67 
 
 §2. 
 
 The first of these experiments — in which, according 
 to lyord Askwith, the effect of the Munitions Act was 
 discounted at the very outset by the action of the 
 Minister of Munitions — took place in the South 
 Wales coalfields during and immediately after the 
 passage of the Act. 
 
 In February, 1915, the railwaymen had secured 
 a national war-bonus of 2s. per week to men earning 
 over 30s., 3s. to those earning less. Other wage 
 applications followed, including those of the Trans- 
 port Workers' Federation ; and at the end of the 
 month the Miners' Federation of Great Britain 
 requested a general advance of 20 per cent, of 
 earnings, to be awarded on a national basis. This 
 latter provision was an attempt to supersede the 
 Coal Mines Minimum Wage Act, by which wages were 
 settled by local negotiation. On this latter pro- 
 cedure the Prime Minister insisted, and arbitration 
 in the various areas resulted during March in awards 
 of from 15 per cent, on the standard rates to 17J 
 in South Wales. South Wales, however, had a 
 proposition of its own — ^namely, that the existing 
 district wage agreement should be replaced 
 altogether ; and notice was given to terminate 
 / ^t on June 30th. Under the old arrangement 
 wages advanced above a certain minimum, in accord- 
 ance with the selling price of coal, to a certain 
 maximum which had already been reached in 1913 ; 
 so that the abnormal prices of the war-period had 
 no further effect on wages. The 17I per cent, 
 awarded had actually brought wages past this 
 maximum, the old agreement being thus virtually 
 set aside ; but the South Wales Miners' Federation 
 wanted a new agreement with an enhanced minimum 
 
68 LABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 (approximately the pre-war level) and no maximtun 
 at all. On this basis the owners declined to negotiate, 
 offering instead to submit the claim to the arbitration 
 of the Committee on Production. This the miners 
 refused. 
 
 Now the miners (along with the textile workers) 
 had been exempted from the Treasury Agreements 
 and from the Munitions Act on the ostensible ground 
 that wage-regulating machinery for their industries 
 was already in .existence. They were now called 
 upon by the Board of Trade to use it, or alternatively 
 — since the choice was foregone — to let the Govern- 
 ment Committee arbitrate. The miners were so far 
 persuaded as to lay their case before Sir George 
 Askwith, who framed proposals for a settlement. 
 Messrs. Henderson, Brace and Roberts on July ist, 
 by a narrow majority, secured the assent of the 
 Miners' Council to Sir George's principles ; and Mr. 
 Runciman secured a still more reluctant assent from 
 the mine-owners. Then the trouble fairly began. 
 The acceptance of the Miners' Council was at once 
 qualified by demands for further concessions, backed 
 by a strike threat ; and Mr. Runciman's " no " was 
 backed by the promise of the Minister of Munitions 
 on July 8th that " he would not hesitate to advise 
 a Royal Proclamation bringing the difference under 
 the Munitions of War Act " — and thereby making a 
 stoppage of work illegal. A frank defiance followed. 
 On July I2th, the conference of miners' delegates 
 threw over a further attempt of its executive council 
 to continue the negotiations and the working of the 
 mines, and resolved that " we do not accept anything 
 less than our original proposals, and that we stop 
 the collieries on Thursday next unless these terms 
 are conceded." On the 13th, to the hearty satis- 
 faction of the general public, the South Wales Mining 
 Industry was proclaimed under the Munitions Act. 
 On the 15th, 200,000 men stopped work. 
 
THE VAI^IyEY OF THE SHADOW 69 
 
 Whether the proclamation was merely a grand 
 gesfe arising from a misinterpretation of the men's 
 temper ; or whether the Government did not actually 
 desire the trial of strength to be carried through — 
 four days of the stoppage sufficed to secure a settle- 
 ment which has been described in one account as a 
 tribute to the persuasive abilities of Mr. I/loyd George. 
 Seeing that, according to Mr. G. D. H. Cole {Labour 
 in Wartime) the men " not only got most of their de- 
 mands " (including the new minimum, the abolition of 
 the maximum, and the bonus turn as requested) " but 
 also succeeded in practically smashing the Act on the 
 first occasion on which it was used," the Minister's 
 persuasiveness took a somewhat appealing form. 
 " No penalties were exacted (continues Mr. Cole) 
 and no attempt was made to apply it (the Act) 
 to any individual." Thus ended the first lesson 
 under the Munitions Act. 
 
 " A further disappointment," remarks the Labour 
 Year-Book for 1916, " was caused a month later by 
 Mr. Runciman interpreting a point in the agreement 
 in a sense other than the apparent meaning of the 
 words. ... A strike immediately threatened. This 
 was averted by Mr. Runciman revising his decision." 
 Apparently both the miners and the President of 
 the Board of Trade had got the lesson by heart. 
 
 §3. 
 
 A second experiment arose out of a circular sent 
 out by the Ministry of Munitions early in August, 
 recommending an extension of the employment of 
 women on machine-work, including non-repetition 
 lathe work and operations in tool-making. Lang's 
 of Johnstone (Clydeside), among other firms, informed 
 their employees of their intention to make the 
 change ; and were informed in reply that the 
 
70 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 Executive Council of the Society of Engineers were 
 prepared strenuously to oppose it, and further that 
 the local committee would allow no woman to work 
 a lathe, and that if the attempt were made " the 
 men would know how to protect their rights." This 
 constituted something like a test-case for both sides ; 
 and the fact that the Ministry refrained from forcing 
 the issue and withdrew the circular — ^probably for 
 adequate tactical reasons — none the less tended to 
 encourage the men, and discourage the employers, 
 in the battle that was now joined over dilution. 
 
 A third case must be singled out for notice on 
 account of its sequel. At Fairfield on the Clyde there 
 was a brief strike in July over a demarcation quarrel 
 between coppersmiths and plumbers, for which the 
 leaders were fined under the Munitions Act 2S. 6d. 
 each. A further strike broke out on August 26th 
 arising from the dismissal of two shipwrights for 
 alleged loitering. It was alleged by the subsequent 
 Commission of Enquiry that the firm had maintained 
 a right to enter upon the clearance certificates 
 a statement of the reasons for dismissal ; this, at any 
 rate, was the ostensible ground on which the ship- 
 wrights struck work. Whether or no it was correct, 
 the strike prior to arbitration was clearly illegal ; 
 and by way of trying sterner measures, 17 men were 
 fined £10 each by a general munitions tribunal. 
 Fourteen paid : three refused and went to prison. 
 
 Now the actual imprisonment of trade unionists 
 for withholding labour, clearly enough as it had been 
 foreshadowed in the Munitions Act, brought home 
 the reality of the situation in sudden force to the 
 Clyde workers, and the interned men were regarded 
 as martyrs. " They were not victims," said Mr. 
 Pringle afterwards in the House of Commons ; " they 
 were presented with £8 apiece and with diamond 
 bracelets for their wives, and had gold watches 
 offered to them." The immediate result was the 
 
THK VAIvIvKY OF THE) SHADOW 71 
 
 threat of a complete stoppg.ge on the Clyde unless 
 the men were released : a difficult and dangerotis 
 situation. lyord Balfour of Burleigh and Mr. (now 
 Sir) lyynden Macassey were sent down to investigate 
 the cause of the disptite' ; but as their Commission 
 had no power to release the men, a pistol-point 
 demand was made to the Minister of Munitions, and 
 the unions refused to take further part in the enquiry. 
 The demand was resisted by the Government, and 
 the men were got out of prison by the unions paying 
 the remaining proportion of their fines. The danger 
 point thus turned, the Commissioners resumed 
 their enquiry with a wider scope, thus affording the 
 workers a safer means of stating grievances. The 
 investigation continued for the rest of the year, with 
 an increasing amount of labour trouble to engage 
 its attention ; and a number of the principal recom- 
 mendations of the report on Clyde Munition Workers 
 (Cd. 8136, 1915) were subsequently dealt with by 
 legislation. 
 
 §4- 
 
 The foregoing were very far from being the only 
 cases in which opposition to the Munitions Act 
 took an acute form. Dilution was resisted from 
 point to point, every step upward contested, every 
 alteration in working rules jealously scrutinised. 
 Apart, in fact, from the employment of women on 
 repetition work in the national factories, progress 
 was negligible. Employers were not in a position 
 to force their new prerogative too far, since now that 
 the limits of coercion had been p'ractically explored, 
 it appeared that the result of so doing might be 
 worse than their present condition in respect of 
 labour. The principal unions were becoming more 
 concerned to secure certain changes in the law as 
 
72 LABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 affecting munition workers than to facilitate further 
 concessions, and even the personal influence of the 
 Minister of Munitions appeared to have reached a 
 temporary limitation. 
 
 The appointment of the Central Labour Supply 
 Committee in September, 1915, to deal with the 
 dilution question gave the unions their chance. 
 The Committee drew up and circulated a compre- 
 hensive scheme for dilution based on the principle 
 " that no skilled man shall be employed on Avork 
 which can be done by semi-skilled or unskilled 
 labour." The scheme suggested the foundation of 
 local labour advisory boards, and made detailed 
 recommendations as to procedure and the .employ- 
 ment of women. At the same time the Labour 
 Supply Committee put forward standard rates of 
 pay for women employed on work customarily done 
 by men, and for male semi-skilled or unskilled 
 "dilutees." These rates also were circulated to 
 employers during October — but it may be noted 
 that as they could not yet, under the Munitions Act, 
 be applied compvilsorily, the effect on wages was 
 small. That they should be so applied was an 
 additional demand of the trade unions ; and the 
 unions seized their opportunity in a fashion which 
 the following resolution of the engineers sufficiently 
 indicates : 
 
 " That we as an executive council are not 
 prepared to take any part in any conference 
 which has for its object the dilution of skilled 
 labour until the Ministry of Munitions takes 
 steps to render legal and mandatory the rates 
 of pay and conditions of labour to those semi- 
 skilled and uritekilled men who may take the 
 places of our members transferred to more 
 highly skilled work." 
 The engineers also backed the Federation of Women 
 Workers in a similar demand. This was not philan- 
 
THE VAIvI^EY OF THE SHADOW 73 
 
 thropy on the part of the skilled men towards the 
 women and the unskilled : it was to ensure that 
 dilution should not result in a lowering of the rates 
 " customarily paid for the job." 
 
 §5- 
 
 Meanwhile at a series of trade union conferences 
 the criticisms of Labour respecting the working of 
 the Munitions Act were being formulated as amend- 
 ments. The faults in the present situation, partly 
 as thus defined, partly as indicated in the Balfour- 
 Macassey report, may be summarised as follows : 
 
 (i) Many cases had occurred in which the adminis- 
 tration of the Munitions Act had been unnecessarily 
 harsh and provocative. Changes in working rules 
 had been made without sufficient, sometimes without 
 the statutory minimum of consultation wdth the 
 employees ; and it was at least suspected by the work- 
 men that there were cases in which the employers 
 had attempted to avail themselves of the dilution 
 provisions for the purpose of private work. 
 
 (2) The action of the leaving certificate was the 
 most unpopular feature of all. The power of the 
 employer to delay or withhold its issue had been 
 used in many cases to penalise the workers. The 
 refusal of certificates had been made the means, 
 for example, of retaining workpeople at rates far 
 less than they could otherwise have obtained, 
 sometimes less than the district rates ; it had been 
 used also to prevent workers transferring their 
 labour to their home districts when opportunity 
 arose, or changing their occupation on the ground 
 of health or suitability ; it had also enabled 
 employers to " stand-off " their workers two or 
 three days a week at will, reducing their earnings 
 while keeping them tied to the particular establish- 
 
74 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 ment. In such cases the onus of appeal against 
 refusal pressed unduly hard on the employees, and 
 involved the almost certain loss of several days' 
 pay even when the Munitions Tribunal awarded a 
 certificate. 
 
 (3) The awards of the Tribunals were open to 
 criticism for lack of uniformity ; and it was urged 
 that some form of appeal should be provided, 
 powers obtained to compensate a workman wrong- 
 fully dismissed, and imprisonment under the Muni- 
 tions Act abolished. 
 
 (4) Arbitration procedure also had been too slow 
 in operation, and delay had accrued from confusion 
 as to the right quarter in which cases should be dealt 
 with. Some provision for a preliminary local investi- 
 gation of disputes by the Government, the employers 
 and the workmen might, it was thought, have 
 averted a good deal of trouble. 
 
 An indication of the extent to which these 
 criticisms were met in the Munitions Amendment 
 Act of January, 1916, may bring this somewhat 
 depressing chapter to a close. The Act, which 
 became law on January 27th, 1916, after a decidedly 
 rough passage through Parliament, enlarged both 
 the scope of " munitions work " and the power of 
 the Goverimient still further to extend it, by estab- 
 lishing " control " over Government establishments ; 
 building and shipbuilding concerned in the prosecu- 
 tion of the war were now included, and provision 
 was made for the inclusion, in certain cases, of 
 public utility services. As regards the leaving 
 certificate, the concessions did not go very far to 
 meet the I^abour criticism. Leaving certificates 
 were to be made uniform in style, and free of any 
 endorsement ; they were to be promptly issued in 
 all cases of dismissal or more than two days' sus- 
 pension, save where deliberate misconduct had been 
 used in order to obtain dismissal ; grounds of 
 
THE VALI.EY OF THE SHADOW 75 
 
 justifiable dismissal were indicated, and the tribunals 
 were empowered to levy compensation on an em- 
 ployer for a workman unfairly dismissed or refused 
 a certificate. Arrangement was made for appeal 
 tribunals ; reference to arbitration was made com- 
 pulsory for all bona-fide differences within 21 days 
 of reporting, and imprisonment for offences under 
 the Munitions Acts was abolished. As regards the 
 wage-question, the Minister of Munitions received 
 authority to give enforcible " directions " aS to 
 the rates for female and for unskilled and semi- 
 skilled labour in controlled establishments ; which 
 he forthwith did, establishing a minimum rate of 
 ^i per week for women of 18 and over employed on 
 work " customarily done by men," save that women 
 employed in place of " fully skilled tradesmen " 
 were to get the time-rates of the men they replaced. 
 As regards other than time-rates, " the principle 
 upon which the directions proceed is that of systems 
 of payment by results ; equal payment shall be made 
 to women as to the men for an equal amount of 
 work done . ' ' The principle on which male " dilutees ' ' 
 were to be paid was that the rates, whether time or 
 piece, were to be " the same as customarily obtain 
 for the operations when performed by skilled labour." 
 For both the women and the male dilutees special 
 arbitration tribunals were established, the former 
 of which soon had plenty to do. 
 
 Thus was the position of the worker further safe- 
 guarded — in several thousand cases materially im- 
 proved. The new provisions, while not altogether 
 satisfying the trade union executives, went far to 
 meet their main requirements, and secured from 
 those bodies a general assent. Unfortunately that 
 assent no longer implied quite as much as in the 
 earlier days of 1915. New centres of consciousness 
 were developing in the body politic, and trouble 
 of an exceptionally difficult nature was toward. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Crisis. 
 
 The spring of 1917 was marked by the first mani- 
 festation on a national scale of pertain developments 
 in organisation and opinion from which a distinct 
 phase in British social history took its rise — a phase 
 of which the climax was not to be reached until 
 after the close of the European war. The origin of 
 these developments lies farther back than the date 
 at which this history commences ; but their growth 
 was infinitely accelerated by the industrial incidence 
 of war and revolution, and it is therefore necessary 
 to examine two aspects of that incidence in some 
 detail. 
 
 §1. 
 
 Whether it was the fault of the House of Commons, 
 the Cabinet, or the war in general and nobody in 
 particular, the fact remains that in the debate on 
 compulsory service, as in that on the munitions 
 supply. Parliament was a very poor second to the 
 Press. When at length the Military Service Bill 
 was introduced in January, 1916, discussion was 
 fervent and impassioned ; but for giving any sort 
 of lead to public opinion it was at least three months 
 
CRISIS 77 
 
 too late. " We are not governed," exclaimed one 
 of the nation's representatives on that occasion, 
 " by the NorthclifEe press " ; but he did not develop 
 his thesis ; and the fact that the most clamant and 
 persistent advocacy of conscription came from 
 quarters so far inimical to I^abour ideals as to have 
 harboured the hope of industrial as well as military 
 compulsion, was to labour eyes a somewhat sinister 
 omen. 
 
 At this distance the general case for conscription 
 needs no rehearsing ; but in the I/abour world 
 opposition was bound to be tenacious. Not merely 
 was the whole tradition of the British I^abour move- 
 ment antagonistic to the principle ; circumstances 
 gave additional point to the abstract objection. 
 From the start, I^abour had been apprehensive of 
 industrial compulsion, especially since the speech 
 at Manchester, in which Mr. I^loyd George had 
 hinted at its desirability. The dockers' battalion 
 at I^iverpool looked like an omen. The Derby 
 scheme of attesting munition workers and sending 
 them back to work with a khaki armlet roused 
 further apprehension. The operation of the leaving 
 certificate clause of the Munitions Act savoured of 
 the reaUty ; and so intensely was it resented on the 
 Clyde that the Minister of Munitions on December 
 30th, 1915, could hardly secure an audience from 
 the workers. Then the particular quarter from which 
 the advocacy of conscription chiefly came suggested 
 to its lyabour opponents that the nation was in 
 fact being urged to '.' compulsion for compulsion's 
 sake." " We emphatically protest," resolved the 
 Trade Union Congress in September, 1915, " against 
 the sinister efiForts of a section- of the reactionary 
 press in formulating newspaper poUcies for party 
 pu^oses and attempting to foist on this country 
 conscription which always proves a burden to the 
 workers and will divide the nation at a time when 
 
78 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 absolute unanimity is essential." Sufficient men, 
 the Congress averred, could and would be secured 
 by voluntary means ; and the I^abour movement, 
 by way of making good its contention, gave its 
 full support to what lyord Derby called " the last 
 effort on behalf of voluntary service." 
 
 The results of lyord Derby's attestation scheme,' 
 which was put in operation on October 21st, were 
 published on January 4th, 1916. Out of 5,011,411 
 men of military age (as indicated by the National 
 Register compiled on August 15th), 215,431 had 
 enlisted, and over two million had attested for 
 service under the group system ; of these latter 
 Ivord Derby estimated that 831,062 would be actually 
 available. But by the register figures over a million 
 single men had not offered themselves, of whom 
 651,160 held no badge or other claim to special 
 exemption. 
 
 Mr. Asquith on November 2nd had stated that " the 
 obligation of the married man to serve ought not 
 to be enforced or held to be binding upon him unless 
 and until . . . the unmarried men are dealt 
 with " ; and that if, after other means had been 
 tried, " there should still be found a substantial 
 number of men of military age not required for 
 other purposes who without excuse hold back from 
 the service of their country," then the case for com- 
 pulsion would be established. I/Ord Derby's figures, 
 subject to conjectural modification as they might be, 
 were taken as indicating that contingency ; and on 
 January 5th, 1916, the Premier reluctantly intro- 
 duced the Mihtary Service Bill in direct fulfilment 
 of his pledge. 
 
 In the new situation created by I^ord Derby's, 
 report, I^abour opinion in the House of Commons 
 was divided ; outside it, the Trade Union Congress, 
 and the I^abour party reaffirmed their opposition. 
 But with the passage into law of the Military Service 
 
CRISIS 79 
 
 Act, the immediate concern of labour was the 
 position of munition workers, whether actually 
 employed or no. Nominal immunity from recruit- 
 ment had hitherto been provided for by the issue of 
 badges by private employers, with or without 
 official authorisation, and by Government depart- 
 ments, to employees who were considered indis- 
 pensable. The supervision of " badging " operations 
 had been transferred in July, 1915, to the Ministry 
 of Munitions in accordance with the Munitions Act ; 
 and an attempt at a uniform issue was made, on the 
 basis of lists of trades and of contracting firms, 
 previously drawn up, as well as of controlled estab- 
 lishments. This basis had been supplemented by 
 the starring of men on the National Register accord- 
 ing to occupation ; and the War Service badge and 
 the starred occupation were equally valid — in theory 
 — against lyord Derby's canvassers. The issue of 
 badges to individual men in other than Government 
 establishments was still at the discretion of the 
 employer ; and the trade unions had regarded the 
 arrangement as at least capable of abuse. When 
 under the National Service Act the badges — more 
 strictly speaking, the certificates that went with, 
 them — were made equivalent to exemption certifi- 
 cates, the conditions under which they were issued 
 and retained became much more important. Was the 
 man, whose employment on munition work was 
 temporarily suspended, to become immediately liable 
 to conscription ? Was the operation of the Act, 
 asked Mr. Dillon in Parliament, to say in effect to 
 the munition worker : " You must obey your 
 master, and do everything he orders, or you go to 
 the trenches ? " 
 
 These and a wide range of other considerations- 
 bearing on indirect industrial compulsion were 
 debated in the House of Commons during January ; 
 and amendments were introduced to meet them, of 
 
8o I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 which the most important were — ^that no exemption 
 certificate should bind a man to any specified em- 
 ployer or establishment ; that a man's habitual 
 occupation, if he were not at the moment engaged 
 in it but was seeking to return to it, might be con- 
 sidered ; and that two months' grace should be 
 given to a man whose occupation was gone in 
 consequence of his relinquishing mimition work — 
 six weeks, that is, during which, if he had no leaving 
 certificate, employers were debarred by the Munitions 
 Act from engaging him, and another fortnight in 
 which to find fresh work. 
 
 These exemptions, necessary as they were, met 
 with small popular approval ; partly on account 
 of their extent, more because, as I/Ord Derby put 
 it to the House of I/)rds, " grocers, pawnbrokers' 
 assistants, all classes of men," had gone into muni- 
 tions work to secure exemption, and people wanted 
 them fetched out again. The period of grace, more- 
 over, was used in many cases simply to dodge the 
 recruiting officer. It must be added that the labour 
 criticism rested too much upon the assumption that 
 munitions work was positively preferable to military 
 service — a totally irrelevant consideration — and too 
 little on the broad ground of national efficiency. 
 In any case the result of the first Military Service 
 Act was disappointing ; and in May, 1916, a second 
 Act was passed, relating to married men of miUtary 
 age not previously attested. In the debate on this 
 measure the Government had to resist strong pressure 
 in both Houses to allow the local tribunals tiie right 
 of scrutinising Departmental exemption certificates ; 
 and its critics were hardly contented with the 
 information that a special committee was reviewing 
 such exemptions. 
 
 The Somme offensive of 1916 had other effects on 
 the labour situation than tiiat with which we are 
 presently concerned, and to some of them we shall 
 
CRISIS 8i 
 
 have occasion to return shortly ; but it brought to 
 something like crisis the competition between the 
 army and the workshops for the reserve man-power 
 of the country. Not merely were over 30,000 badges 
 withdrawn in six months ; the occupation lists 
 by which local Tribunals were guided had to be 
 repeatedly revised, and the age limits, below which 
 no exemption could be granted, were fixed in various 
 trades. In September, 1916, a " Man-power Dis- 
 tribution Board " was established — the nucleus of 
 the Ministry of National Service — " to determine all 
 questions arising between Government departments 
 relating to the allocation or economic utilisation of 
 man-power " ; and one of its first decisions was 
 in effect that no further exemption certificates should 
 be granted by Government departments over the 
 heads of Appeal Tribunals. Then in November, 
 1916, came that curious arrangement known as 
 the " Trade Card Scheme " : a scheme both begun 
 and withdrawn to an accompaniment of I^abour 
 protest, and productive of no little friction among 
 the trade unions themselves. The unions had 
 objected to the prerogative of the employer in 
 regard to exemption ; they were now to exercise it 
 on their own account. By agreement, first with the 
 engineers, subsequently with a majority of the 
 skilled unions, the Government empowered the 
 societies to issue cards of exemption to their own 
 fully qualified members engaged in munitions pro- 
 duction, on the understanding that men ceasing to 
 be so engaged would at once enrol as War Munitions 
 Volunteers. 
 
 This was perhaps the first definite enlistment of 
 the trade unions in the direct administrative service 
 of the State. It was met, of course, with the hostile 
 criticism of the opponents of trade unionism in 
 general ; but also with the opposition of the unskilled 
 unions, who cordially resented the advantage given 
 
82 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 to their fellows. In particular, the craft unions 
 represented in the railway shops were accused of 
 seducing members from the National (Industrial) 
 Union of Railwaymen by the promise of the trade 
 card ; and the situation thus created within the 
 I^abour world had an important bearing upon 
 subsequent events. 
 
 "The railway engineers (wrote the New States- 
 man in May, 1917) found themselves exempt 
 if they belonged to one union and conscripted 
 if they belonged to another, and great was the 
 internal scandal. Meanwhile, the War Office 
 insisted on getting an additional 500,000 soldiers, 
 and the Ministry of Munitions (which to this 
 day still tells the engineering workmen that no 
 more skilled engineers can be spared from indus- 
 try) publicly announced the withdrawal of the 
 Trade Card Scheme and the substitution of an 
 extremely complicated series of crafts and 
 processes, avowedly as being for the purpose 
 of suppl5dng for the Army, from the establish- 
 ments of the Ministry, as many men as 
 possible ! " 
 The exemption scheme based on the schedules of 
 protected occupations was, in fact, more logical in 
 principle, more effective in administration, and more 
 equitable in its incidence ; but at its inauguration it 
 appeared to an embarrassed Government and an 
 exasperated public that one source of friction in the 
 lyabour world had only been removed by the sub- 
 stitution of a worse. 
 
 §2. 
 
 Apart altogether from the military requirements 
 of man-power, the enormous increase in munitions of 
 war demanded by the unprecedented scale of opera- 
 
CRISIS 83 
 
 tions in 1916 would alone have rendered the question 
 of dilution increasingly important. But when first 
 the Derby scheme, and then the Military Service 
 Acts began to take their quota from the man-power 
 still remaining in the country, the question became 
 crucial. 
 
 Dilution, said Mr. Kellaway (Deputy Minister of 
 
 Munitions) in the House of Commons (April 27th, 
 
 1917), was an unfortunate and much-abused term. 
 
 " What is implied by the term is this, that 
 
 skilled men are kept exclusively at work which 
 
 skilled men alone can do, that women are 
 
 utilised for all processes which they are capable 
 
 of performing or can be trained to perform, 
 
 that semi-skilled and unskilled men are either 
 
 up-graded and gradually given more skilled 
 
 work, or are utilised for a class of work at which 
 
 skilled men would be wasted and which women 
 
 in the nature of things are not capable of 
 
 performing." 
 
 To that definition the trade union executives agreed, 
 
 and as such they had lent their countenance to the 
 
 system. What progress had been made there are 
 
 no precise statistics to show : as regards women, 
 
 however, it is recorded that in controlled firms the 
 
 proportion employed had increased from 7.1 per 
 
 cent, before the war to 21.2 per cent, at the end of 
 
 December, 1916 ; while for the engineering industry 
 
 as such the figures were 2.8 and 21.5 respectively. 
 
 On the whole, however, the extension of dilution 
 had been fitly described by Mr. lyloyd George in 
 September, 1915, as " a great rearguard action." 
 There was even in September, 1915, ample evidence 
 to show that the last word on the question rested 
 with neither the Government nor the trade union 
 executives, but with the workshops ; and the shops 
 had a point of view of their own. There, of course, 
 the conservatism of the skilled crafts and the reluc- 
 
84 LABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 tance of the men to train in war-time newcomers 
 who might prove their competitors in peace were at 
 a maximum ; the pressure of the leaving certificate, 
 the onus of appeal to the tribunals were most keenly 
 resented, while the conduct of individual employers 
 and what was known of the profits of individual 
 firms were most jealously scrutinised. But there was 
 more than this, as the Minister of Munitions found by 
 his personal experiences in the Glasgow area in 
 December, 1915, when he met the shop stewards. 
 " I can assure him," said David Kirkwood, by way 
 of introducing Mr. Lloyd George to the workers at 
 Parkhead Forge, " that every word he says wUl be 
 carefully weighed. We regard him with suspicion 
 because every act with which his name is associated 
 has the taint of slavery about it." After which 
 it is hardly necessary to relate that the proceedings 
 were stormy, and that Arthur Henderson, as one of 
 the trade union leaders assenting to the Munitions 
 Act, was repudiated to his face. Not merely were 
 the complaints of the rank-and-file and their deep- 
 rooted suspicions of the Government and of their 
 own official leaders emphatically vented on this 
 occasion, but a new demand emerged in unmis- 
 takeable language — the demand that dilution must 
 be carried through under the direct control of the 
 workers. Dilution, said a representative of the 
 Clyde Workers' Committee, was in essence no new 
 thing ; every new sub-division of labour and every 
 standardisation of parts had made for its effectual 
 extension. But its present proposed acceleration 
 would be accepted in the workshops only on condi- 
 tions ; namely, that the benefits should accrue, not 
 to a class, but to the entire community ; that it must 
 not tend to the detriment of any grade of labour^ and 
 that organised Labour must have a share in its 
 control. 
 
 " These conditions (he went on) can only be 
 
CRISIS 85 
 
 fulfilled by the Government's compliance with 
 
 the demands of the Clyde Workers' Committee, 
 
 that all industries and national resources must 
 
 be taken over by the Government — not merely 
 
 ' controlled/ but taken over completely — and 
 
 that organised Labour should be vested with 
 
 the right to take part directly and equally with 
 
 the present managers in the management and 
 
 administration in every department of industry. 
 
 I have used the word ' demand ' advisedly, 
 
 . as this is no propagandist statement. It is our 
 
 fixed determination to force the matter to an 
 
 issue." 
 
 This demand was to some extent admitted in 
 
 the appointment during January, 1916, of special 
 
 " Dilution Commissions " for the Clyde and Tyne 
 
 areas, under whose supervision detailed dilution 
 
 schemes for individual establishments were drawn 
 
 up in full and frank consultation with the shop 
 
 stewards and the local trade union officials. In all 
 
 such schemes it was provided that a shop committee 
 
 should be formed to discuss with the management 
 
 difficulties arising in the operation of the scheme ; 
 
 and the prescribed safeguards were reaffirmed, in 
 
 some cases strengthened. This procedure resulted 
 
 in a substantial increase of dilution during 1916. 
 
 As the year wore on, however, further difficulties 
 arose. In the first place, it was suspected — not, as 
 subsequently appeared, without reason — that dilu- 
 tion was being used not only for the agreed purpose 
 of increasing the munitions supply, but for the very 
 far from agreed purpose of releasing fit men for the 
 army. On the face of it, there was no inequity in 
 such a proceeding ; and the fact that it was disputed 
 reflects in significant measure the growing exaspera- 
 tion of the skilled men, their diminishing conscious- 
 ness of the claims of the nation, and their deepening 
 distrust of Government control generally. The 
 
86 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 difficulties with which the Governihent had to con- 
 tend were, Heaven knows, grave enough ; and if 
 they resulted, during the autumn of 1916 and the 
 spring of 1917, in some rather ill-fated enterprises, 
 there was considerable excuse. It was particularly 
 unfortunate, however, that the proposal to enrol 
 volunteers of both sexes and of all descriptions for 
 whatever " national service " might be deemed 
 necessary was allowed to appear as a preliminary 
 to general industrial compulsion; for other causes 
 were by that time reinforcing the alarm invariably 
 raised by the mention of any such project. 
 
 Among them was the old question of profits, 
 which had reappeared in connection with the Excess 
 Profits Tax. The question whether the tax should 
 be levied on the excess profits allowed by the 
 Munitions Act to armament firms was somewhat 
 fully debated by the House of Commons in July, 
 1916 ; and the prominence into which the matter 
 was thus brought had a direct bearing upon the 
 difficult question of dilution on private work. 
 
 That any such proposal was necessary, the Govern- 
 ment explained, was due to the unforeseen duration 
 of the war and the continued demand of the military 
 authorities for men. It involved a direct breach of 
 the pledge originally given as to the conditions under 
 which dilution should be carried out ; and it appeared 
 to run counter to the only condition under which 
 dilution could be made acceptable to the men — ^that 
 of direct service to the nation. Even in 1915 trouble 
 had arisen from the suspicion that some employers 
 were using the dilution agreement to faciUtate the 
 execution of private contracts ; and when towards 
 the close of 1916 the unions were asked, on the plea 
 of national necessity, to countenance such pro- 
 cedure, they were not careless to enquire as to the 
 corresponding sacrifice to be made by the private 
 employer. They were assured by the Chancellor 
 
CRISIS 87 
 
 of the Exchequer (Mr. McKenna) that " all the 
 provisions of the Munitions Acts relative to the 
 limitation of profits " should be applied ; but what 
 was actually applied was the existing Excess Profits 
 Tax, in which the Munitions I^evy was subsequently- 
 merged — the distinction being that while the Muni- 
 tions Act impounded, broadly speaking, all profit 
 made in excess of a fixed amount plus 20 per cent., the 
 Tax allowed the employer to retain 20 per cent, of 
 as much excess over the average as he could manage 
 to make. More important, however, was thd appre- 
 hension of the unions that while much of the war 
 equipment would automatically lapse in munitions 
 industry, in private industry the alterations in plant, 
 extensions of repetition work, introduction of auto- 
 matic lathes and other fool-proof machinery would 
 certainly survive the war ; and what then would 
 be the position of skilled labour as against cheaper- 
 working " dilutees " ? 
 
 Under the stress of necessity, however, the 
 Government, hoping for the eventual consent of the 
 trade unions with which it had been in negotiation, 
 introduced in April, 1917, a new Munitions Bill, 
 under which the Minister of Munitions was to receive 
 power to apply the provisions of the principal Act 
 to any class of work which he declared by Order to 
 be of national importance. In a House of Commons 
 that mustered on a division no members, and 
 dropped in debate as low as 7 actually present, 
 lyiberals and I^abour men voiced an ineffectual 
 opposition. But in the country — at last — occurred 
 the inevitable explosion. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Unofficiai*. 
 
 The years 1916-1918 were marked by such a 
 series of apparently spontaneous and heterogeneous 
 movements as almost invariably heralds a period 
 of revolutionary change in organised society. For 
 any adequate account of these movements the data 
 are scattered and fragmentary ; and in attempting 
 to connect them in a general survey the reader must 
 be forewarned against imputing an importance to 
 single phenomena greater than that which in fact 
 they possessed. In many cases the same individuals, 
 or similar groups, appear in different coimexions 
 that have to be examined separately ; and the 
 difl&culty of framing an historical perspective is 
 enhanced by the necessity of distinguishing in the 
 general situation activities arising, almost inevitably, 
 out of the constitutional effects of the war from 
 those which rested on a more abiding foundation. 
 The extent to which in the present chapter we are 
 deahng, despite appearances, with an essential unity 
 win best be indicated by its sequel. 
 
 §1. 
 
 Contrary to much popular belief, the shop steward 
 was not one of the infernal devices occasioned by the 
 
TJNOFFICIAI. 89 
 
 war. More especially in the areas of large scale 
 enterprise, it had long been necessary for the trade 
 unionists in individual shops or departments, or for 
 their local " lodges," to appoint some leading hand 
 in the establishment to collect the union subscriptions, 
 inspect the cards of new-comers, whip-up for special 
 meetings or special levies, and in general represent 
 the organisation on the spot ; and in many cases it 
 became the practice for the steward to represent 
 his own group of workers in informal negotiations 
 with the foremen or the management on points of 
 workshop practice. If, therefore, circumstances arose 
 by which the national executives of the trade unions, 
 and along with them the district branches, were 
 placed in a position disapproved of by the rank-and- 
 file ; if at the same time a vast increase occurred in 
 the number of matters requiring detailed negotiation 
 and settlement in the workshop, the shop steward 
 would inevitably become the rallying poiat of the 
 men concerned, and might become, if things went 
 far enough, a centre of opposition to the official 
 leadership. That, in brief, is the history of the shop 
 stewards movement. 
 
 It is well known that in the dilution agreements 
 of 1915 the trade union executives, broadly speaking, 
 failed to carry either the mass of their members 
 or a majority of their local branches with them ; and 
 among other results there followed a decline in the 
 position of the average district committee. On the 
 one hand, it could do little, against the resistance of 
 its members, to enforce the official policy — the less, 
 in fact, as all details of dilution procedure had 
 necessarily to be settled in the individual estabhsh- 
 ment ; on the other hand, it was precluded from 
 leading or organising any protest movement even 
 if it wished, since it could neither call nor finance a 
 strike, being under at least negative control from 
 headquarters. Branch secretaries of the unions 
 
90 IvABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 were in fact to be found leading the unofficial move- 
 ment ; but no official definitely associated therewith 
 could be recognised or accredited by the unions, 
 and shop stewards — ^whether already functioning as 
 such or newly appointed by the workers— were thus 
 forced into opposition. This was the position on the 
 Clyde in 1915 in a number of different trades at 
 once ; and naturally the shop stewards of the 
 different trades drew together, cohering at last as 
 the Central Withdrawal of I^abour Committee in 
 the engineering strike of February, 1915- On ^^^ 
 occasion the Clyde District Committee of the A.S.E. 
 and the unofficial strike committee came into open 
 variance ; and when the action of the latter was 
 followed by a better settlement than the men had 
 been advised to accept by the former, the lesson 
 seemed obvious. The Withdrawal of Xabour Com- 
 mittee became the Clyde Workers' Committee, and 
 subordinate local or shop committees were organised 
 throughout the area, the Munitions Act of 1915 
 acting as an effective spur to their formation. 
 
 At this stage there is no need to impute disaflfection 
 on national issues to the shop stewards. " I am as 
 much a patriot, ' ' said one of them before the Macassey 
 Commission, " as anyone in this room. We have 
 been looked upon as unpatriotic in this matter. 
 I have seven relatives fighting in the trenches and 
 on the sea. No man dare tell me that I am sacrificing 
 their lives by remaining out. I am standing out for 
 the Trade Union cause, a perfectly legitimate pro- 
 ceeding." Nor is there much ground for the 
 accusation of " agitating." The shop stewards in 
 leading the 1915 strikes were undoubtedly acting 
 under an overwhelming pressure from the mass, and 
 their journal maintained with some justice at a 
 later date : " Shop stewards do not ' bring ' men 
 out on strike ; the shop stewards' functions do not 
 include ' leadership.' As a matter of fact, the whole 
 
UNOFFICIAI, 91 
 
 •movement is a repudiation of leadership. It is a 
 means of organised expression on the part of the 
 mass ; it reverses the methods of the past ; instead 
 of dragging men out by platform oratory, if'^rovides 
 the means for the rank-and-file to receive information 
 direct through the shop stewards and to decide for 
 themselves what course of action they shall adopt. 
 By a thorough organisation of every workshop and 
 the co-ordination of workshop committees the shop 
 stewards movement provides the means of real 
 democratic expression . ' ' 
 
 None the less, a workshop policy of a more than 
 merely negative kind was emerging even in 1915 — 
 a policy which, all things considered, does appear to 
 have been a " real democratic expression." The 
 Clyde Workers' Committee, Mr. lyloyd George was 
 informed on his visit to Glasgow, decided " to have 
 nothing to do with dilution of labour unless the 
 Government is prepared to nationalise the munitions 
 industry, and give the workers a share in the manage- 
 ment and control of labour." This latter demand 
 was subsequently reiterated in many, including 
 official, quarters ; but what the shop stewards meant 
 by it was not merely nor mainly the association 
 of the trade union executives with the Government, 
 but the association of the workers in the shops 
 with the immediate management. 
 
 This demand, as we have seen, was in fact 
 recognised in the procedure of the Clyde and Tyne 
 Dilution Commissions, and its recognition alone 
 made success in their difficult task attainable ; but 
 the temper in which it was coming to be conceived 
 by the more aggressive leaders was made patent to 
 the whole country in the Clyde strikes of March, 1916. 
 Kirkwood, convener of shop stewards, claimed at 
 Beardmore's shipyard the right to enter, without 
 permission asked or granted, any department of 
 the works to examine the conditions under which 
 
92 lyABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 dilution was being carried out ; and following a 
 refusal, the men in shop after shop struck work- 
 principally the engineers engaged on guns and gun- 
 mountings — until about 10,000 were affected. 
 Behind the dispute, as usual, was more than the 
 ostensible cause; the refusal of a recent wage 
 application, resentment at the provisions and the 
 administration of the Munitions Acts, dissatisfaction 
 with the details of dilution in various establishments, 
 and more generally a spirit of aggressive defiance both 
 of the trade unions and of the Government of the 
 country — all found a vent in the stoppage. Con- 
 sidering the nature of the work affected the episode 
 was certainly suggestive of a sinister design ; and 
 in deporting six of the leading shop-stewards under 
 the Defence of the Realm Act the Government had 
 both material and legal justification. From this 
 episode may perhaps be dated the emergence of a 
 revolutionary tendency among a minority of the 
 " left wing." The accumulating resentment of the 
 Clyde workers of the conditions imposed upon them 
 by the Munitions Act ; the prominence into which 
 the whole question of the profits of private industry 
 had been brought ; the nervous tension resulting 
 from long and unremittent overtime ; and an 
 increased sense of power with which the sense of 
 responsibiUty to the community had not kept pace- 
 now lent a new cogency to the abstract denunciations 
 of the capitalist system with which the men had long 
 been only too familiar. Further, to many of them 
 it appeared as if the Government were in alliance 
 with their employers and ipso facto committed to 
 the active "support of the capitalist regime : their 
 official leaders were " bound hand and foot " and by 
 many of them repudiated as reactionary. " The 
 support given to the Munitions Act by the officials," 
 stated a leaflet issued by the Clyde Workers' Oam-, 
 mittee, " was an act of treachery to the working 
 
UNOFFICIAI, 93 
 
 classes." More than ever it looked like the worker 
 contra mundum. Two results of some importance 
 followed : nationalisation, that hardy annual of the 
 lyabour movement, was now seen to be less than 
 useless unless it were inseparably associated with 
 control by the workers, from top to bottom ; and 
 in the existing circumstances, the industrial issue 
 inevitably took on a political complexion. Here 
 in fact was the nucleus of a genuine revolutionary 
 movement, in which by no means all the shop 
 stewards committees, even on the Clyde, were ready 
 to join ; but at this point the evolution of the 
 extreme left was reinforced by the resurgence of an 
 older unofficial movement in the new connexion. 
 An expression of the views of the Clyde Workers' 
 Committee in April, 1916, aptly illustrates the 
 development of opinion. " Our purpose must not 
 ,be misconstrued ; we are out for unity and closer 
 Organisation of all trades, one union being the 
 ultimate aim. We will support the officials just so 
 long as they rightly represent the workers, but we 
 will act independently when they misrepresent them. 
 Being composed of delegates from every shop and 
 untrammelled by obsolete rule or law, we claim to 
 represent the true feeling of the workers." 
 
 §2. 
 
 Arising from an earlier nationalising movement, 
 there had been formed in 1912 an unofficial " Metal, 
 Engineering and Shipbuilding Amalgamation Com- 
 mittee " of which the object was to promote amal- 
 gamation on an industrial basis between the various 
 unions in, more particularly, the trades enumerated. 
 The method adopted — the only one possible in the 
 circumstances — was that of propaganda in the work- 
 shops and the trade union branches with a view to 
 
94 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 bringing pressure to bear from below on the national 
 executives. Up to the outbreak of war the policy 
 had produced little direct and tangible result ; but 
 with the weakening in the authority of the trade 
 union executives that restdted from the dilution 
 negotiations, an atmosphere favourable to the in^ 
 dustrial movement was created, and in 1916 active 
 steps towards its prime object were taken by the 
 Amalgamation Committee. Conferences of the adhe- 
 rents of the movement — Socialist societies, trade 
 union branches, shop committees and other unofficial 
 organisations — ^were held at Sheffield and I^eeds in 
 the latter half of 1916 ; and by the November 
 meeting a sort of ultimatum was deUvered to the 
 executive of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers 
 demanding that a definite approach to other unions 
 with a view to amalgamation be made within three 
 months. The only result of the meeting was 
 apparently the issue of a statement by the Society 
 of Engineers, setting forth efforts already made 
 towards industrial amalgamation and the difficulties 
 encountered. But the unofficial committee was not 
 going to let it rest at that. If the A.S.E. executive 
 would take no action, someone else must clearly 
 be called on ; and at a conference in Birmingham 
 held on March 3rd and 4th, 1917 (the date is 
 significant) the various Trades Councils, Union 
 branches, and other bodies .instructed the National 
 Amalgamation Committee itself to convene a pre- 
 liminary conference of the trade unions concerned 
 in engineering. 
 
 This decision appeared to give great satisfaction 
 to all concerned in it — especially the committee. 
 Here was a definite snub to those retrograde national 
 leaders, in that an unofficial body had been charged 
 by the workers to convene a conference of the officials 
 themselves. The workers, it was maintained, were 
 ripe for amalgamation with the ultimate ideal of one 
 
UNOFFICIAI. 95 
 
 big union "out to foster the class spirit as against 
 the craft prejudice." The distinction between craft 
 and unskilled unions was an anachronism — although 
 the engineers' society and many of the engineering 
 shop stewards did not quite see it in that light. 
 The emancipation of the worker could only be 
 achieved by action on a broad class basis, and 
 solidarity was all in all. 
 
 lyittle response seems to have been made by the 
 trade unions to the invitation of the Amalgamation 
 Committee ; but in the immediate sequel the leaders 
 of the movement seem to have got in touch with the 
 American " Industrial Workers of the World " 
 which stood for the same principle ; and on Sunday, 
 June loth, 1917, a demonstration in Trafalgar Square 
 was organised in support of the I.W.W. and the 
 " one big union " idea. Having attained the plinth 
 of the Nelson Column, the aspirations of the move- 
 ment seem to have somewhat declined ; and though 
 further conferences were held during 1917 their 
 virility — on at least the original issue — seems to 
 Jiave been somewhat to seek. 
 
 The movement, it must be noted, had the support 
 of none of the ofl&cial I^abour organisations behind it. 
 Its attitude on the craft question rendered it unpopu- 
 lar among many of the unions, and its policy was too 
 avowedly SytidicaUst to have the support of the 
 I^abour Party or the I.I^.P. But apart from its 
 main policy of industrial unionism, another tendency 
 had been gaining strength in the movement in virtue 
 of the adherence of the " left wing " shop stewards. 
 
 The I/ceds Conference of 1916, along with its 
 demand of the A.S.E., had decided that " the control 
 of policy and action should be vested in the work- 
 shop." This, as we saw, was very much what the 
 shop stewards on the Clyde were demanding of the 
 Miiuster of Munitions in 1915. During 1916 this 
 demand gained force among the rank-and-file tiirough- 
 
96 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 out the country, until it became the strongest plank 
 in the unofficial movement. Many of the shop 
 committees now established became propagandist 
 centres of a coherent poUcy, the active effects of 
 which were soon to appear. " Remember," wrote 
 J. T. Murphy to the local Amalgamation Committees, 
 in March, 1917, " it is not only the amalgamation of 
 unions you require, but the amalgamation of the 
 workers in the workshop. Let your propaganda 
 take concrete form by transforming the Amalgama- 
 tion Committees into Workers Committees. Make 
 the amalgamation of unions incidental, the amal- 
 gamation of the workers fundamental." They were 
 in fact already doing so : Murphy was directing 
 the tributary towards the main stream. That was 
 immediately before the news of the first Russian 
 revolution. 
 
 §3- 
 
 At this point it is necessary to recall certain general 
 aspects of the social situation in those winter months 
 of 1916-1917 when events seemed to conspire for 
 crisis. 
 
 The failure of the Somme offensive to bring a 
 positive decision in the war appreciably nearer was 
 followed by an increase in the activity of the various 
 groups opposed to its continuance. Apart from the 
 expressly pacifist organisations at which we have 
 glanced already, the Independent I^abour Party 
 was taking up a more definitely pacifist attitude, and 
 being driven by the unmistakeable " will to win " 
 manifest in other sections of the I^abour movement 
 to a somewhat extreme position. The second anni- 
 versary of the commencement of hostilities, for 
 example, had set the Labour Leader wondering how 
 much longer the " slaughter " was to continue ; "if 
 
UNOFFICIAL 97 
 
 the war is to end before August comes again it must 
 be because the people will to have it so. To the 
 Governments we shall look in vain. They express 
 no thought of reconciliation ; the word ' peace ' is 
 treason in their ears." 
 
 In the second week of December came the German 
 peace overtures — tentative proposals on the basis of 
 the status quo, for which not even the Radical press 
 had a good word to say. There was no question of 
 their acceptance, and the episode served merely to 
 define the resolution of the allied Powers to win the 
 war. But the mere suggestion of negotiations raised 
 the hopes of the pacifist element, and on the argument 
 of the Labour Leader it was to " the peoples " that 
 opponents of the war tended to turn. Now to no 
 small extent opposition to the war was becoming 
 characteristic of the unofiicial movement ; not 
 merely because the unorthodox by nature are 
 generally unorthodox in more respects than one, 
 but because, in the view of the more uncompromising 
 leaders, the war was anyway a " capitalist war," 
 and the only war worth fighting was the class-war 
 for the workers. But also in December, 1916, Mr. 
 lyloyd George, newly become Prime Minister, offered 
 six posts in his Ministry to the official I^abour leaders ; 
 which posts, in conformity with the general attitude 
 of official I/abour, and with the confirmation, by a 
 6 to I majority vote, of the official Labour Party, 
 were accepted. Not only the left wing had mis- 
 givings on the move ; the decision, said the New 
 Statesman, with an emphasis not as it turned out 
 altogether misplaced, " may possibly have destroyed 
 all chance of an independent and influential Parlia- 
 mentary Party of Labour for another generation." 
 The immediate result, of course, was a hardening of 
 both official and unofficial opposition on the left. 
 
 Profound, however, as may have been the 
 influence of these developments in the long run, 
 
98 IvABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 they were of too general a nature to provoke any 
 immediate crisis. For that material and immediate 
 causes were requisite ; and, as luck and bad manage- 
 ment would have it, nlaterial and immediate causes 
 at this critical juncture were forthcoming. 
 
 The Trade Card scheme, as we saw, had not been 
 unprovocative of trouble at its inception. Twenty- 
 five of the most important skilled unions, however, 
 were interested in its maintenance ; and when in 
 April, 1917, its withdrawal was decided upon by the 
 Government, the union executives were immediately 
 faced with the prospect of more trouble in the work- 
 shops throughout the kingdom than they could 
 cope with. What authority they yet retained had 
 been further undermined by their negotiations with 
 the Government as to dilution on private work ; 
 and it was no longer to the national leaders that the 
 discontented trade unionists were looking. Here at 
 last was the immediate occasion of an explosion to 
 which all the forces behind the unofficial movement 
 were converging. Mass meetings, led by the shop 
 stewards, were held in munitions and shipyard 
 centres from the English Channel to the Firth of 
 Forth. Unofiicial strikes had already broken out 
 in April : in the first fortnight of May, Manchester, 
 I,iverpool, Birkenhead, Barrow, Coventry, Sheffield, 
 Derby, Bristol, lyondon, Southampton, and jparts of 
 the Tjme and Clyde went up in mutiny ; and in 
 I/ondon a three-cornered tragi-comedy reached its 
 denouement. 
 
 As to where the control of the rank-and-file rested 
 at the moment there could be no manner of doubt. 
 " I will be no party," said the Minister of Munitions 
 (Dr. Addison), " to allowing the Ministry of Muni- 
 tions to be used as an instrvunent for defeating the 
 trade union movement." But there were the shop 
 stewards, now joined in conference in lyondon, 
 knocking peremptorily at the door of the Ministry 
 
UNOFFlCIAIv 99 
 
 of Munitions ; and much as the officials of 50 unions 
 concerned might " reaffirm their conviction that in 
 war-time trade disputes should be dealt with in a 
 constitutional manner, and deeply deplore the 
 existing unauthorised strike," the knocking had to be 
 answered. Ten warrants were issued, eight of 
 the leaders arrested ; b.ut that proved no answer. 
 "Joint Engineering Shop Stewards Committee re- 
 pudiate any interference by the Official Executives," 
 said the Committee in pointed, unpohte reply to the 
 trade unions. Here was a new Fourth Estate — the 
 rank-and-file to wit — come to town, to the acute 
 discomfiture of Fleet Street as well as Whitehall ; 
 and how was an unfortunate Minister to greet it ? 
 
 There appears to be no record of the conference 
 at which it was arranged that the executive of the 
 Engineers' Society should introduce the recalcitrants. 
 Thus, at any rate, was the " unofficial strike com- 
 tdittee," ushered in at the door in Whitehall Gardens, 
 enabled to state its case, to be assured of no more 
 police proceedings for the present, and withdraw. 
 But neither the question of dilution on private 
 work nor that of the status of the shop steward was 
 settled. The former, after months of further nego- 
 tiation, was dropped by Mr. Churchill and the 
 Munitions Bill re-introduced in August without it. 
 The latter was settled, after a further strike at 
 Coventry, by agreement between the Engineering 
 Employers' Federation and thirteen trade unions 
 (of which the A.S.E. was not one) in December, 1917. 
 The parties agreed to recognise the right of the 
 workers to elect shop stewards for negotiation with 
 the management of individual works within the 
 limits of trade union practice and agreements ; the 
 recognition being accorded " in order that a further 
 safeguard may be provided against disputes arising 
 between employers and their workpeople." 
 
 The industrial issue was thus to some extent 
 
loo I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 disposed of. Other aspects of the unofficial move- 
 ment remained ; but the " unrest " of May, 1917, 
 was, in fact, despite its mode of expression, mamly 
 concerned with immediate industrial questions, and 
 less with revolution than the majority of the news- 
 papers affected to believe. Perhaps it was in Print- 
 ing House Square that some irresponsible parodist 
 first sang — 
 
 " The people's flag is palest pink. 
 It's not so red as you might think. ..." 
 But meanwhile, in the quarter of the northern 
 sunrise, the authentic colour had made its appear- 
 ance ; and England was to have at least the 
 reflection. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " Out of the Darkness . . . " 
 
 §1. 
 
 For the Socialists of Western Europe perhaps the 
 most significant aspect of the Russian revolution 
 really lay in the relations it exhibited between the 
 " intelligentsia " and the " proletariat." In this 
 connexion, the subsequent careers of Kerensky, 
 Miliukoff, Tcheidze, and others are peculiarly in- 
 structive ; but even from the day to day events of 
 March, April, and May, 1917, most profitable lessons 
 were to be drawn by those who had eyes to read 
 them. Such lessons, however, have little relevance 
 to the history of affairs and men of action. It is 
 upon sentiment and impulse, not upon reason and 
 statesmanship, that world events immediately react ; 
 and the guidance these latter elements might give 
 to the energies of the former is hardly ever available 
 until eager hopes and passionate aspirations have 
 been seared and tired and broken in their blind flight 
 upwards. 
 
 There were few men in England to whom the end 
 of Russian Tsardom did not bring some sense of 
 relief in that third week of March, 1917 — though 
 there were some among them who would regret 
 it later. To the working classes the news came at a 
 
102 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 fateful moment, when the fundamental cleavage of 
 I/abour opinion was already becoming manifest. 
 The Trade Union movement was splitting upon 
 causes which were not solely industrial ; the I/abour 
 members of ParUament were divided in the lobbies 
 of the House ; the Independent Labour Party was 
 at open variance with the National I^abour Party 
 of which it was nominally a part as to the whole 
 conduct and purpose of the war ; within the Trade 
 Unions themselves left and right sections were 
 beginning to cohere ; the British Socialist Party 
 had definitely divided into " National " and " paci- 
 fist " groups ; other propagandist organisations and 
 counter-organisations were vigorously canvassing 
 •war-aims and the rival schools of peace ; and through- 
 out the whole population a broad dualism was 
 becoming more and more definite as to a range of 
 fundamental questions on which compromise was 
 essentially — ^was at last to become patently — ^impos- 
 sible. Under such circumstances the revolution in 
 Russia assumed for the minority two outstanding 
 aspects : it seemed a terrific vindication of the 
 rights and the power of the mass of workers ; and it 
 seemed an authoritative endorsement of the ideas 
 that had been put forward as to a " people's peace." 
 What was supposed to be the most oppressed " pro- 
 letariat " in Europe had suddenly demonstrated the 
 essential instability of the rule of force, the essential 
 solidarity of the people — even the military arm 
 had turned out to be theirs at a crisis. As for the 
 war, had not the SociaUsts said there was no quarrel 
 between the workers, and were not the Russian 
 soldiers proving the contention by fraternising with 
 the Germans across the trenches ? The new fraternity 
 was perhaps a little one-sided — ^but no matter ; there 
 was no very precise parallel between the precedent 
 conditions of workers and soldiers in Russia and in 
 England — ^but no matter ; in cold blood no quite 
 
" OUT OF THE DARKNESS ..." 103 
 
 obvious analogy was traceable between what at 
 least began as a political revolution in Russia, and the 
 hypothetical industrial revolution in England that 
 would begin, if at all, in the workshops — ^but no 
 matter. The " people's flag " had been raised, and 
 Tsardom had fallen ; and to many leaders of Enghsh 
 lyabour opinion the news brought a sense of almost 
 personal triumph. 
 
 " This meeting (resolved the great Albert Hall 
 demonstration of Labour on March 31st) sends 
 joyful congratulations to the democrats of 
 Russia, and calls upon the Governments of 
 Great Britain and of every country, neutral and 
 belligerent alike, to follow the Russian example 
 by establishing Industrial Freedom, Freedom of 
 Speech and the Press, the Abolition of Social, 
 Religious and National distinctions, an im- 
 mediate amnesty for Political and Religious 
 offences, and Universal Suffrage." 
 — ^from which considered opinion the impression 
 made by the news from Russia may sufficiently be 
 inferred. It was significant that few features of the 
 Revolution evoked more enthusiasm on this occasion 
 than the fact that the Russian soldiery had refused 
 to fire on the mob. The manifesto of the Provisional 
 Government to the effect that " the time has come 
 for the people to take into their own hands the 
 decision of questions of war and peace " was also 
 much applauded. It is to be noted, however, that 
 the famous phrase " No annexations and no in- 
 demnities " was the motto not of the Provisional 
 Government, but of the Petrograd Soviet, and marked 
 in fact the beginning of that more drastic conflict 
 in Russian politics of which the issue was 
 " Bolshevism." 
 
 Second thoughts on the progress of affairs in 
 Russia led to some reserve of judgment, not to say 
 misgiving, in many sections of British opinion ; but 
 
104 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 in the case of the Socialist lycft, far from misgiving, 
 to the most spectacular piece of utter folly for which 
 that section, during the whole war-period, was 
 responsible — ^which is saying not a little. The 
 Independent I^abour Party, and the British Socialist 
 Party — that is, the pacifist rump of Hyndman's 
 old society — acting as the " United Socialist Council " 
 convened a conference of I/cft Win^ organisations 
 at lyceds on June gth. The conveners had some 
 little difficulty in getting the use of a hall, and the 
 delegates in finding hotel accommodation ; but the 
 meeting was held, and the Soviet formula subscribed 
 to, among others. The tour de force, howevef , was 
 the passage of a resolution calling on constituent 
 bodies " at once to establish in every town, urban 
 district, and rural district. Councils of Workmen's 
 and Soldiers' delegates for initiating and co-ordinat- 
 ing working class activity in support of the policy 
 set out in the foregoing resolutions and to work 
 strenuously for a peace made by the peoples of the 
 various countries and for the complete political and 
 economic emancipation of international labour." 
 The conveners of the conference — Jowett, Snowden, 
 I^ansbury, Macdonald, Smillie, Williams and others 
 — were appointed there and then a- provisional 
 committee to supervise the formation of the local 
 " Soviets " ; and communications were to be 
 addressed to the Secretary, " Workers' and Soldiers' 
 Council." 
 
 One Toole of the Clerks' Union ventured to point 
 out towards the close of the meeting that the par- 
 ticipation of the soldiers, in view of the King's 
 Regulations and other small difiiculties, was likely 
 to be problematic ; but the delegates, having struck 
 a blow at the political organisation of I^abour from 
 which for at least four yeiars it was not to recover, 
 departed well satisfied with the day's proceedings ; 
 and the trouble began. 
 
" OUT OF THE DARKNESS ..." 105 
 
 Its first-fruits fell accurately on the heads of two 
 leaders of the conference. The Russians had invited 
 the Independent lyabour Party, along with the 
 British majority, to send representatives to Petro- 
 grad, and the Government after some hesitation 
 issued passports to Jowett and Macdonald. But 
 the Seamen's and Firemen's Union, |whose 
 " Captain " Tupper alleged he had been refused a 
 hearing by the I^eeds Conference, withdrew its mem- 
 bers from the vessel that was to take them ; and, 
 encouraged by the demagogue press, obstreperously 
 proclaimed through the mouth of " Captain " Tupper 
 that it would see no pacifist delegates set sail. The 
 unsavoury business had two results of some import- 
 ance : first, in that it actually prevented the visit, 
 to which the British Government had consented, 
 of the whole lyabour delegation to Russia at a 
 critical period of that country's affairs ; and, second, 
 in that it provided the lyabour movement with a 
 conspicuous proof of the efficacy of direct action — 
 a proof at which the constitutional parties had, since 
 it suited their purpose, openly connived. 
 
 Meanwhile, the I^eeds Committee set to work to 
 arrange inaugural conferences for the estabHshment 
 of " Councils of Workers' and Soldiers' Delegates " 
 in thirteen specified areas — to the accompaniment of 
 incitements from the demagogue press to its readers 
 to break up the meetings. Meetings were attempted, 
 in lyondon, Newcastle, Swansea and elsewhere, and 
 duly dispersed with considerable rioting ; the end of 
 the matter being the prohibition of the Workmen's 
 and Soldiers' Councils under the Defence of the 
 Realm Act. And if broken heads and wrecked 
 assembly halls were the net result, oblivion might 
 suitably have swallowed up the whole episode ; but 
 in fact by its partisans and opponents alike the 
 Soviet movement in Britain was so well adver- 
 tised as to leave a lasting impression on the electorate, 
 
io6 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 and what little prospect remained to Labour of 
 obtaining any measure of political unity or recogni- 
 tion was considerably postponed. Whether by way 
 of compensation the seeds of revolution had, been 
 scattered a little wider time was to show ; at least 
 the bitter soil in which they ripen had been well 
 turned. 
 
 §2. 
 
 The summer of 1917 thus found the evolution of 
 Labour opinion in a highly complex condition, the 
 main tendencies of which it will be convenient before 
 going farther to review. 
 
 In the first place the strictly industrial questions 
 of the leaving certificate and the extension of dilution 
 to private work were still unsettled ; and the latter 
 had the effect of keeping prominent the general 
 controversy as to profit-making in industry. Hitherto 
 this matter had been mainly discussed in connexion 
 with munitions manufacture ; but 1917 extended 
 the field of controversy and brought into it a new 
 demand enunciated by a new organisation. 
 
 The Triple Alliance of the Miners' Federation, the 
 National Union of Railwaymen, and the Transport 
 Workers' Federation, took its rise from an approach 
 made by the miners to the other organisations in 
 1913. The formulation of a definite scheme of 
 mutual support began in the following April, and 
 was temporarily interrupted by the outbreak of 
 war ; but there were cogent reasons why the inter- 
 ruptions should not be allowed ,to last. "It is 
 dear," wrote Robert Smillie in 1915, " that capital 
 is now organised for the purpose of attacking trade 
 unionism, and for defence against trade union 
 advance. ... It will be wise, indeed essential, 
 to have the working agreement ready for the days 
 
" OUT OF THE DARKNESS ..." 107 
 
 of peace after the war. It is then that we may 
 expect an attack on I/abour by the employers ; it 
 is now, in the midst of war, that we must prepare 
 for the industrial conflicts that the military peace 
 wiU bring." The Alliance was therefore completed 
 and finally ratified by the executives of the three 
 component bodies in December, 1915 ; and a 
 potential combination of over one and a quarter 
 milhon workers entered the field. " The predominant 
 idea of the Alhance," wrote Smillie, " is that each of 
 these great fighting organisations, before embarking 
 upon any big movement, either defensive or aggres- 
 sive, should formulate its programme and submit it 
 to the others, and that upon joint proposals, joint 
 action should be taken." The executive consisted 
 of a committee of two members of each of the allied 
 societies, with whom rested the power to call a full 
 conference of the three executives ; and any decision 
 as to action rested with the conference so called, but 
 could be taken only after the issue " has been before 
 the members of the three organisations and decided 
 by such methods as the constitution of each organisa- 
 tion provides." The Alliance was thus essentially 
 a militant organisation, in sharp contrast with 
 the Trade Union Congress which had no executive 
 authority ; its basis was industrial, not craft, 
 unionism, so that instead of action being con- 
 fined to specified trades, while the rest had to suffer, 
 all the workers in an industry, or if necessary in all 
 three industries, should act at once and in concert. 
 Although, therefore, the Alliance might, and did, 
 deliberate and deputise the Government on matters 
 of general industrial poUcy, its existence was justified 
 solely by its ability to command united direct 
 action in the last resort. Not illogically the more 
 aggressive elements among the workers came to 
 regard its executive as their advance guard in the 
 war on " capitalism " ; and when in June, 1917, a 
 
io8 lyABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 fitU delegate conference of the Alliance demanded 
 " the conscription of wealth and property in order to 
 achieve a real equality of sacrifice " it seemed to 
 many as if the advance guard were moving. 
 
 It is probable, however, that the emergence of the 
 Triple Alliance as a definite and accredited organisa- 
 tion actually stabihsed the situation in industry. 
 It stood — as any fighting organisation must stand — 
 for discipline within the rariks of its members, and 
 its leaders had been careful to avoid any such position 
 as might impair the strict integrity of their allegiance. 
 With the demonstration of May, 1917, the aggressive 
 impetus of the shop steward movement was tem- 
 porarily spent ; and the more revolutionary elements 
 were bound to recognise that in the Alliance was 
 a weapon of far greater promise than lay in sporadic 
 movements of the rank-and-file. The policy 
 of industrial unionism found as it were a definite 
 working model at which to aim, while the very 
 magnitude of the new organisation made it apparent 
 that any weakening of trade union solidarity 
 would diminish the chances of its effective employ- 
 ment. The Alliance leaders were professedly taking 
 a long view ; and the mere thought of what might 
 follow on the first blow struck with their united forces 
 seems to have rendered them cautious almost to the 
 point of conservatism. 
 
 §3- 
 
 But in fact the industrial issues of this year of 
 crisis were altogether overshadowed by the inter- 
 national controversy on war-aims ; and one effect 
 of this latter was a virtual reintegration of the 
 unofficial movement. It was by no means the case 
 that the rank-and-file revolt in the engineering 
 unions was entirely permeated with opposition to the 
 
" OUT OF THE DARKNESS ..." 109 
 
 war ; and the crystallisation of opinion about the 
 war-issue — in which the Russian question was now 
 involved — gradually superseded the industrial forma- 
 tion. 
 
 This broad question of war-aims was brought 
 into prominence, as we saw, at the close of 1916 
 jointly by the German peace offer and by President 
 Wilson's appeal to the belligerents to state their 
 terms. But from the start there had been two clear 
 lines of thought in England : namely, that repre- 
 sented by the Independent lyabour Party with its 
 campaign against secret diplomacy, and in favour of 
 a negotiated peace ; and that represented by the 
 popular press and subscribed to by the majority of 
 trade union and general opinion, in favour of the 
 "knock-out blow" and peace by dictation. The 
 former policy was reinforced by many smaller 
 organisations than the I.I/.P., including some local 
 labour councils and shop stewards committees, but 
 notably by the Union of Democratic Control. This 
 was an independent society of the " intellectuals " 
 formed in September, 1914, to advocate four prin- 
 ciples of peace : 
 
 1. No province shall be transferred from one Government 
 to another without the consent by plebiscite or otherwise 
 of the population of such province. 
 
 2. No treaty, arrangement, or undertaking shall be 
 entered upon in the name of Great Britain without the 
 sanction of ParUament. Adequate machinery for ensuring 
 democratic control of foreign pohcy shall be created. 
 
 3. The foreign policy of Great Britain shall not be aimed 
 at creating aUiances for the purpose of maintaining the 
 balance of power, but shall be directed to concerted action 
 between the Powers, and the setting up of an International 
 Council, whose deliberations and decisions shall be public, 
 with such machinery for securing international agreement 
 as shall be the guarantee of an abiding peace. 
 
 4. Great Britain shall propose, as part of the peace settle- 
 ment, a pl^n for the drastic reduction, by consent, of the 
 armaments of all the belligerent Powers, and to facilitate 
 
110 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 that policy shall attempt to secure the general nationalisa- 
 tion of the manufacture of armaments and the control of 
 the export of armaments by one country to another. 
 
 This was the official program of the society that 
 sustained the most vigorous of all the attacks of the 
 demagogue press — a fact largely due to the 
 advanced Socialist opinions of many of its members. 
 In such attacks there was evident, of course, the 
 typical British fear — not the fear of the enemy, 
 but the fear of the minority ; the impulse that 
 drives the average citizen to join the biggest crowd, 
 and that renders too ardent a zeal for progress "bad 
 form " in the Universities and, other centres of 
 polite society. It was, in fact, largely because the 
 Union was suspected of penetrating such preserves 
 that it was so much more seriously attacked than 
 its program or personnel would appear to warrant ; 
 but despite vilification it had secured the adherence 
 of 117 local organisations, of which 49 were trades 
 councils and local I/abour parties, by January, 1916 — 
 an individual membership of over 300,000 ; and it 
 continued to expand. 
 
 Now both these opposing schools of opinion were 
 during 1917 reinforced by circumstances. In 
 January President Wilson had arrived at the 
 philosophic conclusion " that it must be a peace 
 without victory. . . . Victory would mean peace 
 forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed 
 upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in 
 humiliation, under duress, at intolerable sacrifice, 
 and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter 
 memory upon which terms of peace would rest, 
 not permanently, but only upon quicksand." A 
 durable peace must entail the limitation of naval and 
 mihtary armaments and a recognition of the principle 
 " that no right anywhere exists to hand peoples 
 about from potentate to potentate as if they were 
 property." German submarine tactics speedily 
 
" OUT OF THK DARKNESS ..." iii 
 
 changed American opinion ; but even when on 
 April 6th the United States entered the war, it was 
 as a friend, not an ally, of the Entente ; as a foe, 
 not of the Germian people, but of Prussian militarism ; 
 as an avenging force by which the world " must be 
 made safe for democracy." In pursuance of which 
 noble aim some hundreds of American citizens were 
 speedily clapped in gaol for the indiscreet expression 
 of their opinions. 
 
 In Britain also the progress of the war hardened 
 the public temper, and journalists became unable 
 to discern any intermediate shades between black 
 and white. Advocates of peace by negotiation, 
 advanced Socialists, I.I/.P. and U.D.C. speakers, 
 conscientious objectors, sundry poets, artists, musi- 
 cians, vegetarians, and other persons of doubtful 
 Vocation, critics of the Government or the Army 
 CbuncU, folk who wore their hair long and lived at 
 Golders Green, persons who affected to beHeve in a 
 possible regeneration of the " Hun," undergraduates 
 who erred in tone or affected the wrong kind of 
 neckwear, any who doubted that all the rest were 
 in receipt of German gold — ^were liable to be dubbed 
 "pacifists" ; and the Pope was either suspect or 
 pro-German. But now it was these pestilentisd 
 Russians — ^under-equipped, disorganised, beaten after 
 titanic struggle, in the agony of famine, civil war 
 and revolution — ^who were talking of a negotiated 
 peace, and urging the working-classes of all countries 
 to join them. At which International Socialism, in 
 England and elsewhere, lifted its head again. Pity 
 the poor patriot ! 
 
 §4- 
 
 The International Socialist Bureau, which we left 
 in Chapter I urging the workers to " continue their 
 
112 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 demonstrations against war," had in fact been 
 attempting throughout 1915 and 1916 to secure a 
 common program among neutral, enemy, and allied 
 Socialists on which the International could be 
 re-erected ; but it had elicited little more than general 
 expressions of opinion in favour of the democratic 
 control of foreign policy, the rights of nations, and 
 the limitation of armaments. After the first 
 Russian revolution international headquarters were 
 shifted to Stockholm, a Dutch-Scandinavian Com- 
 mittee constituted, and negotiations started with a 
 view to a full international congress. The move- 
 ment was supported by the Petrograd Soviet — and 
 by Arthur Henderson, whose advocacy of it in 
 August, 1917, cost him his seat in the British 
 Cabinet, labour opinion in England was then 
 strongly favourable to the project, despite Govern- 
 ment opposition to any meeting with the enemy 
 Socialists. In view, however, of the hesitancy of 
 the Majorit}"^ Socialists in allied countries, of the 
 Miners' Federation and much other I^abour opinion 
 in Britain, and of the lack of any clear platform on 
 which a general Socialist congress could stand, 
 enthusiasm for it gradually declined. After the 
 Bolshevik revolution in Russia (November, 1917), 
 I/cnin promptly severed the Russian connexion 
 with inter-alHed Socialism ; and with the opening 
 of Russo-German peace negotiations at Brest, it 
 finally became clear that the first task of Inter- 
 national Socialism was to achieve, if possible, a 
 common inter-allied program. This task was taken 
 in hand by a Committee of the British I^abour 
 movement in the autumn of 1917. 
 
 The result was the famous Memorandtim on 
 War Aims adopted by the British I^abour movement 
 at lyondon on December 28th, 1917, and by a 
 conference of inter-alUed I^abour and Socialist parties 
 in the following February. In this document the 
 
" OUT OF THE DARKNESS ..." 113 
 
 fundamental principles of the old International, the 
 points of agreement already reached among allied 
 lyabour parties, the doctrines enunciated by President 
 Wilson, and the ideals of the " left-wing " I^iberal 
 and Labour opinion in England were embodied. 
 The war was envisaged as a war of liberation to 
 abolish further war and the fear of war, and establish 
 the League of Free Nations ; and the proposed 
 territorial resettlement was to follow the principle 
 of self-determination of all populations, ignoring 
 " imperialist designs " for the acquisition, by military 
 force, of new territories or new economic advantages. 
 The memorandtun insisted on the principle of the 
 " open door " in international economic intercourse ; 
 on the necessity, throughout the post-war period 
 of scarcity, for State control and international 
 allocation of supphes ; and on the provision in 
 every country of public works for the avoidance 
 of unemployment " which, if it is now in any 
 country allowed to occur, is as much the result of 
 Government neglect as is any epidemic disease." 
 In conclusion, the document submitted that " the 
 working-classes, having made such sacrifices during 
 the war, are entitled to take part in securing a 
 democratic world peace," and that therefore each 
 Government should include at least one representa- 
 tive of Labour and Socialism in its peace delegation. 
 The importance of this document, and of the 
 complex lustory that led up to it, was not merely 
 intrinsic. It was the immediate product of British 
 Labour and Fabian Socialism ; but its principles 
 were not exclusively Labour nor SociaUst, and in 
 defining them the SociaUst intellectuals were doing 
 what they had done since 1889 — ^paving a road for 
 LiberaUsm. The Memorandum on War Aims marks 
 in fact the emergence of official Labour as the spokes- 
 man of a body of opinion that was never confined 
 to the trade unions, the SociaUst parties and the 
 
114 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 " proletariat " ; wherein lay the possibility — and it 
 was recognised — of a new constitutional party in 
 British and European politics. Much was therefore 
 to depend upon its organisation and such leadership 
 as Heaven vouchsafed to send it ; much also upon 
 the counteracting forces that controlled public 
 opinion and the working of the .constitutional 
 machine. Should the new party win through to 
 adequate representation, I^abour might find itself 
 called on to accept a position in the State of wider 
 power and greater responsibility. Should it fail — 
 the trade unions knew of other weapons that might 
 be used to subserve their narrower ends ; but what 
 might happen to the rest of the embryo party, and 
 the embryo policy, and the rest of the nation, a 
 merciful Providence hesitated as yet to reveal. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Getting on With the War. 
 
 The gradual mobilisation of I/abour opinion during 
 1917 on the wide ground of national policy did not 
 in itself dispose of the difficulties that had arisen 
 in the industrial field. To some extent no doubt 
 the unofficial demonstration in May had relieved 
 the situation ; but the fundamental causes remained 
 to be dealt with, and the first necessity (assuming 
 one did not know already) was to find out what 
 they were. On June 12th, therefore, the Prime 
 Minister appointed a " Commission of Inquiry 
 into Industrial Unrest," which was to examine the 
 condition of eight specified areas and report to the 
 Government at the earliest possible moment. Within 
 a month the reports were to hand ; and notwith- 
 standing the record of celerity thus established for 
 Government Commissions, a very interesting collec- 
 tion of statements resulted. 
 
 " The great majority of the causes of industrial 
 unrest specified in the reports (wrote Mr. G. N. 
 Barnes in his summary) have their root in 
 certain psychological conditions. Want of con- 
 fidence is a fundamental cause, of which many 
 of the causes given are merely manifestations. 
 
 H 2 
 
ii6 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 It shows itself in the feeling that there has been 
 inequality of sacrifice, that the Government has 
 broken solemn pledges, that the Trade Union 
 officials are no longer to be relied upon, and 
 that there is a woeful uncertainty as to the 
 industrial future." 
 Of specific causes the most generally emphasized 
 were three : the rise in the cost of living, witii which 
 wages had failed to advance proportionally ; the 
 restriction on personal freedom imposed more 
 especially by the leaving certificate ; and a general 
 lack of confidence in the Government. Of minor 
 causes there were many : skilled men on time-rates 
 were earning less than lower grades on piece-work ; 
 housing conditions were becoming intolerable in 
 Scotland, Wales, the North-East Coast and some other 
 areas; while the administration of the Military Service 
 and Munitions Acts and the delay in arbitration 
 procedure were reinforcing a ntunber of local 
 troubles that varied from area to area. In general 
 there was a strong feeling of patriotism on all sides 
 throughout the country, and revolutionary feeling 
 was not extensive ; but the food question, the man- 
 power question, and some others required immediate 
 and careful handling. 
 
 The district reports on which this summary was 
 based merit some attention in the light of subsequent 
 events ; particularly that respecting Wales, which 
 contained an instructive survey of the peculiar 
 social and geographical conditions that so largely 
 determine the formation of opinion in this area. 
 
 Here as elsewhere the workers as a whole were 
 "strongly loyal and patriotic," and there was no 
 foundation whatever for the (Fleet Street) allegation 
 of German influence. But at the same time 
 
 " the conviction that Capital and I^abour are 
 necessarily hostile^ a conviction engendered by 
 conflict on industrial matters, has been accen- 
 
GETTING ON WITH THE WAR 117 
 
 tuated by the fact that the social conditions of 
 the working classes are of an unsatisfactory- 
 character. . . . By the propaganda of a small 
 but earnest group of men whose teachings are 
 rapidly permeating the entire trade union 
 movement . . . hostility to Capitalism has 
 now become part of the political creed of the 
 majority of Trade Unionists in the mining 
 if not in other industries, and unless the em- 
 ployers are prepared to meet the men part of 
 the way, disaster must overtake the mining 
 industry in the South Wales coalfield. Nearly 
 aU movements initiated by the South Wales 
 Miners' Federation during recent years, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, are directed towards 
 the overthrow of the present capitalist system, 
 and the establishment of a new industrial order 
 under which the workers will have a greater 
 measure of control over their industry and 
 a larger measure of the produce of their labour. 
 Opinions are as yet divided as to whether such 
 overthrow is to be accomplished by political 
 or industrial action, or by both. Until recently 
 the political method was most popular, but 
 industrial action is now in the ascendant." 
 
 §2. 
 
 During the following months Government action 
 of varying kinds was taken to relieve several of 
 the more serious disabilities of labour. In regard 
 to the control of food prices very little had hitherto 
 been done ; the attention of the Government had 
 been concentrated on the question of securing 
 supplies, more especially of sugar, grain, and meat. 
 The pubUc scarcely realised the magnitude of the 
 problem that was involved in interference at the 
 
ii8 I.A30UR IN TRANSITION f 
 
 retaU end of distribution ; but the occasion for it, 
 whatever the difficulties, had unmistakeably arrived. 
 According to official statistics (which, valid or no, 
 were certainly good enough argument against the 
 Government) average retail food prices had advanced 
 by December, 1914, 16 per cent, on the July figure. 
 Twelve months later the total advance was given 
 as 44 per cent., and by the end of 1916 the formidable 
 increase of 84 per cent, was reached. No general 
 price control had as yet been imposed ; and when it 
 is remembered that the real burden of any given 
 percentage increase becomes more onerous as the 
 price level advances, the urgency of the problem may 
 be realised. In no case had wage rates risen in 
 proportion (the wages of skilled engineers were 
 stated to have risen by less than 20 per cent.), 
 while cases of rampant profiteering were openly 
 admitted. Retail prices had as yet only been fixed 
 for milk, potatoes, and certain cereals ; the first 
 step of cardinal importance was the institution of 
 the subsidized ninepenny loaf, in July, 1917 — ^by 
 which time the average pirice increase was 104 per 
 cent. During the rest of the year control was 
 extended and the rationing system developed, first 
 on a voluntary, finally on a compulsory basis, under 
 the administration of lyord Rhondda ; but the food 
 queue remained an unavoidable feature of the winter 
 of 1917, and the suspicion — ^in many cases the reality 
 — of " profiteering " survived the Armistice. None 
 the less, the Government succeeded in arresting for 
 four months at the close of 1917 the upward move- 
 ment of food prices, and during the first quarter of 
 1918 in actually reversing it. In view of the intricate 
 problems involved in respect not only of distribution, 
 but of supply, profit-regulation, transport by land 
 and sea, and administration, this achievement 
 deserved much fuller recognition than the circum- 
 stances allowed it to obtain. It is impossible to 
 
GETTING ON WITH THE^WAR 119 
 
 omit the obvious remark that had the attempt been 
 made earlier, no small part of the wage-problem 
 might have been forestalled. 
 
 §3- 
 
 In other matters n^ative action was principally 
 required. Whether or no the 28 engineering unions 
 had been fully convinced of the necessity for dilution 
 on private work, there appeared little prospect of its 
 successful application ; and after a most troublesome 
 controversy of several months' duration the proposal 
 was dropped by the new Minister of Munitions (Mr. 
 Churchill). " Even in the area of war munitions," 
 the Minister informed the House of Commons 
 (August 15th, 1917), " even in the controlled estab- 
 lishments, we have not been able to carry out dilu- 
 tion, although it is agreed, further than we can carry 
 the local ^reements of the parties concerned. There- 
 fore this clause, which I now propose to omit, is 
 valueless without agreement, and unnecessary should 
 agreement be reached." It was dropped by the 
 Government with regret ; but the opposition of 
 the engineers had triumphed. 
 
 The Government also came to the conclusion, 
 guided doubtless by the recommendations of the 
 recent Commission, that the abolition of the leaving 
 certificate was desirable ; but this was not quite 
 so simple a matter. The classes most adversely 
 affected by the leaving certificate had been the most 
 h^hly skilled grades whose wages were upon a time- 
 basis ; who, being unable by transfer of their 
 labour to other places or occupations to obtain 
 competitive wages or piece-work rates, were actually 
 earning in many cases less than the unskilled piece- 
 workers whom they themselves had trained. 
 Although, therefore, power to abolish the leaving 
 
120 LABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 certificate was obtained in the new Munitions Act 
 of 1917, some adjustment in the earnings of skilled 
 men was a necessary preliminary, if the latter were 
 to be retained in their present occupations. That 
 adjustment was made by the award of a 12^ per cent, 
 bonus on earnings to skilled engineering time-workers, 
 which came into force on October 14th, 1917 — ^the 
 day before the abolition of the leaving certificate. 
 
 The complete history of the famous " twelve-and- 
 a-half per cent." is recorded in a spirited account 
 by I/Ord Askwith, with liberal citation of official 
 papers. The principal criticisms made by the 
 Chairman of the Committee on Production — than 
 whom no-one can be better qualified to speak on the 
 subject — are : 
 
 First, the award constituted a fatal example 
 of that " lack of co-ordination between Depart- 
 ments " with which I^ord Askwith so vigorously 
 charges the Government. 
 
 Second, it contravened the principle, which the 
 Committee on Production and the Minister of 
 I^abour had been endeavouring to pursue, of 
 correlating all wage advances in general accord- 
 ance with the cost of living, and avoiding 
 sectional awards from which individual groups 
 of workers might gain undue advantage. The 
 12^ per cent, operating as a flat rate advance 
 would give a greater proportional increase in 
 some cases than in others, and in view of the 
 multiplicity of varying circumstances, and of 
 adjustments that had already been made, the 
 matter was one that could only be dealt with 
 case by case. 
 
 Third, the scope of the award was so loosely 
 defined that it would be impossible to set any 
 clear and just limits to its application. 
 This contention was most amply justified by the 
 immediate sequel. Claims arose, and were vigorously ■ 
 
GETTING ON WITH THE WAR i2r 
 
 pressed, by analogous trades both in and out of 
 munitions work, . through so wide an area that at 
 last it became necessary to abrogate the entire basis 
 of the original award by a compensating grant to 
 piece-workers. In an official account quoted by 
 I/ord Askwith it is stated : 
 
 " The agitation for the 12^ per cent, bonus spread to all 
 trades, and by January it had been secured by workmen 
 employed on munitions work, and paid as plain time- 
 workers in engineering shops, boiler shops, foundries, ship- 
 building and ship-repairing establishments, iron and steel 
 trades, electricity-generating stations and electrical con- 
 tracting trades, nut and bolt trades, brass foundries and 
 brass-works, bridge-building and constructional engineering, 
 hollow-ware trade, spring-making works, hot stamping 
 works, tube works, and wagon-building trades. In January, 
 by which time considerable unrest had arisen among 
 piece-workers, who were not eligible for the bonus, the War 
 Cabinet decided, after obtaining the advice of the Com- 
 mittee on Production, to grant a bonus of 7J per cent, ta 
 piece-workers and other men on systems of payment by 
 results. Before many months, practically every trade had 
 secured either the bonus or an equivalent. The bonus, 
 intended originally as a compensation to certain skilled 
 men on munitions work, failed entirely in its original 
 purpose, and merely became an advance of wages whidi all 
 trades claimed and many secured. Designed in the first 
 place to allay unrest, this disturbance of comparative rates 
 was a principal cause of much labour unrest." 
 
 " My view is," adds I/)rd Askwith, with character- 
 istic diffidence, " that in Labour matters the Govern- 
 ment had no policy, never gave signs of having a 
 policy, and could not be induced to have a policy.'* 
 In view of which verdict it is of interest to turn to 
 the efforts of the Government to find one. 
 
 §4- 
 
 igi6 witnessed the estabhshment by the Govern- 
 ment of an unprecedented number of Committees 
 
122 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 in connexion with questions of demobilisation, 
 domestic policy and post-war reconstruction. Of 
 these Committees, one at least — that dealing with 
 " Relations between Employers and Employed " 
 was to become famous. The Whitley Committee 
 was appointed by the Cabinet Committee on Recon- 
 struction in October, 1916, and the subsequent 
 change of Government and the formation of new 
 Ministries passed over its head without affecting 
 the continuity of its deliberations. Its terms of 
 reference were : 
 
 (i) to make and consider si^gestions for 
 securing a permanent improvement in the 
 relations between employers and workmen ; 
 
 (2) to recommend means for securing that 
 industrial conditions affecting the relations 
 between employers and workmen shall be syste- 
 matically reviewed by those concerned, with a 
 view to improving conditions in the future^ 
 T'he Committee included prominent employers and 
 representative Trade Unionists over whom the 
 Right Hon. J. H. Whitley, M.P., presided ; on the 
 I/abour side were men of such divergent outlook as 
 Mr. J. R. Qynes, Mr. Robert Smillie, Mr. F. S. 
 Button and Mr. J. J. Mallon. The j&rst report, 
 however, which was published in July, 1917, was 
 unanimous. 
 
 As the basis of any permanent improvement in 
 the relations between Employers and Employed the 
 Committee decided that the " cash nexus " was no 
 longer sufficient and that the workpeople " should 
 have a greater opportunity of participating in the 
 discussion about and adjustment of those parts of 
 industry by which they are most affected." To this 
 «nd the Committee recommended 
 
 " the establishment for each industry of an 
 organisation representative of employers and 
 workpeople to have as its object the regular 
 
GETTING ON WITH THE WAR 123 
 
 consideration of matters affecting the progress 
 and well-being of the trade from the point of 
 view of all those engaged in it, so far as this is 
 consistent with the general interest of the 
 community." 
 The Joint Industrial Councils thus proposed were to 
 consist of representatives of associations of em- 
 ployers and workpeople in the well-organised indus- 
 tries ; they were to consider not only wages and 
 allied questions, but such matters as Education, 
 Industrial Research and Statistics, Welfare and 
 Scientific Management. The Councils were to rest 
 on an entirely voluntary basis, and the validity of 
 their proceedings was thus made dependent upon 
 the adequacy of organisation on either side. They 
 were, however, to receive the recognition of the 
 Government as the representative bodies for their 
 respective industries. 
 
 Certain principles implicit in this scheme require 
 emphasis. First, it presupposed the existence of a 
 common interest between employers and workpeople. 
 It was therefore not to be expected that the more 
 Marxian elements in the Trade Unions would embrace 
 it. Second, its adoption by the War Cabinet 
 implied the fullest recognition of the principle of 
 Trade Unionism that had yet been received from 
 the Government. Third, that recognition was 
 granted on a de facto basis of industry, not vocation ; 
 but the approval that this basis might have received 
 from the advocates of industrial unionism was 
 largely forestalled by the presupposition of a com- 
 mon' interest between the two sides. Fourth, it 
 suggested that the management of industry was 
 the concern of those strictly engaged within it, and 
 thus impUed a departure from the principles of 
 bureaucratic State Socialism. 
 
 The reception of the scheme by the press and 
 public opinion was such as might have been expected 
 
124 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 in view of the foregoing considerations. By the 
 vast majority of moderate and conservative opinion 
 it was welcomed ; partly as affording a prospect of 
 greater " industrial harmony " in future and partly, 
 though less generally, as affording a constitutional 
 means by which the desire of I^abour for a share in 
 control might be realised. The only pronounced 
 opposition came from the " left wing," and was clearly 
 voiced by the National Guilds League, whose object 
 was " the abolition of the wage-system and 
 the establishment of self-government in industry 
 through a system of National Guilds working in 
 conjunction with the State." In the view of this 
 body 
 
 " this demand the Report entirely, and scarcely by accident, 
 ignores ; it concerns itself throughout with the operation of 
 joint bodies of employers and workers. We want, therefore, 
 to point out and to emphasise the fact that no scheme of 
 so-called ' joint control ' can meet the demand of the 
 workers ; and that no such scheme can give, in any way, 
 or under any circumstances, any real control. lyabour 
 cannot secure the control of industrial afEairs through the 
 agency of a composite body." 
 
 This attitude was officially taken up by one or two 
 trade unions ; but the abstract opposition to the 
 principle did not, in the long run, entirely prevail 
 against the tangible advantages that could be 
 secured by means of regular joint consultation. 
 
 Subsequent reports of the Committee dealt with 
 the decentralisation of the scheme, with the less 
 organised industries and with conciliation and 
 arbitration ; and certain of the recommendations 
 were met in later legislation. The inmiediate result, 
 however, was the adoption of the scheme as part of 
 the policy of the Government and an active 
 endeavour made by the Ministry of Labour to bring 
 it into being. The first Joint Industrial Council — 
 that for the Pottery Industry — ^was established in 
 January, 1918. 
 
GETTING ON WITH THE WAR 125 
 
 §5- 
 
 Taken as a whole, the year 1917 is characterised 
 by the emergence of a whole series of problems — 
 administrative, political, social, industrial, and inter- 
 national — ^whose solution was not to be discovered 
 during the period of the war, nor for long after. 
 
 Some aspects of the change in society are well 
 described in the War Cabinet Report for the year : 
 
 " On the one hand, not only have enormous numbers of 
 men, and latterly of women also, been mobilised for military 
 and naval purposes, but the vast majority of the people 
 are now working directly or indirectly on public service. 
 If they are not in the Army, the Navy, the Civil Service, 
 they are growing food, or making munitions, or engaged 
 in the work of organising, transporting or distributing the 
 national supplies. On the other hand, the State has taken 
 control for the period of the war over certain national 
 industries, such as the railways, shipping, coal and iron 
 mines, and the great majority of engineering businesses. 
 It has also made itself responsible for the securing of 
 adequate quantities of certain staple commodities and 
 services, such as food, coal, timber and other raw materials, 
 railroad and sea transportation, and for distributing the 
 available supplies justly as between individual and indi- 
 vidual in the national interest. 
 
 Thus the war, and especially the year 1917, has brought 
 about a transformation of the social and administrative 
 structure of the State, much of which is bound to be 
 permanent. . 
 
 Taking the year as a whole the Administration has been 
 brought into far closer contact with every aspect of the Ufe 
 of the people, the provinces and the metropolis have been 
 linked more closely together, and the whole community 
 has received an education in the problems of practical 
 democracy such as it never had before." 
 
 For labour, when all has been said of disputes 
 and difl&culties encountered, the year placed to the 
 permanent credit of the workers a stupendous 
 achievement. The rate of output of heavy guns and 
 
126 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 filled shell had doubled in the twelve months, to 
 say nothing of other arms and supplies, shipbuilding, 
 repair work, replacement, and all the contributory 
 processes to the colossal production ; this in spite 
 of the constant diminution of the man-power avail- 
 able, and of the accumulating strain of continual 
 overtime and absence of holidays. Within the 
 limits set by legislation and national agreements the 
 actual adjustments by which this result was secured 
 were determined district by district and factory by 
 factory between the workers and the managements 
 concerned. No small part of this co-operation was 
 made possible solely by the fact of the national 
 emergency ; by the sense, however vague, that the 
 effort was directly for the nation ; it did not follow 
 that the lines of industrial development on which 
 the war production was secured could be carried 
 forward for post-war production under the pre-war 
 syst^n of private ownership. The year ended 
 on a note of comparative and superficial calm both 
 in the munitions centres and the battlefields ; 
 and the great German offensive of the following 
 spring was met in the workshops by a loyal disregard 
 of old and new grievances alike. None the less, the 
 events of 1917 haid called spirits from the vasty 
 deep of social consciousness which no merely military 
 victory would be altogether sufficient to lay again. 
 
PART THREE. 
 
 From December, 1917, to the Generai, Bisection 
 OF December, 1918. 
 
 Franchise Act 
 
 Coal Mines Control Agreement (Con- 
 firmation) Act 
 
 Second Inter- Allied Socialist Conference 
 
 Peace of Bregt-I/itovsk 
 
 Embargo Strike at Coventry 
 
 Fisher Education Act 
 
 Trade Boards Act 
 
 lyondon Socialist Conference 
 
 Armistice 
 
 Wages (Temporary Regulation) Act 
 General Election 
 
 ::} 
 
 1918. 
 
 Feb. 6 
 
 Feb. 20 
 Mar. 2 
 July 23 
 
 Aug. 8 
 
 Sept. 17 
 Nov. II 
 Nov. 21 
 Dec. 14 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Angel Unwinding Destinies. 
 
 Among the esoteric symbols applicable to the year 
 1918 is that of the " Angel unwinding Destinies." 
 It is associate with the elements of " attraction and 
 repulsion, life, terrors, and all kinds of strife, of 
 separation, disruption, destruction, promise and 
 menace " — a connexion in which that climactic 
 " eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh 
 month " has a strange and peculiar significance. 
 The interpretation of such phantasms we leave to 
 the curious and absent-minded — the more willingly 
 perhaps when for six years or so it refuses to be 
 cheerful ; but the record of 1918 is in fact of such 
 a nature as to excuse the invocation of sim and stars 
 and any other powers black magic wots of. It was 
 indeed — to quote the War Cabinet Report (whose 
 blue covers were surely innocent of any trace of 
 spellbinding) " one of the most remarkable years 
 in the world's history " ; in which " the magnitude 
 and intensity of the operations, the swift reversal of 
 the fortunes of war^ and the political upheavals 
 following the military disaster among the Central 
 Powers mark the year of climax." For a year which 
 began with the imposition of a German peace on 
 Russia, the Ukraine, and Rumania, followed by an 
 enemy " break through " in the north of France 
 
ANGEL UNWINDING DESTINIES 129 
 
 to within 42 miles of Paris — and ended a few months 
 later in the social and military collapse of the Central 
 Empires, the epithet " remarkable " is a mild one. 
 
 §1. 
 
 Military events had a drastic and immediate 
 reaction upon the labour situation. Before 1917 
 was out the defection of Russia had made necessary 
 a complete re-examination of the position as to man- 
 power ; and during December and January con- 
 ferences were in progress between -^he Minister of 
 National Service (Sir Auckland Geddes) and the 
 groups of trade unions with a view to an agreed 
 revision of the schedules of protected occupations. 
 Between 420,000 and 450,000 additional men were 
 wanted for military service ; and, broadly speaking, 
 the Government proposed to take them largely from 
 the munition shops by cancelling the exemption 
 certificates of the men under 24. The age limits of 
 military service were not as yet extended, but there 
 was to be a thorough comb-out of the workshops ; 
 and since the leaving certificate had now been 
 abolished, the two months' immunity allowed to the 
 man ceasing work on munitions was cancelled. 
 
 It is significant that the submission of the .national 
 requirements to the trade unions was accompanied 
 by a statement from the Prime Minister on War 
 Aims — necessarily in general rather than in specific 
 terms, but calculated to disarm labour suspicions as 
 to the probable nature of the peace. On the whole, 
 and in the face of considerable reluctance on the 
 part of the trade unions, the Government succeeded 
 in proving the case for the new proposals ; but the 
 Amalgamated Society of Engineers voted heavily 
 against the scheme and stood out from the collective 
 negotiations, claiming separate consideration. 
 
130 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 The situation of this Society was peculiar. Its 
 independent attitude rendered it distinctly unpopular 
 with other engineering unions ; while at the same 
 time, for quite other reasons, its national executive 
 was opposed by many of its own members in the 
 districts. The unoflBicial movement was now again 
 active, and its opposition was increasingly directed 
 towards the general, not merely the industrial policy 
 of the Government. Delegates of Shop Stewards and 
 Workers' Committees meeting at Manchester on 
 December 30th, 1917, declared themselves in favour 
 of an early peace on the Russian model, and decided 
 to oppose further demands of the Government for 
 soldiers. Through the early months of the following 
 year this attitude was repeatedly expressed, and in 
 March an unofficial conference at Sheffield decided 
 in favour of a general strike. Participation of several 
 A.S.E. members and local branches brought upon 
 them a sharp rebuke from the Society : 
 
 " In the interest of the Society and organised lyabour 
 generally it is necessary for the Executive Council to repudi- 
 ate emphatically the continuance of the method of certain 
 sections of the membership of the society in arrogating 
 to themselves the right to call unofficial meetings with 
 a view to forcing their pohcy upon the membership without 
 regard to the constitution of the society or to the con- 
 stitutional methods provided both locally and centrally 
 for the adjustment of grievances. 
 
 " Such action cannot but have a detrimental effect upon 
 the credit of the society, and, in the opinion of the E.G., 
 it is seriously weakening the prestige of the society in the 
 minds of the pubUc. It must be remembered that the 
 cause for which our comrades are fighting overseas is one 
 which the nation beUeves to be just, and any action taken 
 by a section of the community which would tend to weaken 
 the nation would be disastrous to the future of the working 
 class movement. 
 
 " The war has inevitably had the effect of impeding the 
 freedom of action of the constitutional machinery of Trade 
 Unionism, but it has to be borne in mind that our part, 
 and the part of I,abour as a whole, with other sections of 
 
ANGBI. UNWINDING DESTINIES 131 
 
 the community, has been to make sacrifices. Those 
 sacrifices have been too often ill requited by the Government 
 and the ruling classes ; but, however much I^abour has 
 been abused, and its just claims ignored and misrepresented, 
 we are conscious of our duty to the community and to the 
 soldiers, most of whom are men of our class and stat us." 
 
 It will be recalled that the A.S.E. had refused to 
 become a party to the agreement of December, 1917, 
 by which the Engineering Employers recognised the 
 status of the Shop Stewards ; and it must be added 
 that the policy of the Minister of Munitions in 
 facilitating such recognition was severely criticised 
 by certain leaders of trade union as well as of general 
 opinion. 
 
 §2. 
 
 Up to the time of the German offensive there was 
 grave apprehension in many quarters — and indeed 
 fair prospect — of very serious industrial trouble. 
 The sudden threat to the nation in March, 1918, once 
 more restored common sense and a better temper. 
 The response of the workshops in both men and 
 munitions was not least among the determining 
 causes of the final victory. 
 
 To appreciate that response it must be premised 
 that between the institution of the schedule of pro- 
 tected occupations in May, 1917, and the end of that 
 year the munition centres had given up nearly 68,000 
 men for military service. In the three months 
 following the first Military Service Act of 1918, 
 they gave 32,000 more ; foUoAAdng the German 
 offensive, they released 40,000 in five weeks ; and 
 from the second Military Service Act (which extended 
 the age limits to 19 and 50) to the end of June (when 
 the mihtary situation had been saved and the 
 Americans were coming into action), the workshops 
 gave another 32,000 of their youngest and fittest 
 
132 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 men : a total of 172,000 in twelve months. Yet 
 thanks to the continued efforts of labour, including, 
 be it remembered, the women and girls as well as the 
 men, the various managements and the Ministry of 
 Munitions itself, output had continually increased ; 
 and in reply to the German attack unprecedented 
 speed and quantity were obtained. Mr. G. A. B. 
 Dewar, in his graphic review of " The Great Munition 
 Feat," writes : 
 
 " If we take the production of heavy guns at the figure 
 100 before the German thrust, it stands at 172 in the five 
 weeks following March 2ist ; very heavy howitzers at 218 ; 
 heavy ammunition at 213 ; machine guns at 132 ; small 
 arms ammunition at 142 ; hand grenades at 166. So we 
 made good. The situation was saved. It was not to the 
 credit of labour alone, but labour subjected to the strain of 
 three-and-a-half years of monotonous work must be allowed 
 a good share of the thanks. Moreover, as to that one- 
 ■ fourth of I per cent, of time which had been flung away on 
 disputes and strikes, it must be remembered that the men 
 and women in between fifteen and sixteen hundred firms, 
 wherever required and requested, gave up the Easter 
 holiday and worked hard instead on munitions. . . . There 
 were selfish and passionate outbreaks from time to time. 
 There was heavy drinking in 1915. There were sullen 
 periods and patches, not only on Clydeside but through the 
 industrial districts during later parts of the war. There 
 wasarevolutionary cult in 1917 and 1918. . . . When 
 however, we have resurveyed all these disaffections, and 
 gone even into the thousands of tribunal prosecutions 
 against individuals under the Munitions of War Acts, the 
 broad fact emerges that labour's effort in the war was 
 impressive and magnificent. There has been nothing 
 resembling it in the history of England. The goods were 
 delivered." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Strands are Parted. 
 
 §1. 
 
 At the close of a previous chapter we left the 
 British I/abour movement — or its official thinking 
 machinery — making a definite bid for a national 
 and international party of progress and enlighten- 
 ment. By the books the bid would appear to have 
 succeeded. The War Aims programme had already 
 been approved by the industrial and the political 
 organisations of labour in Britain; in February, 
 1918, its principles were accepted by delegates from 
 central I^abour and Socialist parties of 10 other 
 nations. The United States, Germany, Austria, and 
 Russia, were not associated with the declaration ; 
 and it is to be noticed that in the case of the last- 
 named, I/cnin indicated thus early that he had no 
 use for such constitutional and moderate I^abour 
 parties as were meeting in I^ondon, and refused to 
 allow delegates from other sections of Russian 
 Socialism to attend. 
 
 Now the official brains of the British I^abour party 
 were not unaware that in pursuing this line of 
 national and international policy they were leading 
 the movement towards a wider field than any in 
 which it had yet functioned. If the National 
 
134 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 I^abour Party were to become a fact as well as a 
 name, the limitations of the trade union basis and 
 the trade union outlook would have to be exceeded. 
 There was much sympathy outside the " working " 
 class for the programme the I^abour men were 
 putting forward ; and a deliberate attempt was made 
 to organise the general body of opinion. To this 
 end a new constitution for the I^abour party was 
 drawn up during the latter part of 1917, and approved 
 by a special conference on February 26th, igi8. 
 
 By the new constitution, in the first place, the 
 party now became a definitely Socialist organisation, 
 with this among its aims : 
 
 To secure for the producers by hand or by 
 brain the full fruits of their industry, and the 
 most equitable distribution thereof that may be 
 possible, upon the basis of common ownership 
 of the means of production and the best obtain- 
 able system of popular administration and 
 control of each industry or service. 
 As regards particulars, that aspiration was modest 
 and non-committal to a degree ; but it was definitely 
 Socialist. In the second place, individual member- 
 ship of the party was now formally recognised and 
 provided for, by means of the local branches. The 
 representation on the party executive of the various 
 corporate bodies was retained, but that of the local 
 branches and of the women was strengthened ; to 
 the first were allotted 13 places on ihe executive 
 committee, to the local branches 5, and to the women 
 4. This meant, in effect, that the representatives 
 of trade unions as such would not have a majority 
 on the executive ; and it was hoped that the 
 possibility of over half the members being selected 
 on other than vocational grounds, would broaden 
 the character of the party policy and extend its 
 basis of support in the country. 
 
 Concealed in this reorganisation of the party was 
 
THE STRANDS ARE PARTED 135 
 
 an important and final decision. Not merely was 
 political emphasis transferred from vocation to the 
 broad fact of citizenship ; but a definite choice was 
 made as to the means by which the aims of the party 
 were to be realised. The activity of the trade miions, 
 as such, and of the Triple Alliance in the sphere 
 of politics, had ultimate reference to the possibility 
 of direct industrial action. That method was not 
 absolutely discarded by the constitution of the 
 I^abour party, but it was decidedly shelved. Indus- 
 trial action for political ends could only be sanctioned 
 by the party as a whole when the occasion was of so 
 desperate a nature as to convince the general 
 " consumer " and the non-manual worker of its 
 necessity ; and occasions of so unmistakeably desper- 
 ate a character were presumably unlikely to arise. 
 In any such case, the necessity of convincing non- 
 union members of the party would probably postpone 
 the use of force until the general sense of the com- 
 munity had been affected. A party thus constituted 
 was obviously unsuited to achieve a " dictatorship 
 of the proletariat," or any other sort of revolution. 
 But not all of its members nor all of its leaders were 
 as yet alive to the fact. The sharpest pair of eyes 
 was in Moscow. 
 
 §2. 
 
 Having dealt, so far successfully, with the broad 
 issues of the war, the Ivabour leaders turned their 
 attention to the more domestic issues of the peace ; 
 and a specification of the " New Social Order " was 
 drawn up and adopted by a conference of the party 
 in June, 1918. " The four pillars of the house that 
 we propose to erect," said the I^abour party — or 
 (as Mr. Cole puts it) what is much the same, Mr. 
 Sidney Webb — "resting upon the common founda- 
 
136 lyABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 tion of the democratic control of society in all its 
 activities, may be termed respectively 
 
 (a) tiie universal enforcement of the natioijal 
 minimum ; 
 
 (6) the democratic control of industry ; 
 
 (c) the revolution in national finance ; 
 
 (d) the surplus wealth for the common good/' 
 On which " four pillars " were to rest, among other 
 items, State prevention, as well as relief, of unemploy- 
 ment ; immediate nationalisation of the cardinal 
 productive and distributive services ; a capital levy 
 to pay off war-debt ; and an extended program of 
 positive social legislation. The abolition of " the 
 individuahst system of capitalist production, based 
 on the private ownership and competitive adminis- 
 tration of land and capital," and of " the political 
 system and ideas in which it naturally found 
 expression," were frankly desired ; and the party 
 disclaimed " beUef in any of the problems of the 
 world being solved by goodwill alone." What it 
 stood for, however, was not force but science, and 
 most especially that typically Fabian hybrid, " social 
 science." But the organisation of the " New Social 
 Order " in industry or politics, and the means by 
 which it was to be attained, were scarcely indicated ; 
 and to some critics it appeared as if the " house 
 that we propose to erect " would stand not upon 
 any firm foundation, common or otherwise, but upon 
 a bridge of which the main piers were somewhat far 
 apart and the middle attenuated. 
 
 §3- 
 
 The changes in the constitution of the I^abour 
 party, state Mr. and Mrs. Webb, " led to a consider- 
 able accession of membership, largely from the 
 professional and middle classes, which was steadily 
 
THE STRANDS ARK PARTED 137 
 
 increased as the unsatisfactory character of the 
 Treaty of Peace, the continued militarism of the 
 Government, and the aggression of a Protectionist 
 capitaHsm, became manifest." In the result, the 
 party secured a considerable infusion of middle- 
 class brains, especially at headquarters, and tended 
 increasingly to become a party of the intellectuals. 
 And it had to encounter some of the difficulties that 
 such parties have almost invariably encountered 
 ■elsewhere, and not seldom been floored by — par- 
 ticularly in Russia. For example : The conservative 
 ■" right wing " of the trade union movement has 
 always been the less vocal, and is therefore, in these 
 very vocal times, seldom distinctly audible. None 
 the less, men like Barnes, Roberts, Wardle, Parker, 
 who declined to relinquish their Ministerial duties 
 when Ivabour decided to end the political truce, 
 represented a mode of thought that persisted, and 
 persists, among many of the older craft unionists. 
 The adoption by the party of, an extensive national- 
 ising programme was not altogether to the liking 
 of the conservative elements in its own ranks, and 
 in face of the advanced social legislation proposed 
 by the Government a certain amount of defection 
 probably took place. Then the explicit pacificism 
 of the Independent Labour party had been virtually 
 repudiated by the Trade Union Congress, and the 
 breach with that important body over the war issudS 
 was not to be healed within a few weeks — or even a 
 few years — of the Armistice. On the extreme left 
 of the Labour party was the British Socialist party, 
 with its organ. The Call, hoping for a world revolution 
 to follow the war, " in which the hitherto exploited 
 and oppressed classes in all countries would seize 
 the reins of power, overthrow the rule of the capitahst 
 and landlord classes, estabUsh the direct rule of the 
 workers and peasants by means of Soviets, and wind 
 up the capitalist order of society." Such aspirations 
 
138 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 became common to many of the unofficial committees 
 in the latter half of 1918, and their increased pre- 
 valence was due to a curious concatenation of 
 events. 
 
 In the earlier part of the year the amount of 
 definite adherence to Bolshevik principles in Britain 
 was not great, for the dissolution of the Russian 
 Constituent Assembly, and the terror in Petrograd, 
 had given pause to many who sympathised with the 
 first Russian revolution. But the invasion of 
 Russian territory by the forces of the British and 
 French Governments on and after August 2nd, 1918, 
 tended to precipitate British opinion. The Bolsheviks 
 were now formally alluded to as " the enemy " in 
 War Office announcements ; and although it had 
 not been possible to declare war upon the de facta 
 government — since that would have implied a 
 recognition — operations were in fact conducted by 
 the Allies on every accessible frontier of the former 
 Empire. The reasons for this policy being of a 
 purely military nature — ^part in fact of the general 
 strategy of the war — ^neither Parliament nor the 
 country was required to express an opinion on it ; 
 but the I^abour party saw fit to express and reiterate 
 its most emphatic opinion, and to conduct a vigorous 
 agitation against the Government. The effect on 
 the Government policy was absolutely ml — save 
 perhaps in so far as there was an increase in the 
 activity of official and unofficial propaganda and of 
 those various modes which he so delicately in between. 
 But the effect on I^abour was profound ; and it was 
 one of fate's cruellest ironies that a Government 
 bent only on winning the war, and meeting with 
 none too much luck in its latest venture, should thus 
 indirectly have been made to contribute to the con- 
 solidation of all the revolutionary elements in 
 Britain. 
 
 Consider the situation. Throughout the early 
 
THE STRANDS ARK PARTED 139 
 
 part of 1918 the greater part of the I^abour move- 
 ment had been watching events in Russia with 
 sympathetic but puzzled curiosity. I^enin had been 
 at particular pains to snub the official British I^abour 
 party, indicating that he did not consider its inter- 
 national activities to maintain the principles of the 
 " Internationale " and forbidding the more moderate 
 Russian Socialists to share them. The ill-judged 
 attempt of the " United Socialist Council " to copy 
 the methods of the first (not the second) Russian 
 Revolutionary Government had been effectively 
 trounced by public opinion ; and even the rank-and- 
 file movement in the spring of 1918 had declined to 
 broaden its policy in the direction of general revolu- 
 tion. But the average I/abour leader of 1918 was an 
 inveterate sentimentalist ; and when military action 
 against Bolshevik forces became necessary, the 
 crimes and horrors of Bolshevism were denied or 
 forgotten, and the Workers' Soviet Republic suddenly 
 became the much-maligned victim of an interna- 
 tional capitalist conspiracy. 
 
 It is impossible to exaggerate the influence of this 
 misrepresentation upon the course of I^abour opinion 
 in Britain. Had the Russian campaigns succeeded, 
 or had the authorities surrendered to the opposition, 
 the effect might have been transient ; but the 
 Government could count on the support of a vast 
 majority in Parliament and the press, and the sheer 
 impotence of the Socialist opposition induced in 
 some of its leaders a state of mind for which the pace 
 of official I^abour was altogether too slow. It was 
 to such minds that I^enin's attitude was decisive. 
 Bolshevik policy aimed expressly at separating a 
 class-conscious minority from the central I^abour 
 part}'^ in all countries ; and the mere sympathy of the 
 latter in the war Moscow affected to disdain. The 
 only way, therefore, in which that sympathy, how- 
 ever passionately felt, could establish direct con- 
 
140 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 nexion with its object was by definite revolutionary 
 organisation ; and it thus came about that, while as 
 a result of allied poUcy there arose an irrevocable and 
 ever-widening divergence between the entire I/abour 
 party and the British Goveriunent, as a result of 
 Russian policy there arose a sharper separatist 
 tendency within the I^abour party. 
 
 The working out of this complex situation as it 
 aflEected the structure and the program of the party 
 was to be determined largely by political and indus- 
 trial circumstance. But the possibility was already 
 apparent that when Providence, or the Coalition 
 Government, let loose the full torrent of pubHc 
 opinion, the piers of the Fabian bridge might tend 
 to diverge, and the foundations of the " house that 
 we propose to erect " prove somewhat shaky. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Broad Highway. 
 
 §1- 
 
 Between the effort of the fighting services and the 
 effort of the munition shops there was this difference : 
 in the one case the enemy was materially and 
 actively present and menacing ; in the other his 
 reality was known mainly by report and his activity 
 felt only indirectly. It was this difference, as much 
 as any, that resulted in an irascible reaction to periods 
 of abnormal strain in industry, and in an occasional 
 failure of the will-to- win among sections of munition 
 workers. One could more easily believe in a peace 
 by negotiation when no resolute German was 
 " negotiating " day and night with stick bombs or 
 bullets from some neighbouring hole in the wilderness 
 of mud. The difference did not affect the logic of the 
 general situation ; but it did affect the psychology 
 of the individual ; and the industrial " unrest " of 
 the late summer of 1918 was rather psychological 
 than logical in its nature. It must be remembered, 
 too, that while the ordeal of the trenches was incom- 
 parably more severe and more deadly than that of 
 the workshops, there were few unfortunates for 
 whom it was quite as unintermittent. It was the 
 
142 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 cumulative strain of four years that told on the 
 temper of the workmen. 
 
 The immediate cause of the engineers' strike of 
 July, 1918, was an order of the Minister of Munitions 
 limiting the numbers of skilled workmen which 
 particular employers and firms might engage ; the 
 ostensible object of the order being to prevent too 
 unequal a distribution of what skilled labour was 
 still available. The effect, however, was similar to 
 a reimposition of the leaving certificate ; and in 
 spite of the opposition of the trade union leaders, 
 engineers in Coventry, Birmingham, and other 
 centres struck work. The dispute was again organ- 
 ised by the shop stewards ; and on July 25th a con- 
 ference of shop stewards committees at I^eeds again 
 called for a general strike against the Government 
 policy. The movement was ended by an oflS.cial 
 announcement that strikers would be deemed to 
 have " voluntarily placed themselves outside the 
 area of munitions industries" and thus become 
 liable to military service. Work was generally 
 resumed after a six days' stoppage, and the only 
 result was further to discredit the shop stewards 
 movement in public estimation. 
 
 A series of industrial disputes followed throughout 
 August and September. To the amazement of the 
 general public, a large body of lyondon police ceased 
 work to secure better pay and conditions (which were 
 generally admitted to be due to them), and the recog- 
 nition of their union. I^ancashire cotton spinners 
 became involved in a dispute with the Cotton Control 
 Board as to the method of spreading the unemploy- 
 ment caused by the reduction of the supplies of raw 
 material. In this dispute also the inadequate 
 advances given to the operatives, especially as 
 compared with the large profits maintained in the 
 industry, were a root cause of the trouble. Still 
 more serious was the dispute over wage advances 
 
THE BROAD HIGHWAY 143 
 
 between the railwaymen and the Kxecutive Com- 
 mittee of the companies, in which the men claimed 
 a los. per week advance, and the Kxecutive offered 
 exactly half that amount. The dispute was settled 
 at a meeting of the two trade unions concerned 
 with the War Cabinet, when the Executive's offer 
 was accepted by the leaders, and an arrangement was 
 made for the future automatic regulation of wages 
 in accordance with the cost of living. But so intense 
 was the resentment of certain sections of the rank- 
 and-file that meetings of protest were held through- 
 out the country, and in South Wales and lyondon 
 strike action was threatened. A display of naval 
 and military force by the Government forestalled 
 an actual stoppage of the railways ; but it may be 
 noted that this dispute brought into prominence a 
 sharp division of temper among the railwaymen and 
 their leaders, as a result of which J. H. Thomas, 
 who was primarily responsible for the settlement, 
 temporarily resigned the secretaryship of the National 
 Union. 
 
 §2. 
 
 From the historical standpoint, however, the 
 industrial unrest of 1918 is less important than the 
 measures that were taken in regard to the future 
 conduct of industry and society. Apart from emer- 
 gency arrangements, the year witnessed an important 
 attempt to establish over a wide industrial field some 
 more permanent machinery for regulating the terms 
 and conditions of employment. In the ship-building, 
 cotton, wooUen textile, flax, and leather industries, 
 joint bodies were already in existence which it was 
 hoped would continue to deal with general questions 
 of industrial reconstruction after the war ; and the 
 principle of joint action by representatives of em- 
 
144 LABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 ployers and employed was further rapidly extended 
 by the adoption of the scheme recommended in the 
 Whitley reports. During the year Joint Industrial 
 Councils were set up in 19 industries. In addition to 
 these, joint bodies with similar functions, but formed 
 on an ad hoc basis, were set up by the Ministry of 
 Reconstruction in several of the smaller industries. 
 Considerable time was necessary to get the various 
 Councils and Committees in w'orking order ; but 
 before the fighting ceased, several of them had 
 embarked on serious attempts at the co-ordination 
 and stabilisation of wage-rates and conditions of 
 employment in their industries, and one or two 
 had evinced an intention of dealiijig with the more 
 general objects indicated in their constitution. 
 
 The statutory regulation of wages had also been 
 extended as to minimum rates outside the area of 
 munitions employment. Under the Corn Production 
 'Act of 1917 an Agricultural Wages Board for England 
 and Wales was set up on December 3rd, 1917, and 
 in the following five months 39 District Committees 
 were established by which legally enforcible rates 
 were prescribed for adult labour, payable at the age 
 of 18, varying from 30s. to 36s. for a specified number 
 of hours per week. For general industry the pro- 
 cedure for the establishment of Trade Boards was 
 expedited by an Amending Act passed ia August, 
 1918, and the functions of the Boards were 
 somewhat extended in accordance with a recom- 
 mendation of the Whitley Committee. With a view 
 to a wide use of the statutory powers thus obtained, 
 the Ministry of Labour initiated enquiries during the 
 latter part of the year into the conditions prevailing 
 in 26 of the less organised industries. Seeing that 
 coal-mines, railw:ays, and the bulk of the engineering 
 trades were now under direct Government control. 
 
THE BROAD HIGHWAY 145 
 
 the various measures thus outlined were calculated 
 to lay the foundations of reconstruction over almost 
 the entire industrial field. 
 
 §3- 
 
 Most fundamental of all enactments of the year 
 were the two great measures of social reform by which 
 the worker as citizen, not merely as wage-earner, was 
 affected. 
 
 Though the Franchise Act was but a due acknow- 
 ledgment of the national service demanded and 
 received f^m the men and women of Britain during 
 the war, its enactment in February, 1918, was a 
 wise and courageous piece of legislation. In two 
 respects the new measure bore the mark of the 
 emergency that brought it to birth ; youths of 19 
 who had served in the war were enfranchised, and 
 men who had maintained a conscientious objection 
 were denied the vote for five years unless they cx)uld 
 convince a tribunal that they had undertaken 
 alternative work of national importance. These, 
 however, were anomalies that would in time auto- 
 matically disappear ; and in general the Act brought 
 the basis of British Government within measurable 
 distance of simple adult franchise. " The more 
 you trust the maj6rity of the people, the better, I 
 think, will be your new England," the Prime 
 Minister had said early in 1917 ; and in 1918 the 
 electorate was raised from 8 to 21 millions, the 
 addition including 6,000,000 women. The size of 
 the raw electorate thus added made the nature of 
 its first vote an attractive speculation ; and, according 
 to their various lights, leaders of all parties vigorously 
 engaged in the task of political education. 
 
 For any improvement, however, in the quality of 
 British representative Government, it was less the 
 
146 LABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 Franchise Act than the Education Act of 1918 that 
 encouraged hope ; since the beneficence of the 
 former would in the long run obviously depend upon 
 the efficacy of the latter. The mere extension of the 
 franchise automatically tended to depress, rather 
 than to raise, the level of intelligence displayed in 
 general elections ; and while it was a necessary 
 step towards political democracy, there neither was 
 nor ever had been any inherent guarantee that the 
 latter would of itself ensure good or even tolerable 
 government. 
 
 " Let us remember (said Mr. Fisher, on the 
 second reading of his Bill) what we have been 
 asking our young citizens to do, and what we 
 intend to ask them to do. We have been asking 
 them to fight and work for their country ; we 
 have been asking them, not only to appreciate 
 the force of great political arguments and the 
 significance of grave political emergencies, but 
 to try to turn their appreciation of those argu- 
 ments and emergencies into acts of renunciation 
 and sacrifice. We have been asking them to 
 die for their country, to economise for their 
 country, to go short of food for their country, to 
 work overtime for their country, to abandon 
 trade union rules for their country, to be patient 
 while towns are bombed from enemy aircraft, 
 and while family after family is plunged into 
 domestic sorrow. We have now decided to 
 enfranchise for the first time the women of this 
 country. I ask then whether the education 
 which is given to the great mass of our citizens 
 is adequate to the new, serious and enduring 
 liabilities which the development of this great 
 world-war creates for our Empire, or to the 
 new civic burdens which we are imposing upon 
 millions of them. I say it is not adequate. 
 
THE BROAD HIGHWAY 147 
 
 Any competent judge of facts in this country 
 
 must agree with me." 
 The general sense of ParUament and of the country 
 was undoubtedly in agreement with Mr. Fisher ; for 
 the pre-war standard of education, inadequate as it 
 was, had been rendered still lower during the war by 
 the curtailment of even the normal minimum of 
 schooling in several thousand cases. In this respect 
 the Education Act had an important bearing on the 
 industrial situation. There were at work by October, 
 1917, mostly in the munition trades, some 93,000 
 more boys and 258,000 more girls under 18 than 
 were employed in July, 1914. A difficult problem of 
 juvenile unemployment was therefore to be expected 
 on the cessation of hostilities. Many of the girls 
 might return to domestic life ; but for the boys the 
 problem was rendered the more serious by the large 
 proportion employed in " blind alley " occupations. 
 At the age of 16-17 the boys were frequently dis- 
 charged and replaced Jay children of 13-14, whom 
 employers found equally suitable to repetition work 
 and more amenable to discipline in the workshops. 
 The older boys, having acquired no special skill, 
 none the less demanded high wages in view of their 
 previous earnings on piece-work ; and being liable 
 to military service on reaching 18, they frequently 
 spent twelve months or so out of work, with results 
 detrimental alike to training and character. In view 
 of these facts steps were taken during the latter part 
 of 1917 to reduce the number of boys employed on 
 repetition work ; and a recurrence of the difficulty 
 was to some extent guarded against by the abolition 
 under the Education Act of all exemption from school 
 attendance below the age of 14, and by the power 
 given to local authorities to raise the compulsory age 
 of attendance to 15. Similarly the . proposal to 
 enforce at least 280 hours continued education per 
 year on children of from 14 to 16 would tend not 
 
148 IvABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 only to raise the level of ability, but to retard the 
 future exploitation of juvenile labour. Among other 
 provisions of the Education Act were the prohibition 
 of all employment of children under 12, and strict 
 limitation set upon the employment of children of 
 from 12 to 14. The enabling provisions of the Act 
 empowered local authorities to provide physical 
 training centres, holiday camps, and nursery schools 
 for children of from 2 to 5. A very large part in 
 fact of the benefit obtainable under the Act was 
 dependent on the initiative of the local authorities ; 
 and an increased incentive was thereby given to the 
 activity of the Labour party in the sphere of local 
 politics. 
 
 Some allusion must be made, before quitting the 
 subject of education, to the views of Labour as to the 
 ideal curriculum. Official Labour policy (in strong 
 contrast to the attitude of most working-class 
 parents) was opposed to any specialisation before the 
 last year of the secondary school course ; and arising 
 from this liberal attitude, sharp opposition was 
 manifested to the recognition of works schools as 
 centres of continued education under the Government 
 scheme. Schools maintained by employers, the 
 Labour party argued, must necessarily tend to the 
 diffusion of a " capitalist " point of view, and to the 
 training, primarily, of wage-earners. In practical 
 comment on this contention it was perhaps irrelevant 
 to point out that some of the worl^ schools attained 
 a very high standard of efficiency ; but it was 
 relevant that, although working for the most part 
 on general lines, by the very fact of their connexion 
 with employment they frequently secured a much 
 higher degree of interest and attention from their 
 students than the independent centres. It is in this 
 latter respect that continued education of children 
 of from 15 upwards has come so near failure ; and 
 it may be argued that the Labour objection to 
 
THE BROAD HIGHWAY 149 
 
 specialisation, whether or no connected with the 
 actual sphere of employment, has yet to overcome this 
 difficult question of maintaining the interest of 
 children through the intermediate years. 
 
 Among the extreme Socialist sections of the 
 lyabour movement it is held that all education, 
 juvenile or adult, whether under State or private 
 supervision, in the existing state of society, tends of 
 necessity to a bias in favour of the " capitalist " 
 order ; and, in both adult and juvenile spheres, efforts 
 have therefore been made to educate with a com- 
 pensatory bias. The Central I^abour College, main- 
 tained jointly by the Miners' Federation and the 
 National Union of Railwaymen, is " based upon the 
 recognition of the antagonism of interests between 
 capital and labour " ; and it exists to provide work- 
 ing-class students with 
 
 " the training necessary to equip workers to 
 propagate and defend the interests of their class 
 against the dominant ruling class ideas and 
 theories prevalent in capitalist society." 
 Other industrial organisations, more especially the 
 Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, have taken steps 
 in recent years to secure for their members facilities 
 for adult education, and the Workers' Educational 
 Association and the University Tutorial Movement 
 have achieved valuable results in organising and 
 meeting the demand of the workers for fuller 
 education. The Central lyabour College is, however, 
 unique in circumscribing the culture of the workers 
 by the limitations of Karl Marx, and its endeavours 
 have met with considerable success among the 
 miners. 
 
 On the Clyde, in Sheffield, Manchester, Coventry, 
 and some other strongholds of extreme opinion, 
 efforts have also been made to inculcate socialist 
 doctrine in the children by means of Sunday schools. 
 The lay Sunday school is very far from being a 
 
150 LABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 novelty, and the recent excitement of the Conserva- 
 tive press anent the discovery of this development 
 was somewhat overdone. The nature of the teaching 
 given in some of these centres may perhaps be judged 
 from the following extract from a lesson on " Com- 
 munism for Children " (Workers' Dreadnought, March 
 I2th, 1921) : 
 
 1. (Under Communism) the land will belong to every- 
 body. . . . Everybody will be able to grow food on the 
 land. There is enough land in the British Isles to feed all 
 the people on them. So everybody will have food. 
 
 2. AH the buildings on the land will belong to everybody. 
 . . . Everybody will then have a house to Uve in. 
 
 3. The railways, the canals, the docks — everything will 
 belong to the people. 
 
 4. Everything will be free. Therefore there will be no 
 money to be paid as wages. Nobody will want wages 
 when they can have all they need for nothing. There will 
 be no rent, no rates, no taxes, no profits. 
 
 This is preceded by a brief rehearsal of the fact 
 that while a factory hand may make £20 worth of 
 boots in a week, he may only get £2 a week in wages. 
 
 The £18 left over after paying the workman is called 
 profit. It is used to pay rent for the factory, to pay 
 taxes and rates, and to be divided amongst the people 
 who form the Company. , 
 
 ■^ * * 
 
 In December, 1920, the Government, in the inter- 
 ests of national economy, decided on an indefinite 
 postponement of the operation of the Continued 
 Education clauses of the Fisher Act. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 '%ooK Now Upon This Picture." 
 
 No similar period of modern history can show such 
 drastic changes in the condition of Britain as were 
 wrought in succession by the past four years of war 
 and three of peace. Likely enough, when the 
 generation that wrestled with the fate of Europe has 
 told the tale of its bitter days to the end, the legend 
 of the Britain it knew in war-time will be lost in the 
 gloomy palimpsest of three years later. It is worth 
 while pausing therefore at the point of victory for a 
 brief survey of the general war-state of the country ; 
 the more so as such a survey may perhaps disclose 
 the broad lines of its inevitable sequel. 
 
 To begin with, the very landscape was changed. 
 Not only had the great army camps developed minia- 
 ture cities, with well-laid roads and railway sidings, 
 on spaces of field and moorland throughout England ; 
 but new towns had grown up about the national 
 munitions factories with acres of timber and concrete 
 housing, and in some cases well-built cottages planned 
 on garden city lines. In and about the existing 
 industrial centres also, armament works had been 
 vastly extended by state subsidy, and new dwellings 
 for workpeople erected. TaJang it as a whole, 
 what was left of the civil population had undergone a 
 thorough " urbanisation " : to such an extent, in 
 
152 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 fact, that it had been necessary to form special 
 quasi-mflitary corps of volunteer workers, largely 
 women, for work on agriculture and the countryside. 
 The extent of the redistribution of the men is perhaps 
 sufficiently indicated by the statement that by the 
 date of the Armistice, out of every loo men employed 
 in civil life on the outbreak of war, 41 were in the 
 fighting services, and 29 on war-work of various 
 descriptions ; leaving the diminished volume of 
 ordinary business to be carried on by about 30 per 
 cent., with the aid of any additional labour that 
 could be utilised, plus the women. The magnitude 
 of this change, and the introduction of additional 
 labour, is clearly shown if it be expressed in round 
 numbers. During the period of the war some 5^ 
 million men were enlisted in the fighting services ; 
 but the total number of men actually employed in 
 the country was reduced by rather less than 2J 
 million, while the niunber of women so employed 
 increased by over i^ million. In all it is estimated 
 that there were about 7J million woUien occupied 
 at the date of the Armistice, of which number over 
 three million were in industry and transport, and 
 some 61,000 in the various war-services. Of all the 
 women employed, nearly two million were replacing 
 men ; and more than half the replacement was in 
 industry and transport. In the munition trades 
 between 700,000 and 800,000 women were at work 
 out of a total of about two million persons. The 
 children, too, had been mobilised for industry, the 
 numbers of boys and girls at work having risen since 
 July, 1914, by 13 and 73 per cent, respectively. 
 In the metal trades over if times the number of 
 boys, and over 2J times the number of girls, were 
 employed at the date of the Armistice, while in the 
 chemical industries the increases were not much 
 lower, though part of the expansion represents a 
 corresponding loss to peace-trades. 
 
" I.OOK NOW UPON THIS PICTURE " 153 
 
 - The herding movement had entailed migration 
 from their scattered homes of many thousand men, 
 women, and children ; and in the armament centres, 
 despite all that private and State enterprise could 
 do, was such congestion as only the absence of 
 leisure rendered tolerable. Day and night workers 
 were sleeping turn about in beds that scarce grew 
 cold between them. Every cottage in the great 
 centres had its male or female lodgers, while large 
 numbers of the women, married and single, whose 
 lives were spent in housekeeping before the war, had 
 joined the army of munition-makers. To some 
 extent, more especially for the women, hostel 
 accommodation had been provided, in which a 
 very high standard of communal Uving was attained ; 
 while within the larger factories excellent canteen 
 arrangements had been made by or with the assist- 
 ance of the responsible Ministry, and in the new 
 workshops a model standard of light, ventilation, 
 cleanhness, and safety was established. To the 
 general well-being of munition workers special 
 attention was devoted by the Ministry of Munitions, 
 and the work of the Health of Munition Workers' 
 Committee laid the beginning of a general and 
 permanent improvement in the conditions of employ- 
 ment. During the early years of the war practically 
 all limits to the hours of labour, including the 
 provisions of the Factory Acts, had been suspended ; 
 but from the summer of 1917 a general revision 
 set in ; women and children were employed on 
 8-hour shifts wherever possible, and Sunday labour 
 was officially discouraged. 
 
 " The feeding of the industrial worker (stated 
 the Committee above referred to) and the 
 necessity of sufficient rest were in former times 
 largely ignored. The employer assumed that 
 stjch matters lay outside his purview, forgetting 
 that the underfed and unrested workman is a 
 
154 LABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 wasteful worker, unable when at work to yield 
 
 his value in w^es, and too often on the sick 
 
 list. . . . There is a natural rhythm between 
 
 activity and rest, and if this principle be ignored 
 
 and work continued for too long hours or with 
 
 insufficient rest pauses, output declines and the 
 
 worker degenerates." 
 
 Accordingly the scientific study and mitigation of 
 
 industrial fatigue were undertaken, and the sphere 
 
 of the welfare officer extended beyond the limits of 
 
 the workshop over as many aspects of the life 
 
 of the woman worker as time and tact made possible. 
 
 And the success of the welfare officers of the great 
 
 factories was in fact a signal tribute both to the 
 
 knowledge and sympathy of those appointed and 
 
 to the selective skill of the various officials and 
 
 managements who appointed them. 
 
 But granted the utmost goodwill and the most 
 enlightened management there were certain second- 
 ary results of the herding process that could not be 
 avoided. To some of its effects upon working-class 
 opinion we have already alluded ; but there were 
 other psychological consequences to which the 
 women in particular were liable. For them the 
 general migration out of their natural environment 
 meant more than to the men. It involved as a rule 
 greater sacrifice, greater inconvenience, and greater 
 risk, and not even the finest welfare work could 
 altogether counteract the disadvantages. It needs 
 no showing at this date that the women made good, 
 and more than made good ; the war could hardly 
 have been won without them. On more than 500 
 processes in the munition shops, the filhng factories, 
 and the shipyards, they proved their capacity. 
 Granted reasonable skill in selection and care in 
 supervision, they succeeded in work of the most 
 delicate and accurate character ; while for Ught 
 repetition piece-work they were considered by many 
 
" I.OOK NOW UPON THIS PICTURE " i55 
 
 employers more suitable than men. To their ten- 
 acity, their courage, and their patriotism no record 
 can pay too high a tribute. And while it is necessary 
 to limit the inferences that can be drawn from 
 their success, the recognition of that success need 
 never be stinted. 
 
 It is necessary in the first place to remember that 
 the major part of the women's success was made 
 possible only by the minute sub-division of processes, 
 and the extreme specialisation of plant and skill ; 
 these in their turn being rendered economical only 
 by the magnitude and the continuity of production. 
 On a smaller scale, as the A.S.E. pointed out, it 
 might be found that such methods would not pay, 
 and that therefore there would no longer be the same 
 wide field after the war for the employment of women 
 on repetition work. Apart, however, from the 
 financial point of view, and in the long run more 
 important, is the effect of such extreme specialisation 
 on the worker. Munition work saw the closest 
 correlation between the machine and the human 
 being that industry had yet achieved ; and the 
 human being in the majority of cases was a woman. 
 Up to a point there is no harm in the cormexion ; 
 but the safety point was necessarily passed when 
 girls were working over 60 hours a week. Such 
 work so continuously pursued is not merely deaden- 
 ing in its psychological effect. The insufficiency 
 of mental interest is apt to demand abnormal 
 compensation in the intervals, and the rational 
 regulation of elementary impulse tends to be impaired 
 by the constant circtunscription of the intellect. 
 Monotony in the workshops is twin brother of 
 irresponsibility outside ; it may eventually appear 
 that more harm than gain accrues from extreme 
 specialisation of process and occupation unless it be 
 accompanied by a most drastic curtailment of the 
 hours of labour. Moreover, in the present stage of 
 
156 IvABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 society, the herding together of large numbers of 
 women tends always, except where counteracted by 
 - a strong degree of precedent training and tradition, 
 to deterioration. If therefore the great munition 
 centres witnessed some modification of the conven- 
 tional standards of feminine manners and morality, 
 it is not necessary to impute more than the usual 
 degree of original sin to the exponents of the change. 
 That was part of the appointed price of war. 
 
 There was a further item. The sub-division of 
 processes in the munition shops enabled the very 
 children to earn adult wages on piece-work ; and 
 far larger numbers of boys and girls accordingly 
 dropped all attempt at training to become " a kind 
 of precocious labourer." Physique, intelligence, and 
 character alike suffered. " The increase in the 
 employment of children and young persons in 
 munition work or otherwise," wrote Sir George 
 Newman, " has demonstrated beyond all question 
 or doubt that many boys and girls are being spoilt 
 mentally, physically and morally." 
 
 " Parental control (st;ated the Committee on 
 Juvenile Employment) has been relaxed, largely 
 through the absence of fathers from their homes.^ 
 . . . Even the ordinary discipline of the work- 
 shop has in a varying degree given way, while the 
 withdrawal of influences making' for the social 
 improvement of boys and girls has in many 
 districts been followed by a noticeable deteriora- 
 tion in behaviour and morality. Gambling has 
 increased. Excessive hours of strenuous labour 
 have overtaxed the energies of young people, 
 while many have taken advantage of the extra- 
 ordinary demand for juvenile labour to change 
 even more rapidly from one blind alley employ*- 
 ment to anotiier." 
 Thus was the war adding to the future problem of 
 unemployment ; thus were developing the youths 
 
" LOOK NOW UPON THIS PICTURE " i57 
 
 who were to figure in the street riots of two or three 
 ■years later. This also was part of the price of the 
 iibetty of Europe. 
 
 The general course of wages during the war is 
 almost impossible to summarise, and average esti- 
 mates are liable to wide variation. In general the 
 time-rates (distinct from earnings) of wage-earners 
 as a whole may be taken to have increased by between 
 100 and no per cent. ; and in the engineering and 
 shipbuilding trades the total increases ranged from 
 about 91 to 98 per cent, for the highly skilled grades 
 to 154 or 156 per cent, for labourers, with a general 
 average rather less than half-way. In these trades 
 the increase of women's wage-rates was not less 
 than 150 per cent., reckoning the general pre-war 
 wage at 15s. The difference between wage-rates 
 and earnings is well illustrated in the following 
 average returns relative to over 18,000 workers in 
 45 National Shell and Projectile Factories for 
 April 1918 : 
 
 
 Shell Factories. 
 
 Projectile Factories. 
 
 
 Rates. Earnings. 
 
 Rates. Earnings. 
 
 
 £ s. d. £ s. d. 
 
 £ s. d. £. s. d. 
 
 Male average 
 
 . 2 19 3 466 
 
 2 19 I 4 14 8 
 
 Highest 
 
 . 4 16 6 6 13 4 
 
 5 5 10 6 12 7 
 
 Female average .. 
 
 . I 12 8 224 
 
 I 14 8 2 16 8 
 
 Highest 
 
 .221 2 10 10 
 
 298 343 
 
 Much has been made of the rise in the actual 
 standard of living of the working classes that 
 resulted from the war earnings ; but the improve- 
 ment was of a somewhat limited nature and needs 
 careful consideration. If a better standard of living 
 be taken to include an increase of leisure and an 
 improvement in accommodation, it must be recalled 
 that for the vast majority of munition workers these 
 prime desiderata were out of the question, no matter 
 what money was brought into the faniily. A great 
 and fundamental improvement 'would certainly have 
 
158 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 resulted had the conditions of housing and employ- 
 ment remained normal ; but as it was, much of the 
 extra money was almost of necessity dissipated in 
 non-essential expenditure, and the sight of it simply 
 encouraged a hope that after the war, when industry 
 had settled down again, the workers might be able 
 to maintain better homes, and get better meals, and 
 better clothes, and better furniture. Some of t^em 
 saved, no doubt ; many bought War I^oan ; many, 
 too, spent part of their earnings on goods of some 
 permanent value. But the broad result of the whole 
 experience was not so much an improvement in the 
 standard of living as the hope of it, and the deter- 
 mination to secure it, after the war. If in the mean- 
 time expenditure was often prodigal, and sometimes 
 foolish, the circumstances of their case go far to 
 excuse the munition-workers ; and censure comes 
 with an ill grace from classes who never worked as 
 hard, or spent as little. But in considering the later 
 history, these two psychological factors must be 
 borne in mind : namely, the widespread habit of 
 ill-considered expenditure, and the hope of a per- 
 manent advance in the standard of living — ^which 
 in too many cases was understood to be precisely 
 the same thing. 
 
 Evidently, therefore, apart from industrial or 
 political matters strictly so called, two things would 
 be urgently and immediately necessary to redeem 
 the future of the workers — houses and education. 
 During 1918 the Government had made provision 
 for both ; but only the wildest optimist would have 
 expected to find the way easy. On the one hand, 
 any provision that could be made was dependent on 1 
 the financial situation of the country, that again 
 very largely on the handling of the peace negotiations 
 and on general policy — both matters of violent 
 contention. On the other hand, the exigencies of 
 the war had stimulated the expression of crude mass 
 
" I.OOK NOW UPON THIS PICTURE " i59 
 
 impulse, thereby rendering a peaceful and gradual 
 solution of difficult national problems less easy ; 
 and it was doubtful whether the leaders of any 
 political party — save one — ^would be able to disregard 
 the attractions of an appeal to the war temper in 
 favour of the remoter ends of policy. The physical 
 ordeal was over. The spiritual ordeal was about to 
 begin. 
 
PART FOUR. 
 
 From January, 1919, to the Setti,embnt of 
 THB Miners' Dispute, Jui.y, 1921. 
 
 Coal Industry Commission Act 
 
 National Industrial Conference 
 
 Ministry of Transport established 
 Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act 
 Coal Mines Act (reducing hours of employ- 
 ment) 
 
 Trades Union Congress ... 
 Ironmoulders' Strike begins 
 
 Railway Strike Sept 
 
 Industrial Courts Act 
 Special Trades Union Congress 
 Railway Wages Board set up 
 
 Ironmoulders' Strike settled 
 Manchester Building Guild formed 
 Transport Workers' Inquiry begun 
 Trades Union Congress on Nationalisation 
 " Dockers' Report " published ... 
 Miners' Conference (2s. wage demand) 
 Unemployment Insurance Act . . . 
 Council of Action formed 
 
 1919. 
 Feb. 26 
 Feb. 37 
 
 Aug. 15 
 
 . Sept. 8 
 
 -13 
 
 . Sept. 
 
 22 
 
 27 to Oct. 
 
 5 
 
 Nov. 
 
 20 
 
 . Dec. 9 
 
 -ID 
 
 . Dec. 
 
 30 
 
 1920. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 12 
 
 Jan. 
 
 20 
 
 Jan. 
 
 22 
 
 n Mar. 
 
 10 
 
 Mar. 
 
 31 
 
 . July 
 
 7 
 
 Aug. 9 
 
i6i 
 
 Mining Industry Act 
 
 Trades Union Congress 
 
 Miners' Strike 
 
 Emergency Powers Act 
 
 Miners' Strike Settlement 
 Unemployment Insurance Act in force 
 
 National Communist Party formed 
 Cessation of Output Bonus to Miners 
 Decontrol of Coal Industry 
 National Stoppage of "Work in Coal Mines} 
 
 Triple Alliance Collapse 
 
 Settlement of Mining Strike 
 
 1920. 
 Aug. 16 
 . Sept. 6-11 
 . Oct. 18 
 
 . Oct. 
 
 28 
 
 Nov. 
 
 3 
 
 Nov. 
 
 8 
 
 1921. 
 
 Jan. 
 . Feb. 
 
 29 
 28 
 
 "1 Mar. 
 
 s 
 
 31 
 
 Apr. 
 
 . July 
 
 15 
 
 I 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Vox Popui^i. 
 
 The " great munition feat " was ended. For four 
 years industry, organised for war, had achieved what 
 in time of peace it had found impossible — the aboli- 
 tion of unemployment, maximum production, effec- 
 tive State supervision of health and welfare, a 
 statutory Uving wage for all engaged in the national 
 service, and a practical unity of purpose from top 
 to bottom. From the single task of winning the 
 war the country had now to turn to the far more 
 complex task of salvage and resettlement ; a task 
 in which patience, fortitude, wisdom and sincerity 
 could alone avail. 
 
 §1. 
 
 The termination of hostilities found organised 
 labour in the strongest position it had ever attained 
 in the community. " A century ago," says Mr. 
 Beer,* " the working classes, treated as helots, were 
 forbidden to volunteer ; in the years 1915-1918 the 
 representatives of I^abour were Cabinet Ministers, 
 members of the Government, official envoys, and 
 Controllers of the nation's food." Time after time 
 
 • History of British Sodaliim, Vol. II, 
 
vox POPUI,! 163 
 
 the trade unions had entered into agreements direct 
 with the Government, had been consulted upon 
 proposed legislation, had been called to assist in 
 administration. They had in fact established a 
 claim to represent organised labour which had in 
 some degree competed with the claim of Parliament 
 to represent the community in general ; and by its 
 adoption of the Whitley Report the Government 
 had acknowledged the importance of the unions to 
 reconstruction of industry. In numerical strength 
 the Trade Unions had increased between 1914 and 
 1918 from roughly four-and-a-fifth to over six-and- 
 a-half million members ; that is, from 30 to 50 per cent, 
 of the total of employed workpeople. Among the 
 clerks, especially those of the railways and the Civil 
 Seryice, among the teachers, among the shop assist- 
 ants, in agriculture and sea-transport, among the 
 women, and in the occupations classed as general 
 labour, increases ranging from 30 to 400 per cent, 
 on the 1914 membership had taken place. Con- 
 currently, the efficiency of organisation had im- 
 proved, and the policy of centralised control had 
 resulted in important rearrangements. New and 
 highly interesting forms of national federation or 
 close unity had been brought about during the 
 war-period in the building trades, the iron and steel 
 trades, the foundry trades, the boiler-making and 
 shipbuilding trades, the textile trades, the Post 
 Office societies, and general labour. All these new 
 centralisations, like those already existing among 
 the railwajonen, the transport workers and the 
 miners, were more or less based on the principle 
 of ^industrial unionism ; and as such they have 
 their significance in policy, since by modern Socialist 
 theory the industrial union is not only the most 
 efficient instrument of direct action, but a necessary 
 basis of industrial democracy. How far this increase 
 
i64 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 in the corporate organisation of the workers had 
 engendered a consciousness of political solidarity, 
 events were soon to reveal. 
 
 § 2. 
 
 The decision of the Coalition Government to go 
 to the country in December, 1918, was on the face 
 of it logical enough. Originally elected in 1910, the 
 War Parliament had extended its own life no less 
 than five times, and for five years even by-elections 
 had been uncontested. The existing House of 
 Coinmons, it was argued, was out of touch with the 
 old electorate, let alone with the new. And from 
 the point of view of the Coahtion, no such favourable 
 opportunity for a general election could be expected 
 to recur. Outside the Coalition both Tory and 
 Radical groups protested. The notice given was too 
 short ; the soldiers were not home, and in spite of 
 the postal vote large numbers of them would 
 probably be disfranchised ; the Government — this, 
 if you please, from both the Labour press and Mr. 
 Bottomley — ^was engineering a " spoof election," 
 trying to get a "blank cheque " on the strength of 
 the military victory. Asquithian I^iberals and ofiicial 
 lyabour cut adrift from the political truce ; the 
 Coalition, formerly a pact, became a party. 
 
 The election campaign may fairly be described as 
 feverish. The Government program — efiicient de- 
 mobihsation, encouragement of industry, health 
 and housing schemes, national electricity supply, and 
 (according to Mr. Churchill) nationaUsation of the 
 railways — ^was somewhat broadly sketched, accom- 
 panied by a vigorous and somewhat indiscriminate 
 attack on any and every interest that could be called 
 " Socialist," and reinforced at the eleventh hour 
 by the prospect of " hanging the Kaiser," and 
 
vox POPUIyl 165 
 
 " making Germany pay." The Labour Press re- 
 mained bitter and implacable — to the grave concern 
 of even the Unionist Observer, which, taking a Coali- 
 tion victory for granted, found cause for serious 
 apprehension in the prospective dissociation of 
 I/abour from post-war reconstruction policy. Social- 
 ist opinion viewed the issue as a straight fight 
 between Capitalism and I/abour, and pitched its 
 voice in an appropriate key. On the extrepie left 
 was vague talk of revolution, of " the complete 
 destruction of the existing economic and political 
 machinery " {Workers' Dreadnought), " rooting out 
 of capitalism and the classes " {Solidarity), " rallying 
 to the red flag " {The Call), and so forth. More 
 warmth than light, doubtless ; but there was, in 
 fact, as Mr. I,loyd George reminded the country, 
 a decidedly revolutionary element for which, small 
 as it was, accommodation could but with difficulty 
 be secured inside the four walls of " the house that 
 we propose to erect." 
 
 The official lyabour program suffered in fact from 
 the disease of compromise, and the strongest appeals 
 for unity within the party were necessary to secure 
 a united front in the " Great I/abour Offensive." 
 
 361 I/abour candidates of various political com- 
 plexions took the field ; 63 were returned to lead 
 His Majesty's Opposition. The Coalition victory 
 passed all expectations. I^abour's " Great Offen- 
 sive " was broken : the left-wing leaders, Snowden, 
 Macdonald, Jowett, and even the moderate Hender- 
 son, were unseated, along with the I/iberal Premier 
 of 1914. In leadership of any sort in fact the new 
 I^abour group was weaker than its predecessor in 
 the House of Commons, though stronger than any 
 other section of His Majesty's Opposition. The 
 prospect of any altern-ative Government, I^abour 
 or other, was thus indefinitely postponed ; and the 
 advocates of poHtical as against industrial action 
 
i66 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 in the lyabour world passed under a cloud which was 
 soon to rain disaster. 
 
 It was alleged on behalf of both defeated parties 
 that the tactics of their opponents gave them less 
 than a fair chance in the election of 1918 ; that in 
 fact the victory was secured by methods that were 
 barely admissible in honest politics. The mentaUty, 
 however, from which such argument proceeds is 
 out of date in the twentieth century. There have 
 been, it is true, phases of British history in which 
 the duties of a Government have been regarded as 
 partly tutelary in character ; but the steady progress 
 of democracy has left those periods long behind. 
 No practical pohtician would now maintain that a 
 Government is under any obligation to take the 
 masses of the modern electorate otherwise than as it 
 finds them — particularly when its prospects might 
 perhaps be impaired by so doing ; or that there 
 are any Umits of dignity and decorum within which 
 merely abstract principles confine the pursuit of 
 poUtical expediency. The fine art of politics requires 
 that the leaders of parties as well as nations shall 
 emulate, if possible excel, the success with which 
 popular favour is solicited by the press, the music- 
 hall, the cinema, and the patent medicine ; since 
 failure in that respect , might imperil the security 
 of estabUshed persons, parties, or even institutions. 
 The election of 1918 was therefore a perfectly fair 
 election ; and the I^abour party had no logical 
 ground for protest, least of aU protest of an " uncon- 
 stitutional " character. Unfortunately — ^but inevit- 
 ably — there were sections that failed to view the 
 matter in such a reasonable Ught ; among whom 
 there existed a pent-up antagonism, not of opinion 
 merely, but of sentiment and even passion, to the 
 governing body of the country. , 
 
vox POPUIyl 167 
 
 §3- 
 
 For aspirants to revolution, " bloody " or other- 
 wise, the choice of means seemed to have come to a 
 head in December, 1918. In reality, as the sequel 
 was to show, neither the vote nor the strike were 
 entirely satisfactory weapons ; both were unreliable, 
 on occasion treacherous ; but the patent failure of 
 the one was naturally and inevitably followed by a 
 reaction in favour of the other. 
 
 A fortnight before the election there occurred a 
 minor incident which seemed to constitute an object- 
 lesson. A I^abour demonstration had been arranged 
 to take place in the Albert Hall, but a few days 
 beforehand the hire of the hall was cancelled by the 
 directors on the score of the alleged objectionable 
 character of the resolutions proposed for endorse- 
 ment. Other political parties, however, had used 
 the Hall, and the workers cordially resented the 
 distinction. By way, therefore, of demonstrating 
 the value of I^abour to a community desirous of 
 enlightenment, the electricians suddenly removed 
 the fuses, and quitted the building. Kxpostulation, 
 negotiation, and a hasty appeal from the directors 
 to Downing Street failed to get them back again. 
 In the event the demonstration was held, and the 
 victory celebrated in the I^abour press as symbolic 
 of the coming bloodless revolution. When a fort- 
 night later the vote was tried and found most 
 sadly wanting, the lesson was duly noted. 
 
 With the new year there began a period of indus- 
 trial warfare unequalled in the history of British 
 labour. The 1919 total of disputes had once, in 
 1913, been passed ; that for 1920 not at all ; while 
 in respect of the number of workpeople affected, 
 both years exceeded all previous record. 1919 
 opened with a series of strikes that dislocated entire 
 
i68 lyABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 sections of the community. Shipyard and engineer- 
 ing workers claiming a shorter working week backed 
 their case by direct action over the north of Kngland, 
 the Clyde Valley, and Belfast. In the Irish dty 
 municipal employees struck in support of the demand. 
 Gas and electricity supply ceased, and mills and 
 factories were brought to a standstill, along with the 
 city bakeries and the tramway system. In Glasgow 
 the movement for a general stoppage culminated in 
 an attempt to cut ofE the power supply, followed by 
 a general fracas in the city square with overturning 
 of tramcars, smashing of shop windows, mounted 
 police charges, sundry arrests, and reading of the 
 Riot Act. Delegates from the Clyde strike com- 
 mittee urged a conference of lyondon engineers tQ 
 compel the Government to come to terms in Glasgow 
 by taking sympathetic action ; and a general strike 
 was accordingly announced by the Electrical Trades 
 Union to commence on February 6th. The threat was 
 parried by the Government with a new regulation 
 under the Defence of the Realm Act, and Uttle 
 more was heard of it ; the Clyde venture also col- 
 lapsed in mid-February. But in the meantime 
 I^ondon had its own experience of direct action in the 
 sudden stoppage of the Tube railway system early 
 in February by a dispute as to motor-men's meal- 
 times. 150,000 Yorkshire miners struck work over 
 a dispute of which the ostensible cause was equally 
 fundamental. Welsh electricians left the shops 
 over a proposed standardisation of wage-rates ; 
 serious trouble was threatening among the Metro- 
 poUtan police ; each of the constituent bodies of the 
 Triple Alliance was pressing a national program--^: 
 the miners to the point of a strike ballot ; whili| 
 demonstrations and riots both of service and of ex- 
 service men created a certain liveliness in Whitehall 
 and Westminster. The little drama of the Albert 
 Hall was, in fact, being rehearsed on a wider stage ; 
 and the denouement was still to come. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Via Media. 
 
 §1. 
 
 To measure the importance of a dispute by the 
 amount of inconvenience it entails on the public is 
 a plausible but fallacious proceeding. To several of 
 the strikes of 1919 first-rate individual importance 
 need not be attached. Apart from the mere 
 reaction to the disciphne of the war-period, they 
 are to be regarded rather as manifestations, on the 
 first opportunity, of a new self-consciousness in the 
 essential services, to which the sense of responsibility 
 had still to be added, than as the abortive stirrings 
 of revolution — this in spite of the fact that their 
 technique owed something to the continental tradi- 
 tion of industrial violence. But of the industrial 
 unrest as a whole the significance was profound. 
 It indicated in the first place that only the paramount 
 necessity of avoiding national defeat by a foreign 
 power had been holding the country together in a 
 semblance of unity. The military truce in Europe 
 was the signal for the instant termination of the 
 social truce in England. Disruptive forces came 
 into operation with accumulated and irresponsible 
 violence, and it could no longer be maintained that 
 communal or national consciousness was predominant 
 over group or class feeling. 
 
170 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 The outbreak of 1919 may also be regarded as the 
 culmination of the unofficial movement of the two 
 preceding years within the tradie unions. The 
 national executives had become ever more and more 
 distrusted as the exigencies of the military situation 
 impelled them to fresh concessions to the Govern- 
 ment. The shop stewards movement had focussed 
 much of the revolutionary feeling stimulated by 
 events in Russia ; and when the prospect of success- 
 ful political action was finally disposed of by the 
 election results of 1918, it was to the unofficial 
 leaders that many of the men looked for a vigorous 
 policy. Moreover, the appearance of a united front 
 given to the I^abour movement by the national 
 program of 1918 was in fact fallacious, and the 
 occasion for it seemed to have passed. The Fabian 
 panopticon was not at all the kind of house that some 
 sections of the workers proposed to erect, and the 
 method of slowly adding brick to brick was not 
 suited to their temper. What was necessary, said 
 the Socialist left wing, was in the first place to 
 clear the site ; and the old political as well as the 
 industrial structure was marked for demohtion. It 
 is, of course, not uncommon in such cases for the 
 demolition and the subsequent reconstruction pro- 
 cesses to be undertaken by different contractors. 
 
 Especially significant in this connexion is the 
 emergence of the Triple Alliance in the sphere of 
 general policy. Almost from its inception the 
 influence of the Alliance had been directed to matters 
 — Industrial Conscription and the Capital I^evy for 
 example — in which the I/abour movement as a whole 
 was concerned ; and the mere existence of so large 
 a fighting organisation tended to turn the heads of 
 the more impetuous trade unionists towards direct 
 action in the political sphere. In fact, the power 
 of the Alliance was closely circtunscribe d by its own 
 constitution and very cautiously invoked by its 
 
VIA MEDIA i7r 
 
 own leaders. But it stood none the less for the 
 ultimate resort to force, and, like all fighting weapons, 
 it served to stimulate the energies of those to whom 
 force was inherently attractive. 
 
 Apart from the more psychological sources of the 
 I^abour unrest of 1919, some of its more immediate 
 causes were indicated in a speech of thc'^nister of 
 I/abour (Sir Robert Home) on February 27th, 1919 : 
 " We are emerging from a great conflict, 
 which has left to this country, nay, to the whole 
 world, tasks of a magnitude and complexity 
 sufficient to test the whole resources of our 
 civilisation. We have got to make a great 
 change over from the problems of war to the 
 problems of peace. Hundreds of thousands of 
 people who have been devoting themselves for 
 the past four years to the production of war 
 material have now to find jobs in making articles 
 of commerce. Millions of demobilised sailors 
 and soldiers have got to be re-absorbed into the 
 Hfe of the industrial community. There is less 
 employment, and there is a fear of greater 
 unemployment ; there is a higher cost of living, 
 and there is doubt with regard to the dwindling 
 of wages ; there is a certain weariness of work 
 after the strain of war, and a desire for rest ; 
 there is a lack of enterprise and a hesitation to 
 adventure ; and combined with all the.se factors 
 there are fresh aspirations kindled in men's 
 breasts by the power of war and a new sense of 
 the value of the human spirit, which demand for 
 the toilers better conditions of life and more 
 adequate opportunities of leisure." 
 
 §2. 
 The audience to which Sir Robert Home addressed 
 
172 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 himself was a remarkable one. The Government, 
 faced with a labour situation of increasing danger, 
 had summoned a General Conference of employers' 
 associations, trade unions and industrial councils, 
 to give it " the best of their advice and assistance " 
 as to " the root causes of these troubles." The 
 Conference having heard Sir Robert and the Prime 
 Minister appointed a joint committee of 60 members 
 to consider certain detailed aspects of the situation ; 
 and the report of this committee, adopted by the 
 full Conference on April 4th, was forwarded to the 
 Prime Minister. If the Government, as I^ord 
 Askwith averred, lacked a labour policy, the Indus- 
 trial Conference hereby offered it a substantial 
 instalment, of which the following were the leading 
 items : 
 
 (i) The legal enforcement of a maximum 
 
 working week of 48 hours for all employed 
 
 persons, with certain exceptions. 
 
 (2) The establishment by legal enactment of 
 minimum time-rates of wages, such rates to 
 be universally applicable. 
 
 (3) The extension of State provision for both 
 unemployment and under-employment. 
 
 {4) The establishment of a permanent 
 
 national Industrial Advisory Council of 400 
 
 members. 
 
 It will be convenient from this starting point to 
 
 trace the main lines of subsequent Government 
 
 policy. In so doing, the general basis of that policy, 
 
 as indicated at the close of 1918 by both the IVQnister 
 
 of I^abour and the Minister of Munitions must be 
 
 borne constantly in mind. 
 
 Mr. Churchill four days before the Armistice had 
 told a meeting of representative employers : " I am 
 very anxious for you to realise that, although it 
 will undoubtedly be necessary for some time to come 
 ior the Government of this country to intervene in 
 
VIA MEDIA 173 
 
 industry, and to control and regulate aspects of 
 industry . . . our only object is to liberate the 
 forces of individual enterprise, to release the controls 
 which have been found galling, to divest ourselves 
 pf responsibilities which the State has only accepted 
 in this perilous emergency, and from which, in the 
 overwhelming majority of cases, it had been far 
 better to keep itself clear." The policy of " getting- 
 otit " was thus early clearly foreshadowed ; and in 
 the succeeding years it was followed with a certain 
 tenacity, and in spite of a good deal of opposition. 
 
 In fairness, the Government must be credited with 
 having already provided, by the end of 1918, a good 
 deal of machinery by which it was hoped industry 
 would be able to take over an increasing share of the 
 State responsibility. 20 Whitley Councils and 21 
 Interim Industrial Reconstruction Committees had 
 been set going, with every encouragement to manage 
 their own affairs ; joint machinery had been extended 
 in the coal industry, and Pit Committees established 
 by the Act of 1918 ; Joint Boards were in existence 
 on the railways ; National and District Maritime 
 Boards had been established during 1917 by the 
 Ministry of Shipping ; National Wages Boards and 
 District Committees in agriculture had been set up 
 under the Corn Production Act of the same year ; 
 and a considerable increase in the number of Trade 
 Boards was being prepared for as a result of the 
 Trade Boards Axnendment Act of August, igi8. 
 Joint Control Boards were at work in the woollen, 
 cotton, flax, and leather industries ; and a host of 
 l/ocal Advisory Committees had been called into 
 existence throughout the country to assist the Em- 
 ployment Exchanges in securing work for men dis- 
 charged from the Army, and in co-ordinating the 
 supply and demand for labour through the difficult 
 period of resettlement. 
 
174 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 §3- 
 
 It was perhaps to be expected that the process of 
 demobilising several millions of men and women 
 from the fighting and munitions services would not 
 be entirely unattended with difficulties, no matter 
 how much allowance were made for that irrational 
 factor — the individual soldier in a hurry to get home. 
 If, however, the best-laid plans of Ministers and 
 men went somewhat awry it was not because they 
 were altogether unsound. The prospect of dumping 
 several million men in industry at a time when there 
 would be dislocation enough and to spare from other 
 causes was certainly forbidding ; and the first Govern- 
 ment scheme was to regulate such demobilisation as 
 the military situation warranted by the absorbent 
 capacity of industry. Individuals were selected 
 for demobiHsation according as they were needed to 
 assist in demobilising the rest, or were " pivotal " 
 to trade and industry, while I^ocal Advisory Com- 
 mittees and Employment Exchanges acted as 
 channels by which definite offers of work for 
 individuals were communicated and the men 
 concerned given priority. But a certain amount 
 of trouble, aggravated by extremist agitation as 
 well as by minor difficulties of transpprt and alloca- 
 tion affecting the men on leave, resulted in the 
 supersession of the original Government plan, at 
 the risk of increased unemployment, by a looser 
 scheme of demobilisation based on the groupinf 
 of men by age and length of service. Under the new 
 arrangement over three and a-half milUon men had 
 been released within twelve months of the Armistice. 
 At the same time the demobilisation of munition 
 workers was being dealt with ; the problem in this 
 case being mitigated to some extent by the mainten- 
 
VIA MEDIA 175 
 
 ance of work on standard orders or on other pro- 
 ducts for which, armament machinery could be 
 adapted, and by curtailment of the hours of labour. 
 To displaced munition workers special unemploy- 
 ment donation was made payable for a maximum of 
 13 weeks in the following 6 months, at the rate of 
 29s. per week for men and 25s. for women, with 
 additional allowances for children. For ex-soldiers 
 below commissioned rank the periods of relief were 
 doubled. These donations were adversely criticised 
 later in the year as tending to modify the willingness 
 of those in receipt of them to accept work ; but in 
 view of the distress that might have fallen upon 
 folk who of all others deserved well of the country, 
 and of the liberal scale on which munitions expendi- 
 ture had been conducted without any such poptilar 
 criticism, the Government policy was on the whole 
 the only fair course to follow. In so far as it gave 
 the workers some little power of resisting the inherent 
 tendency of the situation towards the re-establish- 
 ment of depressed conditions of employment it 
 might be unpopular but was not necessarily unsound. 
 On the constructive side of its policy, for which 
 the Ministry of I^abour was mainly responsible, the 
 Government showed both energy and enterprise. 
 Foremost among the problems to be dealt with were 
 th^ training and placing of untrained, partly trained, 
 and disabled men. For this purpose the industrial 
 training arrangements made by the Ministry of 
 Munitions and the technical training schemes of the 
 Ministry of Pensions were developed, and new State 
 instructional factories organised up to a total of 59 
 by the end of 1920. By these arrangements, 45,600 
 men, the majority more or less disabled, had been 
 trained, and 23,600 more were in training at June 
 30th, 192 1. By way of ensuring subsequent 
 work for such men a King's Roll of employers 
 undertaking to find places for the disabled up to at 
 
176 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 least 5 per cent, of their establishment was compiled. 
 On this Roll, in addition to some 26,800 employers 
 by June 30th, 192 1, were entered all Government 
 departments and industrial establishments, and 
 both Houses of Parliament ; 293,518 disabled men 
 were thus guaranteed employment. At the 
 same time arrangements for the completion of 
 interrupted apprenticeships were made in the prin- 
 cipal industries with the assistance of advisory 
 committees of employers and trade union representa- 
 tives, the general basis of such schemes being 
 an agreed scale of progressive remuneration for 
 the apprentice, with the State paying a decreasing 
 maintenance allowance until the adult standard 
 wage was payable on the completion of training. 
 44,343 ex-service apprentices had been accepted 
 for training by private employers up to the end of 
 June, 1 92 1. For officers and men of higher educa- 
 tional attainments financial assistance was given in 
 University, professional or business training, and 
 large numbers of such found the possibility of 
 residence at a University among the unexpected 
 consequences of the war. Other grants to meet the 
 civil liabilities of ex-service men, or to enable a start 
 to be made in business life, were paid to the extent 
 of some £3,000,000. All these arrangements of 
 course were liable to minor abuse here and there, and 
 in several respects they involved entirely novel 
 methods of administration that acted none too 
 perfectly. On the whole, however, they represent 
 a very creditable State effort to grapple with a very 
 formidable problem, and as regards their main 
 objects — the mitigation of unemployment, the avoid- 
 ance of a general deterioration of skill, and the re- 
 equipment of those disabled in the struggle of war 
 for the struggle of " peace " — the Government 
 deserved and achieved a substantial measure of 
 success. Perhaps its best ally was the temporary 
 
VIA MEDIA 177 
 
 quickening of industry during 1919 by the partial 
 re-opening of foreign trade and the pressure of re- 
 placement orders. The fact that the real cost of 
 four years' destruction did not come home to 
 Britain until two years after the Armistice was in 
 many respects a piece of sheer good fortune. That it 
 was not generally recognised as such was apparently 
 due to folk having almost forgotten by that time 
 that there was any price to be paid for the ruin of 
 half Europe. 
 
 §4. 
 
 Apart, however, from the special problems of 
 demobilisation, the outbreak of peace revealed cer- 
 tain matters in the sphere of industrial relations as 
 urgently in need of attention ; first among them, of 
 course, being the prospective cessation of the 
 Munitions Acts, and the reversion of industry to 
 its pre-war practices. 
 
 In the Treasury Agreement of March, 1915, the 
 Government had accepted the responsibility of 
 ensuring the restoration of the status quo ; and before 
 hostihties terminated, the draft of a Bill for giving 
 effect to the Government guarantee was laid before 
 the employers' associations and the trade unions. 
 The precise terms of the proposed legislation were 
 not agreed upon until August, 1919, in which month 
 the Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act was 
 passed by Parliament. This Act made it obligatory 
 for employers concerned with work to which the 
 Treasury Agreement or the Munitions Act appUed 
 to restore or permit restoration of any pre-existent 
 trade practice suspended during and in consequence 
 of the war, by October 15th, 1919, and to maintain 
 it for twelve months after ; and employers failing to 
 
178 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 comply with this obligation were made liable to 
 prosecution before a munitions tribunal. 
 
 " In nearly every case (says the Ministry 
 of I^abour Report on Conciliation Proceed- 
 ings for 1919) " the practices departed 
 from were restored where the workmen so 
 desired. More than 5,000 establishments sup- 
 plied records of changes, and many of the 30,000 
 records collected contained details of more than 
 one change of practice ; yet after the Act had 
 been in operation for over a year, in only 22 
 cases had proceedings been instituted against 
 firms for breaches of the Act. In four of these 
 cases proceedings were withdrawn, and in only 
 four of the remainder did the prosecutions 
 prove successful." 
 In the light of the I^abour distrust of the suspension 
 of the trade practices, the absence of trouble arising 
 from this source is not without honour to the State 
 and the employers. 
 
 The post-war history of wage-regulation involved 
 a, longer period of transition, which was covered 
 by the operation of the Wages (Temporary Regula- 
 tion) Act (November, 1918). This- Act repealed 
 the Compulsory Arbitration clauses of the Munitions 
 Acts except in respect of matters arising from the' 
 prescribed rates of wages, and provided that these 
 rates should remain as legal minima for a periods of 
 six months after the Armistice (subsequent legisla- 
 tion extended the period to September, 1920). 
 The Act also set up an Interim Court of Arbitration 
 — ^which was virtually the old Committee on Pro- 
 duction enlarged — to which wages disputes might 
 be referred by either party. The effect was, broadly 
 . speaking, that the prescribed rates of wages ruling 
 at the time of the Armistice, or such variations of 
 them, reached either by agreement or by arbitration, 
 as were approved by the Minister of I^abour as' 
 
VIA MKDIA 179 
 
 " substituted rates," continued to be statutorily 
 enfordble throughout the whole of the industries 
 to which they applied. Although, therefore, no 
 general legislation was introduced, as suggested by 
 the Industrial Conference, for a universal mipimum 
 wage, statutory minimum wages were thus main- 
 tained for a limited period throughout the greater 
 part of industry ; and the principle was extended 
 both by the action of the Agricultural Wages Boards 
 and by the Trade Boards. The establishment of the 
 latter was greatly facilitated by the Trade Boards 
 Amendment Acts of 1918 ; and the wage-regulating 
 machinery thus set up in the less organised industries 
 was of a permanent character. This was not 
 the case, however, in regard to the operation of 
 the Wages (Temporary Regulation) Acts ; and at 
 the end of 1919 the Government policy of non- 
 intervention was clearly asserted. 
 
 The Industrial Courts Act ^November, 1919) 
 replaced the Interim Court of Arbitration by a 
 permanent Court of Arbitration ; but whereas to 
 the former body wage disputes could be referred on 
 the application of either party and settlements be 
 secured that were legally binding, to the Industrial 
 Court disputes could only be referred by both parties , 
 jointly, and the awards were not legally enfordble. 
 The responsibiHty for the settlement of the condi- 
 tions of employment was thus virtually returned to 
 those directly concerned, the State discarding its 
 coerdve powers in favour of an appeal to industrial 
 and general opinion. This change was clearly 
 indicated in the authority given to the Minister of 
 lyabour to conduct an enquiry into any existing 
 or threatened dispute and make public an impartial 
 account of the issues. In connexion with this 
 change of policy, the Ministry of lyabour Report on 
 Conciliation and Arbitration for 1919 points out 
 that a partial revision of the basis of wage-advances 
 
i8o I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 was actually in progress. During the war the four- 
 monthly awards of the Committee on Production, 
 which acted as a general standard of wage advances, 
 had been based on the increase in the cost of living. 
 After the war the workers realised that this principle 
 afforded no real improvement on the " fodder basis," 
 and advances were claimed with reference to profite, 
 the state of trade, the scarcity of labour and other 
 matters. In this more complex situation it no 
 longer appeared desirable that the State should 
 remain a direct party to industrial agreements, 
 since such settlements obviously involved questions 
 with which State machinery was unsuited to deal. 
 After 1919, therefore, the only industries in 
 which the State was a direct party to agreements 
 and disputes were those which remained for the time 
 being under full Government control — the mines 
 and the railways. For the rest, industrial affairs 
 were left to those engaged on the several industries, 
 and apart from the confirmation of agreements made 
 by the Trade and Agricultural Wages Boards, the 
 only positive action taken by the Government was 
 to facilitate the formation of Joint Industrial 
 Councils. . 
 
 §5- 
 
 Although after the first months of 1918 the Whitley 
 scheme ceased to figure in the foreground of public 
 attention, its application to the industries of the 
 country was steadily extended, and by the close of 
 June, 1921, Joint Industrial Councils were functioning 
 in 60 industries employing some 3J million work- 
 people. The principle had been applied to all 
 Government industrial estabKshments, to the Gvil 
 Service, and throughout practically the entire field 
 of municipal industry ; and a large amount of 
 
VIA MEDIA i8i 
 
 unostentatious but important work had been accom- 
 plished by the various joint bodies. By far the 
 greater part of this work naturally had reference to 
 wages and conditions of employment. It was in 
 'these matters that the principle of collective bargain- 
 ing had become most firmly estabhshed, and the 
 Whitley scheme was thus a development of an 
 existing practice to which the majority of organisa- 
 tions were already well used. But it must also be 
 remembered that the period was one in which the 
 necessity for dealing with these questions arose with 
 abnormal frequency and in circumstances of abnor- 
 mal difficulty, and it may safely be said that in the 
 absence of the Joint Industrial Councils not only 
 would many of the agreements made have been much 
 more difficult of attainment and accompanied by a 
 far greater measure of industrial unrest, but some of 
 the most important would not have been reached at 
 all. In several cases the Councils were instrumental 
 in securing the first general standardisation of rates 
 throughout their industries, and the arrangements 
 frequently included the determination of a normal 
 working week and the concession of an annual holiday 
 with pay. Practically all the Councils acted, with 
 considerable success, as conciliation and arbitration 
 courts for the settlement of disputes, and in this 
 coimexion the local machinery set up by many of 
 them proved its value. 
 
 It was, however, in the reference to the Joint 
 Industrial Councils of a wide range of matters outside 
 the immediate sphere of the cash nexus that the 
 essential novelty of the Whitley scheme resided ; 
 and in this field also, while there is less activity to 
 record, results of considerable promise were 
 secured by certain of the Councils. Some of the 
 more general problems of industry — safety and 
 welfare, workmen's compensation, and unemploy- 
 ment insurance, for example — were referred by the 
 
i82 IvABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 Government to the Councils as occasion arose ; and 
 the preparation of supplementary schemes of unem- 
 plojTnent insurance in several industries gave the 
 trade unionists an opportunity for demonstratiag 
 their fitness for a fuller measure of general control. 
 Several of the Councils formulated standard schemes 
 for apprenticeship and some prepared reports of 
 considerable value on the general education and 
 training of young persons. The Pottery and Wire- 
 Manufacturing Councils also instituted general en- 
 quiries into the whole financial position of their 
 industries — a task which must at least have resulted 
 in extending the acquaintance of the workers' 
 representatives with the economic problems of the 
 employers. It cannot, however, be said that the 
 trade union delegates as a whole displayed any 
 remarkable initiative in respect of such matters. 
 By a few Councils requests were made to the 
 Ministry of I^abour ~^ for financial assistance — and 
 wisely declined. A more general, though by no 
 means unanimous, demand made by the Councils 
 was for the grant of powers, such as were lately 
 possessed by the Ministry of Munitions, by which 
 the decisions of a majority on either side of an 
 industry could be made legally binding upon the 
 whole of it.* The principle involved in this proposal 
 had been rejected by the Trade Union Congress in 
 1912, and by the I^abour party in 1913. More recently 
 it was again opposed by the trade unions at the 
 time of the Industrial Courts Act, in view of the fact 
 that any statutory force applied to industrial agree- 
 ments would be held by the Government to be 
 equally binding upon both sides. It may also be 
 suggested that any such decision, apart from admin- 
 istrative difiiculties occasioned by the loose definition 
 
 * This power has been conceded in the case of the Agricultnial 
 Conciliation Boards established on " yrhitley " lines to replace the Wages 
 Boards set up under the Corn Production Act. 
 
VIA MEDIA 183 
 
 of some of the Joint Industrial Councils, would 
 necessitate some more definite provision against 
 action of an anti-social character than the constitu- 
 tion of these bodies provided. In hardly any case 
 have the relations between the two sides been inti- 
 mate enough to render such action practically 
 possible ; but in any statutory authority given to 
 joint bodies composed exclusively of employers and 
 employed in a given industry the contingency would 
 require careful consideration. 
 
 Broadly speaking, and assuming the continuance 
 of the pre-war economic system, the Whitley Councils 
 may be said to have succeeded in providing a means 
 of securing " a permanent improvement in the 
 relations between employers and workmen." In so 
 far, of course, as the measure of possible improve- 
 ment was limited by the nature of that system, 
 neither Whitley Councils nor any other form of joint 
 organisation could remedy the inherent defects of 
 the status quo. 
 
 §6. 
 
 We are now in a position to survey the extent to 
 which the leading recommendations of the Industrial 
 Conference were met by Government action. To- 
 wards the estabHshment of a universal 48-hour week 
 no general legislation was passed. An Hours of 
 Employinent Bill was introduced, as Mr. I^loyd 
 George had promised in October, 1919 ; but other 
 urgent business prevented its passage that session, 
 and the proposal got into difficulties in regard to 
 agricultural workers, seamen, and others whom it 
 might be necessary to except. Further action was 
 postponed pending the report of the International 
 I^abour Conference at Washington (November, 1919), 
 and finally the 48-hour week was referred to the 
 
i84 LABOUR m TRANSITION 
 
 International I^abour Office under the lyeague of 
 Nations at Geneva, where for the present the matter 
 rests. Considerable progress, however, was made 
 piecemeal in the several industries. In the engineer- 
 ing and allied trades the working week was reduced 
 from 54 to 47 hours shortly after the Armistice ; 
 on the railways the 48-hour week was established 
 by the Government in March, 1919, with guaranteed 
 payment ; the miners' working day was reduced 
 from 8 hours to 7 ; transport workers secured the 
 48-hour week by Industrial Council agreements ; 
 and in several other industries a standard working 
 week of from 44 to 48 hours was instituted by the 
 Industrial Councils. 
 
 Towards a standard minimum wage progress was 
 also made piecemeal and not by general legislation ; 
 though except in the case of the Trade Boards, 
 standard rather than minimum rates have been 
 determined. Throughout 1919 and 1920 the general 
 movement of wages was rapidly upward. 
 
 "It is estimated (says the Labour Gazette 
 for February, 1921), that the average increase 
 up to the end of December, 1920, in- the weekly 
 full-time rates of wages of adult workpeople 
 in the industries for which particulars are avail- 
 able was equivalent to about 170 to 180 per 
 cent, on the pre-war rates. As the length of 
 the normal working week has been considerably 
 reduced in the same period, the usual range of 
 full-time working hours in industry generally 
 being about 44 to 48 weekly at the end of 
 December, 1920, as compared with 48 to 60 
 before the war, the percentage increase in 
 hourly rates of wages would be considerably 
 greater." 
 The above increase, however, is stated to be probably 
 above the true average for all industriies, including 
 the unorganised trades ; and it is pointed out 
 
VIA MEDIA 185 
 
 that as a result of short-time working and unemploy- 
 ment during the latter part of 1920, the average 
 increase in earnings at the end of the year was at 
 least 40 per cent, below the increase in wage-rates. 
 It must be recalled, too, that the wages movement 
 shows only one side of the medal ; the other being 
 the increase in the cost of living, which at the end of 
 1920 was ofi&cially estimated at 165 per cent, above 
 the pre-war level ; the increase in the cost of food 
 alone being 178. 
 
 Of the fourth recommendation of the Industrial 
 Conference respecting the establishment of a general 
 and permanent Council of Industry no more has 
 since been heard ; and the functions which such a 
 body might have been expected to perform have 
 remained scattered between the Ministry of I^abour, 
 the Industrial Court, and the Board of Trade, the par- 
 liamentary committee of the Trades Union Congress, 
 Fleet Street, Downing Street, and the committee 
 rooms of the House of Commons. Which of these 
 agencies best focusses the general sense and intelU- 
 gence of the country the reader will determine as he 
 lists. But of the third recommendation of the 
 Conference as to unemployment the relevance became 
 painfully apparent towards the autvunn of 1920. 
 
 §7- 
 
 For eighteen months after the Armistice unemploy- 
 m.ent on the whole kept within the average limits of 
 pre-war years. The pressure of replacement work, 
 the anticipation of foreign trade, and the dissipation 
 of a good deal of purchasing power by the home 
 community, had maintained industry in an artificial 
 semblance of prosperity. But about September, 
 1920, the reality of the world situation began to 
 assert itself, while at the same time the endless rise 
 
i86 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 in prices seemed to be discovering a limit to the 
 effective demand of the community. Significantly- 
 enough, the textile, clothing and leather trades 
 were the first to resort to general short-time working. 
 Then came the coal strike ; immediately after the 
 Bank Rate rose to 7 per cent. ; and there was every 
 prospect of a black winter. 
 
 The unemployment donation — " dole," as it was 
 called — granted for the demobilisation period, and 
 subsequently extended, ceased as regards civilians 
 on November 22nd, 1919 ; for ex-Service men it 
 remained in force until March 3rst, 1921. But in 
 the summer of 1920 the Government turned its 
 attention to the question of some general provision 
 against unemployment ; and on August 9th an 
 Unemployment Insurance Act received Royal Assent, 
 the effect of which was to extend insurance on a 
 basis of joint contribution by the workers, the 
 employer and the State, to a total of some 11,900,000 
 people as from November 8th, 1920. The benefits 
 payable were iSs. for men, 12s. for women, and 
 half rates for juveniles during a maximum of 18 
 weeks in a year, the qualification being the pa3rment 
 of 12 contributions in normal times, but for the ^ 
 first twelve months four only. In February, 1921, 
 the normal benefit period* was extended, the 
 quahfying period modified, and the pajnnent in- 
 creased to 20s. for men and i6s. for women ; but 
 in consequence of the abnormal drain on the fund, 
 these amounts were reduced in July to 15s. and 12s., 
 and the contributions increased. Provision was 
 also made under the 1920 Act, by which indus- 
 tries could "contract-out" of the State scheme; 
 but the financial position of the latter entailed the 
 indefinite suspension of this clause in July, 1921. 
 
 The provision of State relief, however, did not 
 tend to mitigate the growth of unemployment ; and 
 
 * i.e., after July, 1922, prior to which date special conditions apply. 
 
VIA MEDIA 187 
 
 the winter of 1920-1921 saw the most distressful 
 period within memory — mills, factories, workshops 
 driven first to short-time working and then to 
 complete stoppage, coal-mines closed down, ships 
 laid up for want of cargoes, and such armies of 
 unemployed as the towns had never witnessed. 
 Already at the close of 1920 the proportion of workers 
 unemployed (6.1 per cent.) was greater than for 
 ten years past ; by the end of the following March 
 it exceeded all previous records (11.3). Nearly i^ 
 million people were registered as unemployed, while 
 approximately one million more were working 
 systematic short-time. Trade union funds were 
 exhausted in many districts, large numbers of workers 
 had drawn their last penny of State relief, and even 
 local authorities' Poor I,aw funds administration — 
 the last desperate resort of the unemployed — ^were 
 in some cases threatened with bankruptcy. 
 
 The situation had called for emergency measures 
 of relief. The Ministry of Transport made special 
 grants for road and other construction ; a special 
 State fund of £3,000,000 was allocated to the 
 assistance of approved relief works administered by 
 I^ocal Authorities ; and the Government adopted 
 and encouraged the system of organised short time 
 working with a view to the more equal distribution 
 of what work was available. But of genuine 
 remedial measures the situation allowed no quick 
 development, and the I^abour party at its conference 
 in January, 1921, failed to produce any. It advo- 
 cated the immediate resumption of trade with 
 Russia and ex-enemy countries ; the extension of 
 international credits ; and, of course, an increased 
 provision of public works and of unemplojTnent 
 relief. It also succeeded in quashing the partictdarly 
 hopeful suggestion of a general strike. From other 
 quarters came various suggestions, of which the 
 most practical, for the future, was that each industry 
 
i88 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 as a unit should make provision for the maintenance 
 of its own unemployed. This principle met with a 
 certain amount of sympathy in official circles, as 
 well as elsewhere, and it had in fact been partly 
 subscribed to in the guaranteed week's pay for the 
 railwa5Tnen, and in the Government negotiations 
 with the builders. The suggestion may be taken in 
 fact as marking an important approach to the 
 principle that the maintenance of the worker should 
 be the first, and not a subsidiary charge on industry. 
 But of immediate remedy there was none available, 
 for the whole world was sick of the same disease ; 
 and as to ultimate remedy — for which drastic surgery 
 of the body poUtic might perhaps be necessary — 
 there was agreement neither among the doctors of 
 the I^abour movement nor the more experienced 
 general practitioners of the nation. " The old 
 world," wrote Mr. I^loyd George in September, 1919, 
 " where unemployment through the vicissitudes of 
 industry brought despair to multitudes of humble 
 homes . . . must, and will, come to an end." 
 The end was patently approaching. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Homes for Heroes. 
 
 §1. 
 
 There are few periods in history more significant 
 than those in which great and highly developed 
 societies begin to fail in respect of the supply and 
 distribution of the cardinal necessaries of life. Of 
 such failure recent British history furnishes at least 
 two examples — coal and housing : cases, each of 
 them, in which the requisite material, labour and 
 skill are undoubtedly available in the country, and 
 in which the war period has merely accelerated with- 
 out initiating the breakdown. And as if to clear 
 away any illusion we may cherish, the housing 
 problem supphes a case in which the failure is in no 
 appreciable measure due to the much-canvassed 
 economic law of diminishing return. Its scope 
 therefore is a matter of some interest. 
 
 In October, 1917, the Advisory Housing Panel 
 of the Ministry of Reconstruction, guided by the 
 results of a detailed enquiry addressed to local 
 authorities, estimated the housing shortage then 
 due to the war at 175,000 for- England and Wales, 
 plus an additional 50,000 cottages urgently needed 
 as an instalment in rural areas. Putting the neces- 
 sary yearly increase of houses not exceeding £20 
 
igo I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 annual value at 75,000, the committee cited a total 
 of 300,000 houses as actually requiring erection 
 during 1918. On this basis the shortage in England 
 and Wales alone at the end of that year would be 
 375,000. Allowing for replacement of insanitary 
 dwellings, a very moderate estimate brought the 
 total up to 500,000.* For Scotland the correspond- 
 ing estimate was 150,000. 
 
 QThese totals, it must be clearly understood, 
 referred to the provision of such additional accom- 
 modation as would reduce the general average to not 
 more than two persons per room — ^living rooms 
 included, and two children reckoned as the equivalent 
 of one adult. And this two-per-room standard 
 implied more than a mere return to pre-war condi- 
 tions : the pre-war standard was much lower. 
 The estimate of the Registrar General published in 
 January, rgai, stated that " as the estimated 
 population for 1919 is 700,000 in excess of that at 
 the last census, it would only require (apart from 
 replacement of defective houses) a net addition of 
 140,000 houses for the whole period 1911-1919 to 
 maintain the 1911 average — that is, if the new 
 census shows the present population estimate to 
 be fairly correct." This statement was interpreted 
 in several prejudiced quarters as an authoritative 
 contradiction of the official estimate of half-a-milhon. 
 But all that it establishes is the truism that the igri 
 standard {a fortiori the 1913 standard) was deplorably 
 lower than that underlying the Government scheme : 
 since it included some two milhon persons Uving under 
 overcrowded conditions, while 178,876 houses in 
 England and Wales alone were unfit for habitation. 
 What in fact the pre-war standard of accommodation 
 meant in, say, Glasgow or the East End of I/>ndon — 
 
 * A survey of England and Wales undertaken by local authorities 
 in the spring of 1920 resulted in a total of about 800,000, from which 
 79,000 may be deducted as due to overlapping, etc. 
 
HOMES FOR HKROKS 191 
 
 what, for example, was involved in a woman's 
 confinement where she, and her husband, and two 
 or three children, had one room between them — 
 it is unnecessary to describe ; but it may be pointed 
 out that seven out of the eight Commissioners on 
 Industrial Unrest cited the inadequacy of accom- 
 modation as one of its main causes in June, 1917. 
 
 To trace the development of the post-war situation 
 in detail is beyond our present purpose. For years 
 before the war, working-class property, for a variety 
 of interesting reasons, had been failing to attract 
 capital ; even during the years 1911-1913, when the 
 annual value of new factories and workshops erected 
 increased by 50 per cent., there was a decrease in the 
 corresponding figures for new dwelling-houses of 
 roughly one-tenth. In fact the question came before 
 Parliament in July, 1914, when a proposal that the 
 Board of Agriculture should be empowered to provide 
 15,000 cottages in rural areas was vetoed. Some- 
 thing was done, however, for the industrial employees 
 of the Government by the Housing Act of August 
 loth, under which the Office of Works itself, or the 
 I/)cal Government Board by means of authorised 
 societies, received power to provide urgently needed 
 accormnodation up to the value of £2,000,000. 
 A month later, by way of meeting the war-unemploy- 
 ment, a second Housing Act was passed, by which 
 the Board of Agriculture in rural areas and the 
 lyocal Government Board elsewhere were empowered 
 to provide, indirectly or directly if other means 
 failed, for the building of new houses wherever 
 needed to a maximum cost of £4,000,000. But the 
 wave of unemployment passed, and the Act, which 
 was in any case limited to a year's operation, had 
 little or no effect on the main problem. Such 
 building labour as remained in the country was 
 increasingly drawn to Goverrunent work — to the 
 munition||factories or the camps ; and both the 
 
192 lyABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 War Office and the Admiralty, acting in some cases 
 through the armament firms themselves, began 
 building houses in the more congested areas of pro- 
 duction. Then came the positive restrictions on 
 private building in 1916 ; while the Ministry of 
 Munitions, supplemented at Rosyth by the Scottish 
 Local Government Board, and at Woolwich by the 
 Ofiice of Works, " ran up " accommodation — ^per- 
 manent or temporary, but in either case tolerable 
 — for over 30,000 war-workers. , An incidental result 
 of this very necessary procedure was to create a 
 sort of vested interest in the munition centres after 
 the Armistice ; particularly at Woolwich, where 
 the demand of both the " town " and the munition 
 workers for the allotment of civil work to the Arsenal 
 was strengthened by the fact that even if the thou- 
 sands of " munitioneers " could be dispersed with a 
 fair prospect of finding employment, other accommo- 
 dation they certainly could not find. 
 
 All this, however, touched but the fringe of the 
 national housing problem ; and by the time Parlia- 
 ment was invited to deal with that, another year's 
 deficiency had accrued. The acquisition in Decem- 
 ber, 1918, of a new lease of life by the Coalition 
 nerved the Government to set about it in earnest ; 
 and in the following session proposals were introduced 
 by Dr. Addison which became the Housing Act of 
 July 31st, 1919. By this Act compulsion was laid 
 upon local authorities to take stock of their areas 
 and submit to the Ministry of Health housing schemes 
 to meet their respective needs ; which should they 
 fail to do, the County Councils or the Ministry might 
 act in their stead, and charge the cost. 
 
 The Government undertook to indemnify the local 
 authorities for any loss on approved housing schemes 
 in excess of the product of a penny rate — ^save where 
 the State acted in default of the local body, which 
 might then be made liable for the full es^enditure. 
 
HOMES FOR HKROES 193 
 
 A group of miscellaneous provisions of the Act 
 enabled the Ivocal Authorities to acquire the neces- 
 sary sites and rights with a minimum of delay, and 
 gave additional powers in regard to finance and the 
 employment of public utiUty societies ; and with a 
 view to the more distant future, local authorities 
 with populations above 20,000 on January ist, 1923, 
 were charged to submit town-planning schemes 
 within the next three years. 
 
 Unfortunately, it did not appear that local authori- 
 ties were eager to incur even the limited liabilities 
 of the Act ; and with the cessation of the restriction 
 upon private building and the continuance of Kxcess 
 Profits Duty, contractors found many more attractive 
 openings then " small property." Something more 
 was needed to start housing operations ; and ia the 
 Housing (Additional Powers) Act of December, 1919, 
 the Government undertook to provide it. 
 
 Subsidies up to a total of £15,000,000 (for England 
 and Wales £12,000,000) were now made payable by 
 the Ministry of Health to private builders in respect 
 of approved houses begun and completed within the 
 following twelve months. The original amounts 
 offered were from £120 to £160 per house, according 
 to size ; but in May, 1920, the offer was increased 
 to £230 to £260, and at the end of the year the time 
 limit was extended hf another twelve months. 
 By the same Act local authorities were authorised 
 to issue local bonds, secured upon local rates and 
 revenues, of amounts from £5 to £100 bearing 
 interest at 6 per cent. They were also given power 
 to prevent the demolition of habitable dwellings 
 within their areas, and — here enters the labour 
 problem — to restrict the amount of counter-attrac- 
 tion offered to labour by " luxury building." 
 
 As a result of the general speeding up, the number 
 of houses in schemes for which tenders were approved 
 increased during the first six months of 1920 from 
 
194 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 19,175 to 120,405. A vigorous propaganda for the 
 local loans was carried on from the spring, and 
 during the year about 15I million pounds was sub- 
 scribed. Unfortimately the number of houses 
 actually put in hand was sadly lower than these 
 figures might suggest, and infinitely lower than the 
 popular anticipation. 
 
 By the end of March, 1920, 1,239 houses were 
 completed by local authorities, and plans had been 
 approved for a total of 161,837; in addition, 
 96 houses had been built by public utility societies 
 and County Councils. Twelve months later, the 
 plans approved for local authorities had reached 
 a total of 275,868 and the houses completed by 
 them numbered 25,878. In addition, pubUc 
 utility societies and County Councils had built 
 2,012, and priyate persons 13.703.* This result, 
 considerable in itself, was insufiicient to affect 
 the general situation, and public opinion was 
 castigating the traditional scape-goats — Govern- 
 ment and I^abour. In respect of the trade tmions, 
 criticism was particularly bitter. A ca'canny policy 
 was undoubtedly prevalent ; and there were other 
 factors of the situation of which some account must 
 be given. 
 
 §2- 
 
 The nature of the industry had always rendered 
 the Building Trades peculiarly liable to fluctuations 
 in employment ; and during the three years pre- 
 
 * By mid-JiHy, when the scheme was foreclosed, the number of houses 
 built, building and approved under local authorities and public utility 
 societies' schemes was 176,000, and under the private subsidy scheme 
 about 23,000. of the total, about 60,000 were then completed. 
 (Hd. H/C, July 14th, and statement to Press by Ministry of Health. 
 Times, July 2rst.) For full statistics see Second Annual Report of the 
 Ministry of Health. (Cmd. 1446, 1921.) 
 
HOMES FOR HKROKS 195 
 
 ceding the outbreak of war this disadvantage had 
 been increasingly manifest. According to the ideas 
 then prevaiUng, the one practicable remedy for this 
 state of things lay in the strict enforcement of 
 those provisions of Trade Unionism which tended 
 to control the supply of available labour. This 
 policy culminated, as we have seen, in the protracted 
 disputes of the summer of 1914, of which the funda- 
 mental issue was the principle of Trade Unionism. 
 But, further, the recruitment of the Building Trades 
 had been steadily declining ; apprentices were 
 being increasingly attracted to other industries where 
 the prospects were more certain ; and in the view of 
 the Trade Union leaders this decline could only be 
 counteracted by the improvement in general con- 
 ditions and security of emplojmient, to be achieved 
 through trade union action. During the first year 
 after the war it was evident that the industry would 
 be faced with a further serious decline in the labour 
 forces available ; it appeared in fact that between 
 1914 and 1919 a deficiency of nearly 200,000 workr 
 men had accrued. The national housing programme 
 thus gave the trade unions a stronger position than 
 they had ever known ; and they came to the natural 
 conclusion that if ever a permanent improvement in 
 the status of building labour was to be achieved, 
 now was the time for it. 
 
 The extent to which housing schemes were actually 
 retarded by scarcity of skilled labour, is a highly 
 controversial question. The spokesmen of the 
 Government alleged, with increasing insistence as 
 public criticism of the progress made on housing 
 became more urgent, that the labour shortage was 
 a determining factor. The operatives, in reply, 
 pointed time after time to the trade union statistics 
 which showed that even at the end of 1920 as many 
 as 50,000 skilled men in the building industry were 
 yet unemployed. It will be recalled that a similar 
 
196 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 argument was put forward by the engineers in 1915, 
 when it proved inconclusive. And in 1920, as in 
 1915, the necessity of the work was made the basis 
 of a request by the Government for dilution of the 
 skilled trades, the Government case being now 
 reinforced by the necessity of finding employment 
 for very large numbers of ex-service men. The 
 negotiations on this question f ocussed in the Resettle- 
 ment Committee of the Building Trades Industrial 
 Council, which during the greater part of 1920 
 conducted an intricate and apparently interminable 
 controversy with the Ministry of Health as to the 
 labour requirements of the national housing program 
 and the estimated cost of certain of the proposals 
 put forward by the operatives. In August the 
 Government proposals were formulated as follows : 
 
 (i) That the numbers of skilled workmen in the industry 
 should be augmented by the intensive training of labourers 
 to the level of skilled men, the admittance of both juvenile 
 and adult apprentices for special terms of training, and the 
 intensive training of ex-service men. 
 
 (2) That a system of payment by results should be 
 adopted. 
 
 (3) That in return a guaranteed week, including payment 
 for time lost through bad weather, should be granted to 
 workmen on housing schemes. 
 
 In reply the operatives indicated a firm objection 
 to pa3Tnent by results, and put forward an alterna- 
 tive scheme, agreed on by the Industrial Council, 
 for adult apprenticeship ; at the same time the 
 estimates on which the Government proposals were 
 based were exhaustively criticised. 
 
 To cut short a somewhat intricate story, it may be 
 stated that in the following December what were 
 described by the Minister of I^abour as the " definite 
 and final proposals of the Government " were sub- 
 mitted. In these proposals the Government's ofifer 
 was amended as follows : 
 
HOMES FOR HEROES 197 
 
 (i) That the skilled unions should absorb for intensive 
 training not less than 50,000 ex-service men. 
 
 (2) That in return the proposals for a guaranteed week 
 should be applied. 
 
 (3) That the Government should pay £5 per head to the 
 Trade Union funds for every dilutee accepted. 
 
 The offer is of so unique a character that the words 
 in which Dr. Macnamara, on December 21st, 1920, 
 explained it to a somewhat critically minded House 
 of Commons, deserve quotation : 
 
 " We say ' Take these men. Train them to 
 be skilled craftsmen so that they can permanently 
 earn hereafter the decent subsistence they so 
 richly deserve.' We also say, ' Here is £5 for 
 their training, £2 when they enter training, £3 
 at the end of the three years' course.' The 
 building trades say in a sentence, ' Well, but 
 pre-war we suffered grave periods of unemploy- 
 ment.' That is true. They say in effect, ' When 
 the housing arrears are made up are we to go 
 back to all that ? ' We say, ' Your fears we 
 think are really unfounded even when housing 
 arrears are made up. What is here proposed 
 will do no more than recruit your ranks to their 
 normal strength. But if you have any genuine 
 anxieties on that point, we suggest to you that 
 you should use the training grant as the nucleus 
 of a fund upon which you can build a really 
 effective insurance scheme for your members, 
 old and new.' That, I think, is a perfectly 
 fair offer and involves a perfectly square deal. 
 The next word, as I say, is with the building 
 trades." 
 The next word was decisive. A ballot of the 
 trade unions held in January, 1921, resulted in 
 310,000 votes against the Government scheme and 
 2,500 in favour. This marked the end of the negotia- 
 tions between the Unions and the Government. The 
 
igS I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 latter approached the Employers' Federation with 
 the request that the Master Builders should consent 
 to take 50,000 ex-service men ; and by a vote of 
 employers the request was accepted. The move was 
 interpreted by the operatives as a further challenge, 
 and was countered by the adoption of a policy 
 which may best be described as one of passive 
 resistance. Employers in many districts proved 
 unwilling to force the issue, and apart from the 
 Ofl&ce of Works, the number of dilutees actually 
 employed was neghgible. With the trade depression 
 of the summer of 192 1, and the abandonment of 
 the national housing programme, the prospect of 
 enforcing dilution on the building trades sank 
 unnoticed out of sight. 
 
 The whole episode, it may be remarked in passing, 
 was interpreted — not only in quarters normally 
 hostile to the idea of State enterprise — as a significant 
 object-lesson ; and a considerable section of the 
 community began to wonder whether, in view of 
 subsidies to the builders for building the houses, and 
 subsidies to the unions for allowing the extra labour, 
 the Government might not have been better advised 
 to let the whole business alone. 
 
 §3- 
 
 Meanwhile, however, the operatives had not 
 confined themselves to merely negative action ; 
 and in this respect also the story goes back to 1914. 
 During the I/Dndon lockout of that year important 
 work had successfully been executed by direct labour. 
 The memory of the experiment survived with effect, 
 and among its results was the advocacy of the same 
 method of work by the labour organisations in 
 connection with local housing schemes. A consider- 
 able number of housing contracts were, in fact, 
 
HOMES FOR HKROES 199 
 
 successfully carried out on these lines ; and one of 
 them, as of special significance, is worth describing 
 in some detail. 
 
 At Camberwell, where special difficulties arose in 
 respect of the local housing scheme, the Ministry of 
 Health invited the assistance of the Office of Works ; 
 and at the request of the Borough Council direct 
 administration was resorted to. The Council claimed 
 that this method would eliminate a good deal of the 
 cost and, by arousing the public spirit of the work- 
 men, would also secure better work and higher output. 
 Accordingly the Office of Works entered into close 
 relations with the local Trades and I^abour Council. 
 The latter undertook to recruit the necessary labour, 
 and foremen were appointed by a small Joint 
 Committee of the two bodies. The result was a 
 
 distinct success. 
 
 " It certainly must be said (states the journal of the 
 Ministry of Health Housing ^Department) that these 
 claims have undoubtedly been substantiated. The general 
 progress of the work has been rapid and excellent ; the 
 amount of skilled labour has been increased in accordance 
 with the requirements of the three jobs ; while the output 
 of the labour has been above that of the normal output in 
 other works in lyondon. The men show the keenest 
 interest in furthering the progress of the work, and act 
 throughout as recruiters for the necessary labour required 
 as the job opens up. . . . 
 
 " The relations between the Office of Works and the 
 Borough Council and the Trades and I/abour Council are 
 of the most cordial nature. The Office of Works I^abour 
 Officer attends meetings of the Trades Council and hears 
 all grievances at those meetings, and acts in conjunction 
 with their officers and also with the manager of 
 the Employment Exchange. The local feehng between 
 the union officials and the manager of the Employment 
 Exchange is excellent, and has proved very helpful through- 
 out the progress of the work. One of the most convincing 
 signs of satisfaction with the job is that practically no 
 labour has left the site since its first engagement, with the 
 exception of a very few men dismissed for inefficiency, etc. 
 Further, the I^abour and Trades Council have agreed with 
 
200 lyABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 the Office of Works to the principle of dilution of the skilled 
 operatives by utilising trainees and improvers who are 
 disabled ex-soldiers and also, under certain conditions, 
 apprentices. ... 
 
 There can be no question that by the execution of this 
 work by direct administration with sympathetic help 
 from labour the progress is excellent, and the scheme will 
 be economical and rapid in execution." 
 
 But the ideal of the advance guard among the 
 workmen went further than this. In the original 
 proposals that led to the formation of the Building 
 Trades Parliament there was foreshadowed the 
 formation of two codes, one compulsory, the other 
 voluntary, on which the industry might be organised 
 as " a great national service." Both these codes, 
 developed in the meantime by the influence of 
 Guild SociaUst ideas, were elaborated by a com- 
 mittee of the Building Industrial Council during 1919 
 and 1920. As formulated in the much discussed 
 " Foster Report " they provide, broadly speaking, 
 for the collective control by those, and only those, 
 engaged in the industry, of both capital and means of 
 production ; they provide for the remuneration of 
 all grades of workers upon fixed and guaranteed 
 scales ; for the decasualisation of labour ; the 
 regularisation of emplo5'^ment ; the superannuation 
 of operatives ; and the devotion of surplus revenue 
 to the common good of the industry. The ideal 
 explicitly aimed at was the increased efficiency of 
 the industry as an organised public service, combined 
 with democratic control and improvement in status. 
 A draft scheme for a National Building Guild 
 appeared as an Appendix to the " Foster Report." 
 
 It is not surprising that these proposals failed 
 to secure the support of the Building Trades Council. 
 Such a body, on which all differences of opinion on 
 either side are concentrated while the opportunity 
 for persuasion is reduced to a minimum, is seldom in 
 a position even adequately to criticise experimental 
 schemes of such a nature. But the discussion had at 
 
HOMKS FOR HKROKS 201 
 
 least the indirect effect of advertising the construc- 
 tive ideals in the industry ; and when at Manchester, 
 in January, 1920, a definite scheme for the formation 
 of a Guild was drawn up by the local trade unions, 
 the ground was to some extent already prepared 
 throughout the country. 
 
 The leading spirit in the Manchester movement 
 was S. G. Hobson, a prominent exponent of Guild 
 Socialism ; and it was fortunate for the trade union 
 leaders that they were able to reach at Manchester 
 an embodiment of their ideals which was sound 
 both in practice and in law. The direct labovir 
 movement was now brought to a point at which the 
 trade unions themselves were able to administer 
 contracts from start to finish. For this purpose 
 a small limited company with a nominal capital of 
 ;f 100 was formed and registered under the No Profit 
 Clauses of the Joint Stock Acts ; and to this Company 
 the local Guild Committees which rapidly sprang up 
 were affihated. Payments were to be made to and 
 through the central body thus incorporated, and 
 questions of general finance, administration and 
 management were allocated to it. The actual 
 carrying out of contracts was, however, relegated 
 to the local Guild Committees, which were to 
 choose their own managers and foremen, to arrange 
 for the purchase of their own plant^ control their 
 individual accounts, and to take responsibility for 
 the supply and efficiency of labour. Guild Com- 
 mittees on these lines were formed during the first 
 half of 1920 in over fifty centres, mostly in the 
 Midlands and the North of England. Meanwhile, 
 in I^ondon a second Guild of Builders was established 
 in May and registered as an Industrial Society under 
 the Industrial and Provident Societies Acts, with 
 Malcolm Sparkes as Secretary. As at Manchester, 
 control was vested in a body of representatives 
 elected by the functional groups in the industry ; and 
 
202 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 the principle of industrial democracy has been so 
 consistently applied that even the labourers on guild 
 contracts elect their own " gangers." A feature of 
 the I/ondon experiment was the call for volunteers — 
 a call extended to and answered by professional 
 as well as manual workers. 
 
 The placing of guild contracts by local authorities 
 brought up the question of purchase of materials, 
 for which neither the latter nor the trade unionists 
 were as a rule equipped with the necessary experience. 
 The difficulty was solved by the association in the 
 contracts of the Co-operative Wholesale Society, 
 which placed the services of the Building Department 
 at the guilds' disposal. The Co-operative Whole- 
 sale Bank also assisted the formation of the London 
 guild, and subsequently arranged to insure local 
 authorities against loss in respect of guild contracts. 
 These provisions formed part of an agreement as 
 to contracts concluded between the guilds and the 
 Ministry of Health in July, 1920, on the basis of 
 which the Ministry, in face of considerable criticism,- 
 undertook to sanction up to 20 guild contracts^-of 
 which, however, only 13 were actually placed. The 
 whole guild movement was reorganised on a 
 national basis at Manchester on July 23rd, 1921 ; 
 the scheme provided for a tripartite system of 
 local committees, regional councils, and a National 
 Board, and the gu2d announced its readiness to 
 undertake work of any description. " We are now 
 prepared," said the chairman of the National 
 Building Guild I^td., " to step into the field 
 and capture the control of the whole buUdii^ 
 industry." 
 
 §4- 
 The fundamental principles underljdng the guild 
 
HOMES FOR HEROES 203 
 
 organisation are thus indicated in an early report 
 issued by the Manchester group : 
 
 (i) " The abolition of the existing wage-contract in favour 
 of a system by which labour shall be the first charge upon 
 the industry. . . . Since dividends take priority over 
 labour the Guild declines to issue any shares or stock of 
 any description. It gives effect at the same time to the 
 principle of the industrial maintenance of the unemployed." 
 Guaranteed continuous payment, irrespective of time 
 lost in bad weather, was a cardinal condition of Gmld 
 service. 
 
 (2) " The Guild declares (and acts upon its own belief) 
 that industry must be conducted not with accumulated 
 capital mostly stolen from labour, but upon the group 
 credit inherent in industrial organisation." 
 
 (3) " The Gmld further declares that democratic prin- 
 ciples are at least equally desirable in industry as in 
 politics. It therefore provides the machinery to compass 
 that end." 
 
 (4) " The Guild declares that it has a definite duty to the 
 community. . . . This duty is best accompU^ed by 
 returning to the community all and any surplus over the 
 cost of production " — cost being reckoned to include the 
 maintenance in bad times as in good of Gmld labour. 
 
 (5) " The GuUd declares that true craftsmanship must be 
 revived. There is no reason, save only the profiteering 
 greed of modem capitalism, why building gmldsmen should 
 not equal or surpass the triumphs of the mediaeval period. 
 But to attain this the National Building Guild must control 
 not only its mature but its immature labour. AH technical 
 instruction and training must come under the Guild's 
 jurisdiction." 
 
 It is indeed a remarkable and significant progress 
 from the first enunciation of " organised public ser- 
 vice " as an ideal in Malcolm Sparkes' proposals of 
 1916 to the proclamation of that watchword on 
 notice boards up and down the country behind which 
 many thousands of operatives are actually working : 
 and working with a will, so that their output is not 
 infrequently two or three times as great as that of 
 
204 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 the men working under the old profit-making regime.* 
 To what ultimate end that progress will lead it is 
 as yet too early to say. The ability of the guild 
 system to cope with fluctuations in demand arisiag 
 from general causes, and the adaptability of its 
 financial arrangements to the normal economic 
 position of the industry and the working of the general 
 credit system, have yet to be demonstrated. This 
 much at least may be said already — ^that the pioneers 
 of the building guilds have succeeded in inculcating 
 a spirit in industry which no profit-sharing, co- 
 partnership, industrial council or other scheme has 
 hitherto made possible ; and that they have demon- 
 strated, in a difficult time and none too promising a 
 field, the possibiUties of a new social ideal. 
 
 * See Report on Building Guilds by Mr. Smest Selley, Garden Citiei 
 and Town Planning Journal, June, X921. By July 1921 work valued at 
 j£3oo,ooo was stated to have been completed by the guild committees, 
 of which 115 were then in existence. (See Report of Manchester Con- 
 ference, Daily Herald,'' J xily 25th, 1921.) 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " A Conservative Sort of Animai,." 
 
 §1- 
 
 In the general record of the three years following 
 the election of 1918 it is impossible sharply to dis- 
 tinguish the poHtical and the industrial aspects of 
 the I^abour movement. The term itself ceased in 
 fact to have any clear and single connotation, and 
 while its use remains an unfortunate necessity — 
 in the absence of any satisfactory alternative — 
 the plural form is really more applicable than the 
 singular to the tangle of tendencies we have now to 
 unravel. 
 
 Despite the growth in size and influence of the 
 trade unions during the war, and the reconstitution 
 of the enlarged I^abour party directly after it, the 
 year 1918 found the I^abour movement as a whole 
 rather worse off in respect of co-ordinating machinery 
 than it had been four years earlier. By the Trade 
 Union Act of 1913 the political and industrial 
 activities of the trade unions had to be kept at 
 least formally separate ; but taking labour as 
 a whole, the separation was much more than formal. 
 The lyabour party — now definitely Socialist — ^while 
 it exceeded the scope of trade union orgatusation, 
 was not coterminous with the whole trade union 
 
2o6 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 membership. The Trade Union Congress — ^the par- 
 liament, or " talking " of the unions — annually 
 registered an incredible mmiber of resolutions on 
 general policy ; but its Executive Committee could 
 do no more to enforce them than deputise Govern- 
 ment departments or pass them on for constitutional 
 action by the I^abour party. It could neither call 
 nor administer a general strike, and the increased 
 industrial strength of the unions thus remained 
 without any effective centre of concentration and 
 direction. The Triple Alliance had come into being 
 as a partial remedy for this state of affairs, ousting 
 in its rise the conservative " General Federation of 
 Trade Unions " ; but neither on the political nor on 
 the industrial side was there room as yet for a third 
 directing party, and the Alliance had to bide its time 
 and place. Meanwhile it was easy to see that should 
 any specific issue arise on which I^abour opinion 
 was so strong as to demand united and positive action 
 the movement would probably fall back on its original 
 method, or no-method, of improvisation. Such an 
 issue arose over Russia. 
 
 For the effective expression of its views, which 
 were emphatic, on this aspect of Government poUcy, 
 the lyabour party was under the disadvantage that 
 the measures to which it objected were not matters 
 of Parliamentary decision. Had the leaders of 
 opinion been content to accept the situation all 
 would doubtless have been well ; but as time and 
 miUtary action in Russia went on, the official labour 
 opposition was reinforced by an extra-official ad hoc 
 body called the " Hands off Russia Committee." 
 This Committee, which was by no means exclusively 
 composed of pro-Bolsheviks, conducted a vigorous 
 agitation against the Government policy, largely by 
 street meetings ; and getting more desperate as its 
 apparent impotence was revealed, at last issued a 
 manifesto (May, 1920) on its own account " to the 
 
"A CONSERVATIVE SORT OF ANIMAI," 207 
 
 organised workers of Great Britain," calling for a 
 national labour conference and a general strike. This 
 action, it may be noticed, was resented as an inter- 
 ference by the oflScials of the Transport Workers' 
 Federation. By this time, however, the question 
 of Allied action in the Russo-Polish war was exciting 
 general attention, and sporadic instances of direct 
 action were breaking out against the transport of 
 munitions from England. It was plain that the 
 occasion for whatever general and drastic protest 
 labour could compass had arrived. Some looked 
 to the Triple Alliance, others to the Trade Union 
 Congress for a lead ; since for such a lead there was 
 no extant machinery. At length the Parliamentary 
 Committee of the Trade Union Congress, the 
 Executive Committee of the I^abour Party, and the 
 Parliamentary I^abour Party (the names are less 
 ctmibrous than the reality) were brought together 
 in a Cormnittee Room of the House of Commons ; 
 where on August gith, 1920, they proceeded to 
 appoint a special " Council of Action " representing 
 the entire I^abour movement (singular or plural). 
 A conference of over 1,000 delegates was assembled 
 four days later at the Central Hall, Westminster, at 
 which the Council of Action was enthusiastically 
 approved. If, as Frank Hodges once remarked, the 
 average British workman is "a conservative sort 
 of animal," he was on this occasion much mis- 
 represented. The Council was instructed to remain 
 in session until it had secured an absolute guarantee 
 of British non-intervention in Russia, and the 
 recognition of the Soviet Government ,' and it was 
 authorised to call for " any and every form of with- 
 drawal of labour which circumstances may require 
 to give effect to the foregoing policy." Whether 
 or no the Council could have called with effect 
 remains a moot point, since the necessity was 
 obviated by negotiation with the Government. 
 
2o8 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 It was claimed that the decision actually prevented 
 a declaration of war by Great Britain, and expedited 
 a Russo-Polish peace. More relevant to the present 
 study is the fact that an attempt had been made to 
 mobilise the whole force of I^abour on a political 
 issue ; and the precedent was subsequently recalled 
 on more than one occasion. No attempt was made, 
 however, to wield the power conferred upon the 
 Council of Action, and no subsequent issue arose 
 on which there was so thorough a unanimity in the 
 I^abour movement. General opinion was that the 
 power of a general strike could not, even at the time, 
 have been evoked by the Council of Action with 
 success. The onus of a lead in the direction of a 
 general strike thus devolved on the Triple Alliance. 
 An important advance, however, was made to- 
 wards a better organisation of trade unionism as a 
 whole by the adoption Of the " general staff " 
 scheme in September, 1920. It was then decided 
 that from the Trade Union Congress of 1921 central 
 control should reside in a General Council of 32 
 members, elected to represent 17 specified groups 
 of industries in a proportion based upon the trade 
 union membership in each group. The General 
 Council was to take charge of industrial poHcy and 
 propaganda generally, to promote the settlement 
 of inter-union disputes, to act with the I^abour 
 party on political questions, and with the trade 
 unions concerned on industrial questions. It was 
 also to constitute the only official means of affiliation 
 with the international trade union movement. This 
 decision was by way of discarding the machinery of 
 the old General Federation of Trade Unions, a body 
 which had never covered more than a small pro- 
 portion of the total trade union membership, and 
 that the most conservative. 
 
" A CONSKRVATIVK SORT OF ANIMAI, " 209 
 
 §2. 
 
 The more positive effect of the reaction to Russian 
 affairs is a longer story, to which, for clue, the 
 avowed and consistently-pursued policy of I^enin 
 must be borne in mind. That policy, outlined by the 
 executive of the Third (Cominunist) International 
 was, in brief, the deliberate splitting up of the 
 Socialist and lyabour parties in all countries so that 
 a compact revolutionary nucleus might emerge. 
 The nucleus was to act as the revolutionary advance 
 guard of Communism, attacking both Parliamentary 
 and old trade union organisations from within and 
 without, by means legal or illegal as occasion 
 demanded. The immediate aim was the estabhshment 
 of a proletarian dictatorship as the only means to 
 the workers' revolution. A majority in elections was 
 not a primary necessity : the majority was to be 
 obtained by the dictatorship, not the dictatorship 
 by the majority, and the prospect of physical 
 as well as merely dialectical or verbal war must be 
 faced. At least the first item of this program met 
 with considerable success throughout Europe. 
 
 During the war, as we have seen in previous chap- 
 ters, the rank-and-file and the shop stewards move- 
 ments received their impetus from what were mainly 
 industrial questions. The unofficial movement 
 attained in June, 1917, a central organisation, and 
 the National Administrative Council then estab- 
 lished acted as a centre of co-ordination for the 
 Shop Stewards Committees, Workers' Committees, 
 Vigilance Committees and other local unofficial 
 organisations. During 1918 and 1919 the general 
 drift of the movement had become more and more 
 political and revolutionary ; and from " industrial 
 unionism " and " control by the workers " it pro- 
 
210 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 gressed towards frank Sovietism. At the same time, 
 however, the scope and the coherence of the move- 
 ment diminished, and its membership underwent 
 a certain purge ; so that by 1920 the unofficial 
 committees had largely lost touch, had ceased to 
 function in some cases, and were seeking affiliation 
 to Moscow in others. It was on the basis of what was 
 left of the Workers' Committee movement that the 
 British Socialist Party, the Socialist I^abour Party, 
 the Workers' Socialist Federation, the South Wales 
 Socialist Society, and certain other minor revolu- 
 tionary groups set to work. The " Hands off 
 Russia " agitation was in some cases contributory 
 to their aim ; in others local organisations of 
 unemployed or of ex-service men supplied converts 
 and assistance. 
 
 Throughout the winter of 1919-1920 attempts were 
 in progress to combine the various societies above 
 referred to in a united Communist party ; but 
 differences on the question of tactics proved insuper- 
 able up to April, 1920. The question immediately 
 at issue was that of affiliation to the I^abour Party, 
 and the Workers' SociaHst Federation (Sylvia Pank- 
 hurst) maintained a solitary stand against any 
 connexion with reformist movements. To this atti- 
 tude the other organisations demurred ; and I/enin, 
 to whom Sylvia appealed, also opposed it on the 
 ground of expediency. Minor differences separated 
 the B.S.P. and the S.I/.P., and in the event not one 
 but three Communist parties were announced, all 
 claiming affiliation to the Third International, and 
 all criticising each other in pubHc according to the 
 established tradition of British working-class politics. 
 
 Acting on the Moscow policy, the new " Communist 
 Party of Great Britain " (formed on the basis of the 
 erstwhile British SociaHst Party in August, 1926) 
 applied to the I^abour party for affiliation ; and was 
 promptly refused. The I^abour party had just 
 
" A CONSERVATIVE SORT OF ANIMAL " 211 
 
 assisted in setting up its own " Council of Action " 
 which no wilder a revolutionary than J. H. Thomas 
 described as " a challenge to the whole constitution of 
 the country." During the war, moreover, as the 
 Communists pointed out, " the I.I/.P. had a policy 
 absolutely opposed to the declared policy of the 
 I^abour party, and they were not expelled nor was 
 their annual application for affiliation questioned." 
 But to admit this avowedly revolutionary organisa- 
 tion, with its anti-bourgeois policy, its advocacy of 
 the Soviet and the proletarian dictatorship, and 
 unconstitutionalism, and violence, and the devil 
 (or I^nin) knew what else — ^that was demanding 
 too much of the I<abour party. Clearly there could 
 be no room in " the house that we propose to erect " 
 for tenants of this sort. I^ocal branches of the 
 I^abour party were therefore instructed to follow 
 the lead of the National Executive in excluding the 
 Communists. 
 
 This decision of the I^abour party solved for the 
 Communists the dispute as to tactics ; but personali- 
 ties as well as principles stood in the way of co- 
 ordination, and a direct instruction from Moscow 
 was necessary to set the unity negotiations going 
 again. At last (January 29th, 1921) representatives 
 of the three parties and of various local Communist 
 groups met in conference at I^eeds and accepted 
 a basis of common action on the lines of the Moscow 
 policy. 
 
 A considerable part ia these negotiations was 
 taken by the National Council of Shop Stewards and 
 Workers' Committees which by this time were largely 
 permeated with Communist elements. But as an 
 industrial movement they did not form a part of 
 the unified Communist party, though their poUcy 
 of industrial action and workers' control was used as 
 a spur to Communism in workshop propaganda. 
 The Shop Stewards and Workers' Committees con- 
 
212 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 stituted in fact the industrial arm of the Communist 
 organisation, and it was largely by their action that 
 the attack on " reactionary " trade unionism was 
 made from within the unions. 
 
 The manoeuvre of September, 1920, was repeated 
 hj the left wing group of the Independent "Cahom 
 Party, and in March, 1921, a resolution favouring 
 affiliation to the Communist International was sub- 
 mitted to the delegate conference at Southport and 
 decisively rejected ; whereupon the Communist 
 section of the membership decided to withdraw and 
 to join the official Commtmist party. It was asserted 
 by The Communist that some 5,000 or more new 
 members were thus added en bloc. On the political 
 side the bifurcation was thus completed. But on 
 the industrial side confusion still remained, and 
 members of the Shop Stewards and Workers' Com- 
 mittees continued their propaganda within the 
 unions. This propaganda, in addition to its strictly 
 industrial aspect, was increasingly directed towards 
 affiliation to the Trade Union Section of the Third 
 International (the " Red " Trade Union Inter- 
 national) ; and although the Workers' Committee 
 movement as such remained outside the Communist 
 party, it became an active recruiting agency. In the 
 mining industry the unofficial reform committees 
 were co-ordinated on a national scale in February, 
 1921, when Communism was de&iitely adopted 
 as an aim of industrial policy, it being interpreted 
 to mean " the ownership and absolute control of the 
 means of livelihood by the working classes." A 
 manifesto issued by the " British Miners' Reform 
 Movement " called for concerted agitation within 
 the unions to secure a new constitution for the 
 Miners' Federation ; rank-and-file control of officials 
 and poUcy ; and afl&liation to the Red Trade Union 
 International. Reform Committees were at that 
 date organised in South Wales, Yorkshire, Fifeshire, 
 
"A CONSERVATIVB SORT OF ANIMAI." 213 
 
 I/anarkshire, and the nortli of England ; but they 
 were not as a whole formally affiliated to the 
 Workers' Committee movement. On the industrial 
 side, therefore, the revolutionary elements were 
 still unsegregated ; and the possibility of a Triple 
 AlUance strike tended for the time being to postpone 
 a division. 
 
 Of the importance of the Communist revolutionary 
 movement as a whole, it is impossible to speak in any 
 save the most general terms. Where, as in South 
 Wales, its adherents were fairly numerous and in 
 close touch, its influence was considerable ; where, 
 as in Yorkshire and in lyondon, its adherents were 
 scattered through various localities and industries, 
 it could encourage unrest, but not to the point of any 
 general action. The expulsion from the I^abour 
 party of the Communists was probably a good thing 
 for both sides. The former was faced with a coherent 
 and vigorous opposition, and compelled to a more 
 definite exposition of its poUcy and tactics than it 
 had been used to putting forward ; the latter were 
 forced into the open, relieved of any motive for 
 political dissimulation, and aided, both by their 
 isolation, and by the imprisonment of some of their 
 leaders^ to achieve a compact revolutionary nucleus. 
 In industry the conflict was waged chiefly in the local 
 branches of the unions, many of which were captured 
 by the extremists. It was frequently alleged, and 
 with truth, that branch decisions of a revolutionary 
 character were engineered by Communist minorities ; 
 but the fact was no reproach to these latter. If 
 the Communists were more attentive to their lodges 
 than the Moderates, they earned any restdts that 
 might be secured ; the apathy of the latter, not the 
 energy of the former, was responsible if the lodges 
 " went red " and the position of moderate leaders 
 became difficult. Probably South Wales was the 
 only district in which a majority of the rank-and-file 
 
214 lyABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 were more advanced than their official leaders as a 
 whole. In other industries the extremists constituted 
 only a small section. But it must be recalled that 
 by Communist doctrine — ^which in this instance at 
 least corresponded to fact — a numerical majority was 
 not a necessary preliminary to revolution. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 De Profundis. 
 
 As a study both in the direction and control of mass 
 impulse, and in the strategy of present-day trade 
 unionism, the post-war history of the miners is of 
 peculiar significance. It furnishes a central clue to 
 both the ideals and the policy of the modern Labour 
 movement, and as regards either theories or tactics 
 it calls for careful examination. 
 
 As with other things not always so apprehended, 
 the sources of the nationalising movement in the coal 
 industry are psychological. For nearly 50 years 
 nationalisation of the mines has been an annual 
 aspiration of trade unionism ; but "in Wales, where 
 idealisms are prone to fever, the doctrine was held 
 with a difference, in an other than Fabian temper : 
 as witness the most famous of Welshmen asking his 
 I/imehouse audience years ago, " who was it laid 
 the foundations of the mountains and placed this 
 precious thing beneath the everlasting hills ? " You 
 do not dispose of men for whom nationalisation 
 follows on the answer to that question by arguing 
 that nationalisation is not a " business proposition." 
 
 But as a business proposition nationalisation had 
 much to recommend it to the miners. The capacity 
 of industry to earn a profit is a factor of employment 
 to which in more cases than this the men have 
 
2i6 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 objected ; but in this case of the mines there are | 
 special considerations. I^abour and capital both 
 being largely " fibsed," fluctuations in the profit- 
 earning capacity react sharply on employment in 
 the mines on the economic margin. By regulating 
 wages in accordance with the market value of the 
 product the fluctuations could to some extent be 
 counteracted before the war. But the main cost of 
 counteraction thus came out of the miners' pockets, 
 and living was Uttle cheaper for the miner in the 
 worst mine than for the miner in the best ; moreover, 
 inasmuch as there was a downward limit (varying, 
 it is true, from district to district) there was a point 
 at which counteraction became inaction — ^for the 
 miner. Alternatively, you could pool the profits of 
 all the mines, as was done under Government control 
 from February, igi8 — ^better mines thus subsidising 
 worse ones, and paying economic rent as cost of 
 counteracting the fluctuation ; and since at the back 
 of this arrangement was a State guarantee of standard 
 profits, counteraction thus became assured — at the 
 possible cost of the Exchequer. Which, said the 
 miners — coal being a natural asset and a national 
 necessity — ^was a perfectly reasonable arrangement, 
 giving the men, who served this national necessity 
 by their daily dangerous labour, good wages and 
 secure tenure of employment. But, obviously, under 
 such a system, some substitute would be necessary 
 for the working of the economic laws suspended : 
 there would be, in the extreme case, no sense in 
 producing coal that nobody wanted ; and national- 
 isation — taken to mean both national ov^nership and 
 national unification of the industry — ^became the 
 issue of the general dilemma : which were we to 
 maintain — a " natural " system in which profit- 
 earning capacity determined the working of the coal- 
 mines, or an " artificial " system under which labour 
 could be reckoned a standing first charge on the 
 
DE PROFUNDIS 217 
 
 industry, and social control take the place of 
 economic regulation ? 
 
 §1- 
 
 The second Coalition Government of Mr. Lloyd 
 George had been in the saddle barely a week when 
 the Miners' Federation (of which Robert Smillie 
 was now permanent President, and Frank Hodges 
 permanent Secretary) decided to demand of it a 
 reduction of the underground working day from 8 to 
 6 hours, an increase on standard wages of 30 per cent., 
 nationalisation of the mines, and other small matters. 
 The Government offered in reply an increase in the 
 war-wage from i8s. to 19s. — and an enquiry. This 
 was duly refused in February, 1919, and a ballot taken 
 on the question of a strike. The ballot has been cited 
 as an example of the poUcy of so framing an issue 
 as to anticipate a result desired for strategical use 
 by the executive. The ballot paper, it was stated,* 
 " asked the voter whether he was in favour of a 
 national strike to secure 
 
 (i) a 30 per cent, increase in wages ; 
 
 (2) a six-hour day ; 
 
 (3) Full maintenance at trade union rates for 
 mine workers unemployed through demobili- 
 sation ; 
 
 (4) Nationalisation of the mines. 
 
 The miner was not to write yes or no to each of the 
 questions, but yes or no to all of them. . . . The 
 public were told that the vote was for nationalisation. ' ' 
 At any rate, it was effective in arming the executive 
 with the strike weapon ; and if the miners' leaders 
 used the material promises as a means to an ulterior 
 end in policy, they were but profiting by a recent 
 conspicuous example. In fact, strike notices were 
 
 * W. A. Appleton in The Democrat, 
 
2i8 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 duly tendered, and with difficulty restrained from 
 taking effect ; while under the threat of a stoppage 
 the Government proposal for a Royal Commission 
 on the industry was embodied in an Act of Parliament 
 (February 26th, 1919), and the Miners' Federation 
 were persuaded to take part in the enquiry. A 
 determining factor in the decision was the following 
 statement made by the Home Secretary in the House 
 of Commons on February 24th : 
 
 " It is a pure business proposition, and if it 
 
 turns out on investigation that it is for the good 
 
 of the country as a whole that the mines should 
 
 be nationalised, that the people of the country 
 
 would be better off if the mines were worked 
 
 under a national system rather than under 
 
 private ownership, then it is a good business 
 
 proposition, and we should accept it." 
 
 That statement was understood by the miners to 
 
 mean that if the Commission reported in favour of 
 
 nationalisation, nationalisation there would be. 
 
 The Commission under Mr. Justice Sankey, what- 
 ever else it did, provided the finest example of a 
 public enquiry into any industry that the country 
 had yet received. The proceechngs received very 
 adequate pubhcity, and were followed with intense 
 interest — while they lasted. Whether or no public 
 opinion was any nearer a decision at the close is 
 another matter ; at least if it were not, it was not 
 for want of information. 
 
 The Interim Report (or Reports, for the miners, the 
 owners, and the independent members reported 
 separately) of the Commission was presented, as it 
 had been promised, on March 20th. The principal 
 recommendations of the Chairman and the indepen- 
 dent members were : 
 
 That an increase of 2S. per shift should be 
 granted ; 
 
DE PROFUNDIS 219. 
 
 That the underground working day should be 
 reduced from eight hours to seven ; and 
 
 That " even upon the evidence already- 
 given, the present system of ownership and 
 working in the coal industry stands condemned,^ 
 and some other system must be substituted for it,, 
 either nationalisation or a method of tmification 
 by national purchase and/or by joint control." 
 The I^eader of the House, Mr. Bonar I^aw, told the 
 House of Commons on March 20th : 
 
 " The Government is prepared to adopt the report in the 
 spirit as well as in the letter, and to take all the necessary 
 steps to carry out its recommendations without delay." 
 
 Five days later he informed the miners : 
 
 " If this Commission is allowed to continue, Interim 
 Reports will be issued dealing with subject after subject 
 in which you are vitally interested, and not merely will 
 these Interim Reports be issued, which in ordinary cir- 
 cumstances might be put in the waste-paper basket, but 
 it is part of the Government's undertaking to deal with, 
 these Reports in the spirit as well as in the letter, and steps- 
 will be taken to enable these recommendations to be carried 
 into effect." 
 
 After which assurance the miners, by ballot, 
 decided that they also would accept the recommenda- 
 tions of the Interim Report. The Commission con- 
 tinued, now with exphcit reference to the issue of 
 nationalisation. Not unnaturally, the miners' hopes 
 ran high, and higher as point after point was scored 
 by their very able representatives on the Commission. 
 On June 23rd, the final Reports appeared. The 
 Chairman's report opened as follows : 
 
 (i) I recommend that Parliament be invited 
 
 immediately to pass legislation acquiring the 
 
 coal royalties for the State and pajdng fair and 
 
 just compensation to the owners. 
 
 (2) I recommend on the evidence before me 
 
 that the principle of State ownership of the 
 
 coal mines be accepted. 
 
220 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 With these conclusions the I^abour members were in 
 substantial agreement ; there being thus a majority 
 of 7 out of the 13 members reporting in favour of 
 the principle of nationalisation. Sir Arthur Duck- 
 ham, reporting independently and against national- 
 isation, decided " that the private ownership of 
 minerals has not been and is not in the best interests 
 of the community," and that " the whole of the 
 mineral rights of Great Britain should be acquired 
 by the State," to be administered by a Ministry of 
 Mines through a series of District Boards of directors 
 on which the workmen should be represented ; and 
 that the State should retain the right to take over 
 any Board which for four years out of seven failed 
 to pay its way. The remaining members of the 
 Commission agreed " that it is clear that the present 
 economic condition of the industry cannot continue " 
 and that full nationalisation would not improve it. 
 They recommended that the State should acquire the 
 ownership of the coal in the mines, and supervise 
 both working and labour conditions ; they also 
 emphasized the importance of the decline in output. 
 On August i8th Mr. I^loyd George reminded the 
 House of Commons of the pledge as to the Interim 
 Report given by Mr. Bonar I^aw, and continued : 
 
 " In that Report there is a recommendation 
 
 in favour of the unification and reorganisation ' 
 
 of the industry. In his final Report Mr. Justice 
 
 Sankey proceeded with his interpretation of that 
 
 principle. We accept the principle, but we cannot 
 
 accept Mr. Justice Sankey's final interpretation^ 
 
 His scheme for carrying that out we cannot 
 
 accept." 
 
 At the same time the Prime Minister outlined 
 
 proposals for " unification and reorganisation " of 
 
 the industry on lines somewhat similar to those of 
 
 Sir Arthur Duckham's report. The " unification " 
 
 was to be, not national, but by districts ; and a 
 
DK PROFUNDIS 221 
 
 subsequent Mining Industry Act (August i6th, 1920) 
 provided for the establishment of joint district and 
 national boards. But the miners would have none 
 of the Government schemes. 
 
 Since 1882 the Trade Union Congress had passed 
 42 resolutions in favour of nationalisation. On 
 September loth, 1919, it passed one more : condemn- 
 ing the Government proposals, pledging itself to help 
 the miners in coercing the Government to accept 
 nationalisation, instructing its Committee to see 
 the Prime Minister and insist on compliance, and in 
 case of refusal arranging for a special congress to 
 decide " the form of action to be taken to compel the 
 Government." 
 
 §2. 
 
 The Prime Minister was duly interviewed, and, as 
 anticipated, declined to go beyond the Government 
 unification scheme based on the Duckham report. 
 The action of another member of the Triple Alliance 
 had furnished the Government with an additional 
 argument. For nine days in September-October 
 the Tailwaymen had held up the transport system 
 over a wage dispute with the Government.* The 
 issue had been attended with- the novel feature of 
 rival propaganda by poster and advertisement on 
 both sides. But the railwaymen had acted with a 
 cavalier disregard not only of the general public, 
 but of their partners in the Triple Alliance. Public 
 feeling, irritated at the inconvenience, and confused 
 by the figures, had been against the strikers ; and 
 the demonstration that national control afforded no 
 remedy for industrial unrest was turned to account 
 against the miners. Congress, meeting in December, 
 had now to answer its own question as to the next 
 
 • For a full account see Webb : op. cit. 
 
222 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 step ; but all that it was asked as yet to do was to 
 sanction an intensive educational campaign agreed 
 on by the united I^abour executives. 
 
 The " Mines for the Nation " campaign was 
 accordingly inaugurated. During January and 
 February the Labour party, by meetings, demonstra- 
 tions, leaflets, pamphlets, advertisement, conducted 
 a grand frontal attack on pubUc opinion — and failed. 
 Unaided by the popular press, the assault left public 
 ■opinion unconverted, almost unmoved. Qrcum- 
 stances were against the miners ; the tide was setting 
 in the opposite direction. The experience of the war 
 and of the past year could be quoted against as well 
 as in favour of nationaUsation, and the reaction 
 against every form of control made the idea vaguely 
 repugnant even to many trade unionists. Bitterly 
 Hodges remarked that the opposition experienced 
 made them feel sometimes that it would be " better 
 ±o start with the children, and drop all this high- 
 falutin' talk about the intelligence of the worlang 
 -classes." Quite evidently the prospect of vigorous 
 trade union action for a principle was no nearer than 
 it ever had been ; and when, in February, 1920, the 
 •Congress met to decide the fate of the forward 
 policy, the issue was a foregone conclusion that 
 Hodges' incisive harangue could not change. 
 
 " We have seen the inertia," said he, " in regard 
 to profits in the wool and cotton trades, and we have 
 seen industrial action taken for advances in wages. 
 But when we have said that we do not desire in- 
 creases in wages, the cynicism with which we have 
 been greeted appals us. We are not believed. . . . 
 If there is not to be any great movement for national- 
 isation, where do you thrust the miners to ? Into 
 the vortex where all of you appear to be swimming. 
 Wages, wages, wages ! An endless and futile race 
 after prices, instead of tackling fundamentally the 
 whole problem." 
 
DE PROFUNDIS 223 
 
 But the Philippic was unavailing. Called on at 
 last for a clear choice as to method, trade union 
 delegates rejected the policy of a general strike for 
 nationalisation by 3,870,000 votes against 1,050,000. 
 There was no mistaking that answer. 
 
 Ca'canny is the sulk of labour ; and ca'canny set 
 in at the coal mines. More ; since the country would 
 have none of their nationaUsation, why then the 
 miners would join the rest in the wage-scramble, 
 and damn the profits of the industry. More wages 
 they got, after another strike ballot, in April — a 
 further 2S. per shift. Then in May the Government, 
 in face of the miners' opposition, advanced the price 
 of coal by 14s. 2d. a ton, as a first step towards putting 
 back the industry on a " normal basis " ; and the 
 crest of the wave was in sight. 
 
 §3- 
 
 The crucial phase of the movement began at 
 I/eamington on July 7th, 1920, when the Miners' 
 Federation decided upon a dual demand : for a 
 wage increase of 2S. per shift and a reduction in the 
 price of domestic coal by 14s. 2d. per ton. The wages 
 claim was based on the cost of Hving and backed by 
 the miners' disapproval of the Government scheme 
 for buying out the royalty owners with the excess 
 profits of the industry ; the price reduction on the 
 contention that the industry as a whole could well 
 afford it, and also perhaps on the desire of the 
 miners emphatically to disclaim the onus of gain at 
 the expense of the community. This " one and 
 indissoluble " claim was duly presented to the Board 
 of Trade, and criticised by its President (Sir Robert 
 Home). Sir Robert averred that the miners' wages 
 had now increased at least as much as the cost of 
 living ; that the price of British domestic supplies 
 
224 lyABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 was considerably^ower than the world price, and that 
 in fact the tdgh profit on the export trade alone 
 made possible the home figure ; and further, tl^at 
 whereas at present the bulk of the profit went direct 
 to the Exchequer, the miners were in fact demanding 
 that 27 millions of it should go in wages, 36 in reduc- 
 tion of prices, and only about 3 direct to the State. 
 Excess profits of other industries were going to the 
 Exchequer, indirectly therefore to the community ; 
 why should the coal industry be made the exception ? 
 
 It was in fact unfortunate for the miners that their 
 bona fide claim for a price reduction met with very 
 little welcome from the general public. Perhaps the 
 nature of the demand was still too novel ; certainly 
 the miners' determination to press it was doubted ; 
 and when at a later date the miners were induced to 
 waive the price demand in favour of an " enquiry," 
 and were left clinging to the wage demand only, their 
 bid for general support definitely failed. 
 
 Both sides now took a stiffer attitude. The miners 
 by ballot decided in favour of strike action, and 
 tendered notices to expire on September 25th. The 
 Government maintained in effect that while the 
 wage question might be dealt with by arbitration, 
 the price question was ultimately a matter for 
 Parliament, to which neither the miners nor anybody 
 else could dictate. Even yet, however, the miners 
 stuck to their principle — to the point at least of 
 stipulating that their wage increase should not be 
 put on the price of domestic coal ; and they further 
 proposed an investigation into the causes of declining 
 output. With this new element a prospect of settle- 
 ment seemed to open, the Government indicating a 
 much more favourable attithde to wage demands 
 when made contingent upon output. Meanwhile the 
 question of continuation of control had been 
 broached ; Frank Hodges had pointed out to the 
 Government how the national treatment of the 
 
DE PROFUNDIS 225 
 
 industry safeguarded the workers in the least proj&t- 
 able districts. For the present, however, no trouble 
 was anticipated on that score, since, said Sir Robert 
 Home, nobody suggested decontrolling prices now 
 or at any near period (September 9th). 
 
 On the principle of wages-per-output negotiations 
 continued during the early part of September, the 
 miners still sticking to their demand for 2s. per shift 
 increase as a preliminary. But strike notices were 
 in and due to expire on the 25th ; the matter was 
 getting urgent. At which point enter on the men's 
 side the Council of the Triple AlUance with an endorse- 
 ment of the miners' claim ; on the Government's 
 side, the Prime Minister. Two days before the 
 threatened strike a saving " formula " was drawn 
 up ; and on the 24th Mr. I/loyd George persuaded 
 the miners' executive to consent to the suspension of 
 the strike for a week in order that the " formula " 
 might have due consideration. The formula embodied 
 the " datum line " proposal — ^which, as finally 
 defined, meant an increase of is. to correspond with 
 an output at the rate of 240 million tons a year, 
 with an additional 6d. for each 4 million tons. To 
 secure the increased output, the mine-owners pro- 
 mised their hearty co-operation. 
 
 Strilce notices had now been suspe:nded a second 
 time, and during the second week of October the 
 datum line proposal was put to the vote of the 
 miners. The situation seemed, to the uninformed, 
 distinctly hopeful. The ill-starred price demand had 
 disappeared ; the 2s. had not been conceded un- 
 conditionally, but apparently fair means had been 
 devised by which an even greater interest might soon 
 accrue ; into the bargain, there was a prospect of 
 more coal getting to the surface. The decisive 
 rejection of the scheme by the miners' ballot was a 
 shock to more than the general public. Robert 
 Smillie had advised the men to accept. 
 
226 lyABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 Something of tragedy lurks about the sequel. 
 On October i8th work ceased in all the coal mines 
 of Great Britain ; what was probably the widest 
 and most discipHned strike in British history up to 
 that date began — and with it probably the last phase 
 of the British mining industry. Older leaders of 
 the men looked on with grave misgiving ; it seemed 
 as if the strike threat, once let loose, had insisted 
 despite all efforts on its own fulfilment. In truth, 
 the pent-up dissatisfaction of five years was behind 
 the movement, reinforced by the vague revolutionary 
 ardour of South Wales and the disappointment of 
 the whole trade over its repeated failure to enlist 
 public sympathy. In some districts the men had 
 come out early in October without waiting for the 
 national order. And yet — greatest pity of it all — 
 the issue had narrowed down during four months' 
 negotiation to nothing better than the old-type wage 
 demand. 
 
 There was a momentous sequel. The support of 
 the whole Triple Alliance of miners, railwaymen and 
 transport workers was discussed, and the railway- 
 men, led by C. T. Cramp, delivered a 48-hours' 
 ultimatum threatening sympathetic action. The 
 Government replied with the most drastic measure 
 in modern legislation. The Emergency Powers Act, 
 introduced on October 22nd, authorises a Govern- 
 ment to " proclaim " a " state of emergency " if it 
 appears that " any action has been taken, or is 
 immediately threatened, by any person or body of 
 persons, of such a nature, or on so extensive a scale, 
 as . . . to deprive the community, or any sub- 
 stantial portion of the community, of the essentials 
 of life " ; such action being envisaged to include 
 interference with the supply and distribution of food, 
 water, fuel, light, or the means of locomotion. 
 Under such circumstances, by this Act administration: 
 may in effect be conducted by Order in Council 
 
DE PROFUNDIS 227 
 
 conferring undefined and unlimited powers on the 
 executive departments and establishing, if necessary, 
 courts of summary jurisdiction. The move was 
 fairly interpreted by the New Statesman in a remark 
 that since the Triple Alliance by its evident power 
 to threaten the life of the community " promises the 
 action of unconstitutional forces " the Government 
 in reply " can hardly do less than demand the power 
 of abrogating constitutional principles." The effect 
 on public opinion of the new Act, which received 
 royal assent on October 29th, was immense ; but 
 whether or no it contributed to the suspension of the 
 railwaymen's threat is debatable. The influence of 
 J. H. Thomas, hastily returning from Geneva, was 
 probably more responsible — in the phrase of one 
 organ of the extreme left " Thomas had sabotaged 
 the railway strike." But in fact the issue was 
 not one on which the Triple Alliance could have 
 maintained solidarity in action ; the influence of 
 Thomas, Brace, Hartshorn, and others — reviled as 
 they were for it by the extremists — probably averted 
 not revolution but the collapse of the Triple Alliance. 
 The immediate result was to intensify the efforts for 
 peace. The basis on which the dispute was com- 
 promised was first outhned by William Brace, a right 
 wing member of the South Wales Miners' Federation, 
 in Parliament on October 19th ; it led to a settlement 
 on the following lines. The men were to have their 
 2S. advance on resumption of work ; and during the 
 period January 3rd to March 31st, 1921, the advance 
 was to be liable to fluctuation in accordance with the 
 value of the amount of coal produced in excess of a 
 fixed annual rate of output of 219 million tons. 
 Owners and men undertook to co-operate with a view 
 to obtaining increased output, and also to produce for 
 submission to the Government by March 31st a new 
 scheme for the regulation of wages " having regard, 
 among other considerations, to the profits of the 
 
228 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 industry, and to the principles upon which any 
 surplus profits are to be dealt with." The proposals 
 thus broadly summarised were put to the vote of 
 the men on November ist and 2nd ; practically all 
 their leaders advising acceptance. The result showed 
 a slightly adverse majority — 346,504 against, 338,045 
 in favour. By Federation rules a two-thirds majority 
 was necessary to a continuance of the strike. The 
 men were therefore advised to resume work — which 
 they did on November 4th, with less reluctance, even 
 in South Wales and I^ancashire, than the heavy 
 adverse votes of those areas had indicated. The 
 eighteen days' struggle was suspended ; it only 
 remained to count — and pay — the cost. 
 
 §4- 
 
 The immediate effect of the stoppage had not been 
 as severe as was anticipated ; partly because large 
 reserves of coal had been accumulating, partly on 
 account of the Emergency Orders of the Board of 
 Trade, limiting the consumption of fuel, light and 
 power. But the fall in employment due to complete 
 or partial stoppage of factories was considerable. 
 By November 3rd the Ministry of I^abour reported 
 95,000 discharges due to closure of works, 148,000 
 due to reduction of staff, while 348,000 workers had 
 been placed on short time ; 13 or 14 miUion tons of 
 coal were lost to the country, and 14 or 15 milUon 
 pounds lost to the miners in wages. But that was 
 not all the loss to either party. Foreign markets, 
 from which the large surplus on the export trade had 
 been derived, were given an additional impetdS 
 to seek supplies elsewhere than in England. Ill 
 something like panic. Continental buyers placed 
 huge orders in America, where, as prices were begin- 
 ning to fall, they were eagerly welcomed and executed. 
 
DE PROFUNDIS 229 
 
 The policy of surcharging foreign buyers to subsidise 
 the British consumer, by which no small amount 
 of resentment had been raised abroad, thus ended 
 in a disastrous recoil ; and the additional deliveries 
 of German coal to France, under the terms of the 
 Peace Treaty, finally disposed of this source of profit 
 to the British industry. On the new financial 
 situation thus brought about, and precipitated by the 
 trade depression at home, the new year opened. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Zero. 
 
 §1- 
 
 It is as well, before embarking upon the calamitous 
 last phase of the coal industry, to pause for a brief 
 survey of the general position in which it was left 
 by the settlement of November, 1920. That position 
 was one of fundamental instability. State control 
 acting under circumstances in which there was an 
 effective (but temporary and artificial) demand for 
 maximum output, had fixed export prices at a level 
 that savoured of exploitation, and inland prices 
 below the actual cost of production. Standard 
 profits were guaranteed to the owners from a profits 
 pool administered by the State. Wage advances had 
 been awarded to the miners on a flat rate based on 
 a maintenance principle that had nothing to do with 
 the economic position of the various coalfields; 
 and to these was now added a bonus on output-value 
 which was really dependent, not on the work of the 
 miners, but on the continuance of the artificial 
 effective demand. Certain concealed possibilities 
 were inherent in all this. Pits were working, even 
 in 1920, that did not yield the standard profit ; and 
 obviously when the artificial demand ceased — a 
 contingency that the Peace Treaty alone had done 
 
ZERO 231 
 
 much to ensure — the number of such pits would 
 enormously increase. What then would be the 
 position of the Government in respect of the guaran- 
 teed profits ? Further : with inland demand stifled 
 by the trade depression, what means would remain 
 by which the economic position of the industry could 
 be retrieved ? An increase in the price of coal would 
 only contribute to the dilemma and was admitted 
 by all parties to be undesirable ; and for a decrease 
 in wages^ — ^which were estimated as amounting to 
 over 75 per cent, of the cost of production — no 
 machinery whatever had been left in existence. Was 
 the profits pool arrangement to degenerate into a 
 plain subsidy ? If so, what was to be the end of 
 it ? If not, what was to happen to wages ? 
 
 One by one, these contingencies were realised — as 
 inevitably they must be. Early in 1921 the Govern- 
 ment estimated that by the end of March the profits 
 pool would be exhausted. On February 28th the 
 Secretary for Mines announced that from that date 
 on — ^in consequence, be it remembered, of the 
 loss of export trade and the industrial depression at 
 home which had already resulted in almost universal 
 short time working and as much as 50 per cent, 
 unemplojrment in some coalfields — no further out- 
 put wage would be payable under the November 
 agreement. Pit after pit was closing, unemployment 
 increasing week by week, the profits-pool steadily 
 draining. Then came the " bomb shell " : financial 
 control of the industry was to cease on March 31st. 
 
 It is doubtful whether so drastic a purge had 
 ever before been administered to any industry. 
 Owners and miners alike protested — the former at 
 the prospect of being compelled to resume manage- 
 ment at a moment when the industry was losing at 
 the rate of over £50,000,000 a year ; the latter 
 at the prospect of the cessation of unification, the 
 abandonment of all progress towards nationaUsation, 
 
232 lyABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 and a probable return to the pre-war status. Tlie 
 Government replied that no industry ought to be 
 carried on by subsidy, and that since export prices 
 and home prices were now almost identical, the 
 necessity for control — ^protection of the home con- 
 sumer — had disappeared. 
 
 Now during the preceding weeks two sets of 
 negotiations had been going on. The coal-owners 
 and the Govermnent had been considering a revision 
 of the arrangement as to guaranteed profits, and had 
 agreed that in view of the decline in the pool, owners 
 should waive their claim to any surplus over pre-war 
 profits for the period March, 191 9, to December, 
 1920, and in return should be guaranteed nine-tenths 
 of the pre-war profit for the first quarter of 1921. 
 The owners and the government were also alive 
 to the possibility of serious industrial trouble should 
 both mines and railways be decontrolled simultane- 
 ously in August ; and the owners' opposition to the 
 earlier cessation of control was subject to the 
 possibihty that should the State be compelled to 
 continue control through a period of loss, control 
 might be maintained through the subsequent 
 recovery until at least the national account were 
 squared again. By these considerations the owners 
 were induced to accept decontrol on March 31st. 
 
 A second set of negotiations between masters and 
 men with a view to providing a new wage-basis for 
 the industry had been proceeding in accordance with 
 the previous strike settlement ; and by the begiiming 
 of March agreement had been reached as to the 
 following principles : — 
 
 1. Wages must conform to the capacity of 
 the industry to pay them. 
 
 2. The receipt of a standard wage should 
 justify a corresponding minimum profit. (The 
 miners suggested that the profit should be 10 
 
ZERO 
 
 233 
 
 per cent., the owners that it should be 17 per 
 cent, of the wages total.) 
 
 3. Any surplus remaining should be divided 
 in agreed proportions. (The miners suggested 
 that 10 per cent., the owners that 20 per cent., 
 should be allocated to profits.) 
 
 4. Joint audit of the owners' books. 
 
 This was not an altogether hopeless position ; but 
 the sudden imminence of decontrol when there was 
 actually not only no surplus, but not enough pro- 
 ceeds to pay the existing wage-bill, precipitated the 
 inevitable crisis. In the new situation all hope of 
 agreement rapidly disappeared. The fundamental 
 issue had in fact already emerged in the discussions 
 on the standard wage to which the minimum profit 
 was to correspond. The owners proposed " to take 
 the district base rates including percentage additions 
 (or their equivalent) prevailing in July, 1914." 
 The Miners' Federation demanded " the national 
 settlement of wage and profits problems " to be 
 brought about by means of " a National Wage Board 
 which would have the right to levy a small sum per 
 ton on all the coal raised to be used to keep the poorer 
 collieries in production as long as they were required." 
 To this demand for a National Wage Board and a 
 National Profits Pool, the mine-owners emphatically 
 demurred. " We maintain," they said, " that to 
 adopt such a principle would be suicidal to the 
 industry. Where is the incentive to the individual 
 to manage efficiently his own colliery so as to produce 
 the greatest output at the lowest possible cost, to 
 improve methods of working by introducing maciiin- 
 ery, and to expend capital to get the best results, if 
 he knows that in the event of a loss it will be made up, 
 and if he makes more than a certain profit it will be 
 taken from him ? It is this unsound, pernicious 
 economic doctrine that the coal-owners are determined 
 to reject at all costs." Here, in other words, was the 
 
234 IvABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 naked issue : which were we to maintain — a 
 " natural " system under which profit-earning capa- 
 city determined the working of the coal-mines, or 
 an " artificial " system under which labour could 
 be reckoned a standing first charge on the industry, 
 and social control take the place of economic 
 regulation ? Whether or no nationalisation as for- 
 merly understood was involved in the pooling 
 arrangement was now a secondary issue. The miners 
 maintained that it was not essential — that the 
 national regulation might be voluntary ; the owners 
 pointed out that inasmuch as they were determined 
 not to accept it voluntarily, legislation would be 
 required to make them. But whether or no national- 
 sation were a necessary corollary the issue was 
 fundamental ; and it involved the fate of the 
 competitive " capitalist " system. 
 
 Decontrol being fixed ior March 31st, the mine- 
 owners gave legal notice to terminate the existing 
 wage-contracts throughout the coalfields and pub- 
 Ushed new wage-lists for the various districts at 
 which they were prepared to offer future employ- 
 ment. These lists, winch were presumably based on 
 the real economic situation in the districts, showed 
 reductions in average wages of all workers in 13 
 districts' ranging from about 40s. per week in South 
 Wales to 6s. in Cannock, and in the cases of South 
 Yorkshire and I^eicestershire average increases of is. 
 and 6s. 5d. Averages, however, are in this case 
 of even less than their usual relevance ; for the 
 uncontested fact was that in the case of certain 
 classes, after allowance made for the increase of 
 141 per cent, in the cost of maintaining the pre* 
 war working class standard of life, the new schedules 
 meant a considerably smaller real wage than was 
 paid in July, 1914. In several cases the new wage 
 was less than that of unskilled labourers ; in some 
 it was less than was being paid to men engaged on 
 
ZERO 235 
 
 road construction by way of unemployment relief. 
 On this score considerable sympathy was felt with 
 the miners. The latter did not dispute the necessity, 
 under any system, of a fall in wages ; but they were 
 prepared to discuss it on the national basis only, 
 and claimed temporary financial assistance for the 
 industry from the Government to prevent its present 
 economic condition driving real wages below the 
 1914 standard. Settlement district by district they 
 were not prepared to discuss at all. Throughout the 
 negotiations the principle of national settlement was 
 not merely adhered to, but made preliminary to any 
 negotiation on the actual figures. The Government 
 sternly refused either an extension of control or a 
 subsidy ; and thus with chaos and bankruptcy in the 
 industry and masters and men lined up for devastat- 
 ing warfare, State control of the coal mines came to 
 an end on March 31st, 1921. On the same day, for 
 the second time in six months, work ceased in all the 
 coal-mines of Great Britain. 
 
 §2. 
 
 Such was the issue, narrowly defined, that in 
 April brought Great Britain to the gravest industrial 
 crisis. of its history. But to comprehend that in 
 which it proved potent to concentrate the fighting 
 strength of organised labour on what was apparently 
 a point of economic principle a somewhat wider 
 view is necessary. 
 
 In the first place there was the broad position, in 
 regard to the general state of trade, of the coal indus- 
 try itself and of one or two other essential services. 
 Britain was organised on a scale that made world 
 trade essential to her internal prosperity. Under 
 the present system, therefore, any general improve- 
 ment in the internal economies of the country was 
 
236 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 primarily dependent on such a fall in the relative 
 cost of produce for the world market as would enable 
 British industry to meet foreign competition. Which 
 meant, in condensed cold fact, that a fall of the cost 
 of production in industries which lay at the very 
 basis of British trade was a precedent condition of 
 any real improvement in the economic welfare of 
 British workers. It was thus probable that for a 
 Umited period wages in certain cardinal industries — of 
 which coal mining was the chief — would in the absence 
 of special regulation tend to decline faster than the 
 cost of living. Short of an economic revolution 
 there was no escape from this limiting consideration. 
 Secondly, the general fall in wages had begun. In 
 several industries it operated automatically by sliding 
 scales based on the cost of Uving. In others agree* 
 ment had been reached by collective bargaining. 
 In others again the reduction was proceeding piece- 
 meal, firm by firm. In several of the smaller indus- 
 tries lower rates were in operation by the end of 
 March, the decrease varying as a rule between lo and 
 20 per cent, of average wages. But in regard to the 
 greater trades of the country the general fall was as 
 yet only pending. In both shipbuilding and engineer- 
 ing trades a drop of 6s. per week in time-workers' 
 wages, 15 per cent, in piece-rates plus the cessation 
 of the 12^ per cent, bonus on earnings, was proposed 
 by the employers as from the end of April ; but no 
 agreement had as yet been arrived at, and the issue 
 was being awaited by many trades in which changes 
 in engineering rates were generally followed. Trans- 
 port by rail, road and water was affected ; cuts of 
 from 4s. to 27s. a week were proposed in various 
 branches of the two last-named, while on the rail- 
 ways a sharp dispute over the interpretation of a 
 sliding scale agreement occupied the first fortnight of 
 March. More significant to the railwaymen was the 
 question as to what would happen when control of 
 
ZERO 237 
 
 the railways came to an end in August. Alarming 
 rumours were circulated according to which the 
 companies intended to abolish national settlements 
 and to make further drastic cuts in basic wages. 
 With a view to the contingency the National Union 
 of Railwaymen reaffirmed, early in March, its 
 insistence on the principles of nationalisation of the 
 railways and full partnership of the workers in their 
 management ; while among the various grades and 
 districts a strong movement was afoot for strengthen- 
 ing the machinery of the union, and more effectively 
 using the power of the Triple Alliance. In the build- 
 ing trades also the operatives were balloting on the 
 adoption of a shding scale by which wages would be 
 reduced in the immediate future. During the first 
 four months of 1921 arrangements for reduction of 
 wages were made, and in the majority of cases put 
 into practice, in 51 industries affecting if million 
 workpeople. It was of course inevitable that the 
 initiative in reducing wages should come from the 
 employers ; but it is safe to say that a majority of 
 the workers and of their leaders, in view of the falling 
 cost of living and of the unprecedented decline in 
 the commercial prosperity of the country, acknow- 
 ledged the force of the prima facie case. Extremists, 
 however, took the opportunity to foment class 
 feeling, and by the Socialist press, especially the 
 Daily Herald, the situation was represented as the 
 " Employers' War on Wages." 
 
 As such the building trade operatives — ^who were 
 threatened with forcible " dilution " as well as 
 lower wages — at once took it seriously ; and with a 
 view to united labour opposition they requested the 
 Triple Alliance, early in March, to call a conference 
 of the most powerful industrial societies. The 
 Triple AlUance declined the request as not within 
 its competence, and the matter passed on to the 
 Trade Union Congress Committee. The Committee, 
 
238 I^ABOUR^IN TRANSITION 
 
 as might have* been expected, declined to mobilise 
 the whole I^abour movement, and recommended 
 instead conferences by trade groups of the unions 
 a£fected. The builders, determined on some sort 
 of common action, accordingly decided at the end of 
 the month to call a conference of the engineers and 
 other kindred societies ; but their invitation met 
 with a chUly response, and a plain " No " from the 
 engineers. By this time, however, the coal dispute 
 was dominating the entire situation, and calls for 
 the Triple Alliance were many and insistent. 
 
 §3. 
 
 Throughout the catastrophic sequel it is necessary 
 to recall the fact that the miners were fighting, not 
 on a wage-question (as to which no small body of 
 public opinion supported them) but for a principle 
 relative to the control of the coal industry. Their 
 action was thus made consistent with the policy 
 which for four years, under the guidance of its 
 permanent secretary, the Miners' Federation had 
 pursued. On this issue, which practically, if not 
 theoretically, involved legislation, they were opposed 
 by the Government as well as the coal-owners ; and 
 their antagonism to the former was strengthened 
 by the conviction that in advancing the date of 
 decontrol the Government had deliberately pre- 
 cipitated the crisis. The strike thus took on a 
 distinct anti-constitutional bearing. While ortho- 
 dox trade unionism backed it on the- wage question, 
 revolutionary I^abour welcomed its wider aspect. 
 
 At the very outset a certain division of temper 
 was manifest within the Miners' Executive itself. 
 A decision to withdraw the pump hands and engine- 
 men was reached by a narrow majority, and issued 
 by the secretary under protest. It was a desperate 
 
ZERO 239 
 
 decision, said Hodges ; a decision which would only 
 have been taken in the most desperate circumstances. 
 But the circumstances were desperate : "I think 
 the Government means to starve us into submission. 
 If it is a question of endurance we may go down. 
 If we go down, the nation is doomed." The decision 
 was obeyed. The flooding of the mines began. 
 
 The Government apparently concurred in Mr. 
 Hodges' diagnosis of the situation as desperate. 
 A " State of Emergency " under the Act of October, 
 1920, had been proclaimed on the eve of the stoppage. 
 At the commencement of the following week naval 
 and miUtary leave was stopped, and movements of 
 troops, tanks, and machine-guns began. On Friday, 
 April 8th (by which date minor riots had occurred 
 at the pit-heads in Wales, I/anarkshire, and Fifeshire), 
 the Prime Minister announced that in view of the 
 imminent flooding of the mines and the necessity for 
 armed protection of voluntary workers, a Royal 
 Proclamation had been issued calling out the army 
 Reserve, Class B of the Royal Fleet Reserve, and the 
 Air Force Reserve : the Army Reserve being called 
 for " permanent service." New Defence Units 
 attached to the regular army were to be formed for 
 " temporary military service not exceeding 90 days "; 
 and " I^oyal Citizens capable of bearing arms " were 
 invited to enrol. 
 
 On the evening of this same Friday the Triple 
 
 Alliance made its first declaration as a fighting body. 
 
 " Unless negotiations are re-opened between 
 
 the Miners' Federation, the mine-owners or the 
 
 Government, the full strike power of the Triple 
 
 Alliance shall be put into operation as from 
 
 Tuesday next at midnight." 
 
 Strike committees began organising up and down 
 
 the country ; the wages issue was emphasised in 
 
 propaganda, and the successful miners' strike of 1915 
 
 was recalled. Violence was everywhere deprecated 
 
240 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 by the I^abour spokesmen ; but the issue was repre- 
 sented as a " frontal attack on the whole working- 
 class " by " the Capitalists and their Government." 
 Meanwhile inside the Alliance Executive the miners 
 were being urged to negotiate. 
 
 The way was cleared by the Government waiving 
 its prior condition as to the return of the safety- 
 men, the miners agreeing not to oppose voluntary 
 action. Negotiations were re-opened ; the general 
 strike postponed. But the miners insisted that their 
 principle must be conceded before wage negotiations 
 could begin ; and an offer from the Government of 
 temporary financial aid to the industry after economic 
 wages for the various districts had been agreed on 
 by the owners and the Miners' Federation failed 
 to weaken them. The Triple AlHance, it is important 
 to notice, was now committed to a position in which a 
 bare majority of the miners, by simply refusing tp 
 negotiate, could virtually compel the whole machin^ 
 into action. The Alliance had in fact either to 
 reafiirm the strike decision or to retreat ; and despite, 
 passionate efforts of its more moderate members 
 to escape the dilemma, the strike decision was 
 " unanimously " reaffirmed. J. H. Thomas, a man 
 visibly racked by an almost insupportable ordeal, j 
 announced on Wednesday, April 13th, that at 10 
 p.m. on the following Friday night the general strike 
 would begin. 
 
 §4- 
 
 With this momentous decision the whole issue took 
 on a wider character. The Alliance was the supreme^ 
 fighting machine of organised I^abour. For five 
 years its directors had hesitated on the brink of 
 action, and time after time the insurgent elements in 
 lyabour had looked in vain for a fighting lead. Only 
 
ZERO 241 
 
 four weeks ago the building trades operatives had 
 sought help from the Alliance rather than the Trade 
 Union Congress, and the AlHance had again hesitated. 
 Now at last the vast machine was in motion, and the 
 whole civil and military force of the Government 
 was mobihsed against it. " We are not proclaiming 
 a revolution," said the Triple Alliance ; but the 
 tactics of the opposing leaders had forced the issue 
 to nothing less ;* and the letter of the dispute was 
 overshadowed h^f the major question of fact — could 
 organised I^abour successfully give battle to the 
 forces of the British constitution ? The prospect was 
 enought to appal bolder men than Thomas. 
 
 On either side the last stages of mobilisation were 
 hurried on. Kensington Gardens became an armed 
 camp. Hyde Park and Regent's Park were occupied 
 by quasi-military transport equipped for the emerg- 
 ency scheme of food distribution . Voluntary transport 
 was enrolled and organised. Disused military camps 
 of the great war were reoccupied ; and the country 
 was divided into eleven areas to which the Givil 
 Commissioners and their staffs were despatched. On 
 the Labour side the whole poUtical movement — the 
 Parhamentary Committee of the Trade Union Con- 
 gress, the Parliamentary lyabour Party, and the 
 National lyabour Party — ^pledged its support to the 
 Triple Alliance, and urged " every citizen who cares 
 for the well-being of the community to stand soUdly 
 against this attack on the workers' position." 
 Union after union signified its adherence. The 
 lyocomotive Engineers sank their quarrel with the 
 railwaymen and arranged to strike with the rest ; 
 the Electrical Trades Union in I^ondon promised a 
 simultaneous withdrawal of labour ; the executive 
 council of the 1,500,000 General Workers pledged 
 
 * " The Triple Alliance, had it but responded to the pressure of the 
 militants at the time of the most recent mining crisis, would have precipi- 
 tated a revolutionary situation." — Robert Williams : The New Labour 
 Outlook. 
 
242 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 its support whenever and wherever possible. Local 
 Labour councils up and down the country assisted 
 in the organisation of strike committees. The 
 Co-operative movement made special arrangements; 
 for the disbursement of trade xinion funds ; and on 
 the left flank Communist psirties and unofficial 
 organisations rattled the side drums and raised 
 their scarlet standard. 
 
 §5. 
 
 The miners had now been idle for fourteen days. 
 Over 8,000,000 tons of coal had already been lost, 
 and what damage had been done to the mines no 
 man could yet say. The weather had turned to 
 bitter cold and in many parts of England snow was 
 falling. The number of totally unemployed workers 
 had risen in the fortnight from 1,450,000 (12. i per 
 cent.) to 1,693,238 (12.6 per cent.) in addition to 
 over 875,000 working short time. In many districts 
 the miners' funds were running low ; in at least 
 one county the second week's strike pay had drained 
 them dry. The prospect of actual starvation was 
 drawing nearer ; in all parties men were appalled 
 by the outlook, and the official leaders of the Triple 
 Alliance itself were advancing under pressure, in 
 horror rather than in hope. 
 
 So matters stood on the very eve of the general 
 strike. Debate in Parliament had been postponed 
 from day to day as likely to prejudice the success 
 of the negotiations ; but with sjuccess no longer 
 possible, members of the House of Commons,; 
 braving the disapproval of the " Whips," took the 
 affair into their own hands ; and the general welcome 
 given by all parties to their action indicated a wide- 
 spread sense of something previously lacking. The 
 coal-owners were invited to state their position to a 
 
ZERO 243 
 
 meeting of private members on the Thursday even- 
 ing, at which meeting it was ascertained on the 
 owners' admission that the new wages offered to the 
 men were in fact no better than the miners had for 
 some weeks been asserting. The impression made 
 on the members was naturally profound ; and it was 
 there and then resolved that the miners should be 
 invited to state their case forthwith. The invitation 
 was conveyed to Hodges and Thomas who happened 
 to be dining together in the House ; and at 9.30 
 that evening Frank Hodges stood up to plead the 
 cause of the miners of Great Britain before what, 
 after all, appeared to be the supreme Tribunal (in 
 undress) of the country. 
 
 Before such an audience Hodges was naturally at 
 his best. His sensitive mind was instant to grasp 
 the tenour of the meeting. By bitter experience he 
 had come to despair of direct industrial action 
 for an abstract principle ; but on the wages issue he 
 had the manifest sympathy of the Parliamentary 
 gathering as well as of the country, and by a decision 
 of no small personal temerity he decided to stake 
 all upon it. The miners, he said, would be prepared 
 to consider a temporary settlement of the wages issue 
 provided their fundamental demands were not ruled 
 out of a permanent settlement . Thomas followed with 
 a personal opinion that in the event of this declaration 
 bearing fruit, there need be no Triple Alliance strike. 
 The Prime Minister, " amazed and sceptical," was 
 apprised of the turn in events at midnight ; and the 
 miners were at once invited to open negotiations on 
 the ground Hodges had suggested. 
 
 Such was the situation that broke the Triple 
 Alliance. On the Friday morning — " Black Friday," 
 as it came to be called in advanced I^abour circles — ■ 
 Hodges was repudiated by a majority of two on the 
 Miners' Executive. lycaders of the Railway and 
 Transport Workers fell to wild recrimination as to 
 
 Q2 
 
244 I/ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 the general position (which in reality had. not 
 changed), and the solidarity of their men ; and after 
 a day that disposed of any credit that still remained 
 to I^abour strategy, the strike of the Railway and 
 Transport Workers was called off, less than six hours 
 before it was due to begin. The reason assigned 
 was that the refusal of the miners to negotiate on 
 Hodges' terms impaired the prospect of united action. 
 In point of fact, Hodge's unauthorised offer, 
 whether designedly or no, had given the non-militant 
 sections of the railway and transport executives 
 an opportunity^ of escape from their dilemma. 
 The strike order would have been obeyed by an 
 effective proportion of the associated unions in the 
 principal centres. On the wages issue alone it would . 
 have been obeyed without question ; but on any 
 issue it is difficult for a trade-unionist in a 
 well-organised centre to disobey an of&cial order to 
 strike. At the same time a bare majority of the 
 miners had forced the Triple Alliance to adopt the 
 weaker tactical position, in which majorities of their 
 associated executives felt grave misgiving ; and the 
 action of the Government overlooking the immediate 
 issue, appeared (as perhaps it was meant to appear) 
 as challenging those who desired a violent revolution 
 to invoke it. If that were in fact the issue, among 
 neither the transport workers nor the railway men 
 was there a majority prepared to take up the 
 challenge. It must remain a matter of the gravest 
 doubt whether, even assuming a general strike to 
 have been followed by a temporary re-control of the 
 coal mines, ultimate victory in the national struggle 
 would have rested with the miners. 
 
 §6. 
 The immediate sequel was a new effort at com- 
 
ZERO 245 
 
 promise. Revised terms were offered on a basis of 
 tmification by areas — a scheme which the miners 
 had already refused to accept as the Mining Industry 
 Act of 1920 ; a State grant of ;f 10,000,000 was also 
 offered, on certain conditions, for the mitigation 
 and equalisation of the wage reductions. But the 
 National Pool was defined by the Government as 
 a political issue involving legislation ; and the 
 miners' delegates replied " that this conference 
 rejects the Government proposals, as they do not 
 concede the fundamental principles of a National 
 Wages Board and a National Pool, for which we 
 stand." Complete deadlock was thus again reached 
 over exactly the position on which it first arose. 
 But within the other unions even the appearance of 
 solidarity broke down. The headquarters offices 
 of the Transport Workers were actually seized and 
 held for two days by rebels of the rank-and-file ; 
 branches and leaders complained bitterly and in 
 public of the " great betrayal " which other branches 
 and leaders struggled to justify. Unorganised action 
 was taken in certain centres where dockers and other 
 workers refused to handle imported coal, or coal 
 lying at sidings, or to bunker vessels known to be 
 taking sufficient coal for an outward voyage only. 
 This " etobargo " policy subsequently received 
 official confirmation both by the N.U.R. and the 
 T.W.F. ; and the latter body, through the Inter- 
 national Federation of Transport Workers, attempted 
 to secure the co-operation of dock labourers in other 
 countries. But the general instruction did not 
 secure sufficient adherence among the affiliated 
 unions to be effective, and by one of them it was 
 actively opposed. After the collapse of the major 
 strike threat, little enthusiasm was displayed for 
 the direct action policy on a smaller scale, and the 
 embargo on imported coal was officially withdrawn, 
 in view of the de facto failure, on June ist. Mean- 
 
246 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 while, unofficial conferences of railway and transport 
 workers, and of other unions, had been convened, at 
 which various means of reviving the militant move- 
 ment were proposed ; and the National Workers' 
 Committee attempted to organise a general strike 
 for May 15th :* but without visible result. In 
 point of fact, even had the desire for such a policy 
 been general, the unprecedented unemployment 
 rendered sympathetic strike action almost imptac- 
 ticable ; and such positive assistance as the other 
 unions could render the miners was mainly limited 
 during the rest of the stoppage to grants or loans 
 to the funds of the various miners' associations. 
 Perhaps in this direction the most useful aid of all 
 was that rendered by the Co-operative Societies, 
 whose system of allowing credit to their members in 
 the affected areas enabled many a miner's family to 
 obtain at least food long after its removable assets 
 had found their way to the pawnbroker's. Mention 
 must also be made of the Daily Herald fund for the 
 miners' children, which by the end of June totalled 
 £76,797, raised almost entirely in small subscriptions. 
 For a sullen month, during which the weekly 
 totals of unemployed rose to still more ominous, 
 levels, no official move towards a settlement was 
 made by either side. Informal conversations, how- 
 ever, were held, as a result of which the Government 
 on May 28th made further definite proposals. A 
 grant of £10,000,000 from the Exchequer was 
 offered, to be used in mitigating wage reductions ; 
 
 * The National Workers' Committee Movement (Miners' section) at 
 the end of April circulated a pamphlet among railway and transport 
 workers from which the following passage is quoted : "Your officials 
 have prevented action up to date. They will continue to prevent action 
 so long as you depend upon them. Disregard them. Set up in evoy 
 district unofficial committees, and set them up now. These unofficial 
 committees will do their best to secure as early as possible an official strike, 
 but failing that you must obey their call to action by May 15th at latest 
 and declare an unofficial strike." The pamphlet was subsequently the 
 subject of a prosecution and an appeal, as to which see the Mancheetet 
 Guardian, zsrd July, 1921. 
 
ZKRO 247 
 
 to which end the mine-owners also volunteered to 
 surrender their profits during three months in districts 
 in which, and in so far as, Government assistance was 
 necessary. The Government gra:nt was made con- 
 ditional on the conclusion of a " continuing agree- 
 ment," and was coupled with certain proposals for a 
 permanent settlement, which were understood, until 
 the impression was officially removed, to refer to 
 compulsory arbitration. It was also evident from 
 the wording of the Government ofier that district 
 settlements of wages were contemplated. These 
 Suggestions were referred by the Miners' Executive 
 to district conferences ; and in every case rejected. 
 In reply the Government intimated (on June 3rd) 
 that it had no further proposals to make, and that 
 the offer of '£10,000,000 would remain open only for 
 fourteen days longer. Negotiations between the 
 miners and the owners were at once resumed, and a 
 week later further proposals were submitted to a 
 national delegate conference. Definite terms as to 
 standard and minimtun wages, and a maximum 
 initial reduction were now added to suggestions on the 
 lines already indicated ; and it was then decided 
 that a ballot of the men should be taken on the 
 question of acceptance or fighting on " for the 
 principles of the National Wages Board and National 
 Pool . ' ' Again contrary to much popular expectation, 
 the ballot resulted in rejection of the terms by the 
 overwhelming majority of 435,890 to 180,^24. 
 
 But the end was in sight. The powers of endurance 
 not only of the miners' associations, but of the 
 Co-operative Societies, were in maiiy cases on the 
 verge of exhaustion, and there was no prospect 
 that success would be brought appreciably nearer by 
 a protraction of the struggle. A curious incident 
 revealed the pass to which the miners had now come. 
 In March, as we saw, the building workers appealed 
 to the Triple Alliance, to the Trades Unions Congress, 
 
248 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 and to other tinions for some sort of concerted action 
 against wage reductions. Now, three disastrous 
 months later, the miners — ^who had hitherto, even 
 in the counsels of the Triple Alliance, been a law unto 
 themselves — appealed to other unions affected by 
 wage reductions for a conference to discuss joint 
 action. But even less than in March was joint 
 action now practicable : no conference was held. 
 Still more significant was Hodges' speech to the 
 I^abour party on June 21st : 
 
 " The conclusion we have drawn," he said, 
 " is that, industrially, the trade union move- 
 ment is for the most part unhappily a mere 
 grouping of close corporations with only the 
 interests of a particular group at stake ; and as 
 the British industrial movement develops we 
 find that tendency more and more marked. 
 . . . There are things in our programme which 
 may not be susceptible of success in this stop- 
 page. Maybe we shall have to bend, but we 
 shall not rest content until we have achieved 
 politically what we have failed to get indus- 
 trially. We must achieve it ; we cannot help 
 but do so. Our ultimate triumph is inevitable." 
 That was a frank and courageous admission of 
 imminent defeat. A week later agreed terms of 
 settlement were recommended by the Miners' Federa- 
 tion executive to the districts ; and on July ist the 
 terms were formally accepted and endorsed on behalf 
 of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, the 
 Mining Association, and the Government. 
 
 §7- 
 
 In the general sense, among the trade unionists, of 
 defeat, and among the remainder of the community, 
 
ZERO 249 
 
 of relief, little critical examination of the settlement 
 was made. 
 
 As regards " the fundamental principles of a 
 National Wages Board and a National Pool, for 
 which we stand " the miners were completely 
 defeated. On this issue — and the miners had insisted 
 that it was the cardinal issue — the whole of the three 
 months' suffering was totally and absolutely wasted. 
 A " National Board " was indeed provided by the 
 settlement, but the only functions assigned to it were 
 those of determining what items should be included 
 as " cost of production other than wages," and of 
 deciding the dates of wage revision after September, 
 1 92 1. The district basis was re-estabhshed by a 
 schedule of 13 areas, in each of which joint boards 
 were to be formed on lines similar to those of the 
 Mining Act of 1920. As regards wages, a new 
 standard was defined on the district basis, consisting 
 of the existing base rates plus the pre-war percent 
 ages, war advances thus being dropped ; and the 
 minimum wage was fixed at 20 per cent, above the 
 standard. Immediate reductions were reduced to 
 2s., 2s. 6d., and 3s. per shift in July, August and' 
 September by the use of the Government grant of 
 ;fio,ooo,ooo. In the view of Frank Hodges, a 
 better settlement could probably have been secured 
 in March, before the stoppage began, and certainly 
 after the House of Commons' speech, had the miners' 
 executive consented to negotiate. The settlement 
 embodied the principles (agreed upon before the 
 stoppage began) that the receipt of a standard wage 
 should justify a corresponding minimum profit, and 
 that any surplus should be divided in agreed pro- 
 portions ; the standard profit being 17 per cent, of 
 the standard wage bill, and the surplus being divided 
 as to 83 per cent, wages and 17 per cent, profit. 
 The principle of joint audit of the owners' books 
 (also agreed upon in March) was incorporated. 
 
250 lyABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 Certain clauses of the final ternis do, however, mark 
 some advance in principle. In the first place, the 
 regulation of wages is made dependent, not directly 
 upon the price of coal as formerly, but upon " the 
 surplus proceeds of the industry." A more interest- 
 ing advance is implied in the following provisions : 
 
 " If the rates of wages thus determined in any 
 district do not provide a subsistence to low-paid 
 day wage workers, such additions in the form of 
 allowances per shift worked shall be made for 
 that period to the daily wages of these workers 
 as, in the opinion of the District Board, or, in 
 the event of failure to agree by the parties, in 
 the opinion of the Independent Chairman, may 
 be necessary for the purpose. Such allowances 
 shall be treated as items of cost in the district 
 ascertainments. ' ' 
 
 " In any district in which reductions in wages 
 continue to be made after the first ascertainment, 
 no part of the surplus proceeds shall be assigned 
 to profits if and in so far as this would have 
 the efiEect of reducing the wages below the level 
 in the preceding month." 
 
 " In any district in which the wages calculated 
 
 in accordance with the terms of this settlement 
 
 are less than the wages payable under the 
 
 maximum reductions aforesaid, the difference 
 
 shall be met by the owners in that district 
 
 during September to the extent of the aggregate 
 
 net profits realised by them on the district 
 
 ascertainment for July, and during October to 
 
 the extent of the aggregate net profits realised 
 
 by them on the district ascertainments for 
 
 July and August." 
 
 In these clauses there is implied a definite, though 
 
 partial, recognition of the principle that the " main: 
 
 tenance of the worker shall be the first charge on 
 
 the industry." 
 
ZERO 
 
 251 
 
 The soundness of the general settlement remains 
 to be tested. Under the profit-sharing scheme it is 
 probable that variations between district wages may- 
 be at least as great as before the war. In so far as 
 such variations were a cause of discontent the finality 
 of the terms may perhaps be questioned. More 
 certain is the prospect that for the financial provi- 
 sions to prove stable the numbers employed in the 
 industry must be reduced by at least as much, and 
 probably more, than the absorption of labour during 
 the war (estimated at 200,000). And even then, 
 how long the standard wage will remain payable, 
 and how long the miners will consent to accept it, 
 remain matters of none too sanguine conjecture.* 
 
 * The following statement, issued on July Sth by the Secretary for 
 Mines (Mr. Bridgeman) shows the average earnings per shift before the 
 stoppage, the estimated earnings under the offer of March, and the settle- 
 ment offer : — 
 
 
 A verage Earnings 
 
 
 
 
 before stoppage. 
 
 Eatimatea 
 
 Earnings, 
 
 
 
 
 
 Settlement 
 
 
 June, 
 
 March, 
 
 March offer 
 
 offer until 
 
 
 1914- 
 
 1921. 
 
 (for April). 
 
 end of July 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Cumberland 
 
 
 6 II 
 
 17 II 
 
 9 II 
 
 15 II 
 
 Lanes and Cheshire 
 
 
 6 8 
 
 17 
 
 13 2 
 
 15 
 
 North staffs 
 
 
 7 7 
 
 15 9 
 
 II 4 
 
 13 9 , 
 
 North Wales 
 
 
 6 4 
 
 16 4 
 
 9 8 
 
 14 4 
 
 Salop 
 
 
 5 I 
 
 15 9 
 
 10 9 
 
 13 9 
 
 South staffs 
 
 . 
 
 5 3 
 
 15 
 
 9 5 
 
 14 
 
 Cannock Chase ... 
 
 . 
 
 6 8 
 
 16 
 
 14 2 
 
 14 7 
 
 Warwick ... 
 
 . 
 
 6 7 
 
 16 8 
 
 12 II 
 
 15 3 
 
 S. Derbyshire 
 
 
 6 10 
 
 16 8 
 
 15 4 
 
 15 3 
 
 Leicester 
 
 
 6 4 
 
 16 9 
 
 i5 9 
 
 15 4 
 
 Yorkshire 
 
 : 7 8 
 
 18 5 
 
 17 2 
 
 17 
 
 Notts and N. Derby 
 
 
 7 2 
 
 18 6 
 
 16 2 
 
 17 I 
 
 Scotland 
 
 
 7 2 
 
 18 6 
 
 14 4 
 
 16 6 
 
 Northumberland ... 
 
 
 6 It 
 
 17 10 
 
 12 9 
 
 15 10 
 
 Durham 
 
 
 6 10 
 
 17 11 
 
 12 II 
 
 15 II 
 
 South Wales 
 
 
 7 4 
 
 19 5 
 
 12 5 
 
 17 5 
 
 Somerset 
 
 
 5 
 
 »5 
 
 9 II 
 
 13 
 
 Forest of Dean ... 
 
 
 5 7 
 
 15. 8 
 
 9 3 
 
 13 8 
 
 Bristol 
 
 
 5 
 
 15 6 
 
 9 8 
 
 13 6 
 
252 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 §8. 
 
 The three months' stoppage of the coal-mines, 
 with the resultant increase of unemplojonent, and 
 heavy drain on trade union resources, naturally 
 accelerated the reduction of wages which the state 
 of the industry, and the fall in the cost of living, 
 seemed to demand. Statistics given in the Labour 
 Gazette for July, 1921, indicate that during the first 
 six months of the year the wage rates of 4,324,000 
 workers were reduced by amounts totalling £1,768,500 
 per week. A rough calculation suggests that this 
 figure would represent an average reduction of 
 from 10 to 15 per cent, on the wages for December, 
 1920. Seeing that during the same period the 
 cost of living index declined by 46 points (that 
 is, roughly, 17^ per cent, of the figure for 
 January), it may be argued that in theory the 
 workers secured some economic advantage. But 
 the unprecedented expansion of unemployment must 
 be borne in mind. According to the trade union 
 returns (which probably form the more relevant 
 basis of comparison in this case) three times as much 
 total unemployment prevailed at the end as at the 
 beginning of the six months. Despite State and trade 
 union benefits, it would thus appear that substan- 
 tially less purchasing power was being distributed 
 to the workers ; and it is certain that notwithstand- 
 ing the theoretical advantage shown by the wage 
 figures, and ignoring the plight of the miners, the 
 actual average level of working class living as a whole 
 was worse than in 1914. A proportion of th6 calami- 
 tous unemployment was of course a direct conse- 
 quence of the mining stoppage. But the increase was 
 well under way before the end of March, when the 
 mining industry was losing at the rate of ij milUon 
 
ZERO 253. 
 
 pounds per week. Had that loss continued to be 
 borne entirely by the Exchequer the stoppage 
 would certainly have been postponed, but the 
 eventual result would have been to increase the 
 general burden of taxation, thus merely spreading 
 over a wider field and through a longer period the 
 sacrifice represented by the proposed fall in miners' 
 wages, while providing no surety of a revival of 
 prosperity and an increase of employment. In 
 fact the adjustment of industry to the post-war 
 situation, by whatever means achieved, appears to 
 admitof no alternative to a fall in real as well as nominal 
 wages ; and it therefore remains highly problematical 
 whether, while they retain a theoretical advantage of 
 present-day real wages, the workers can escape the 
 negating factor of a fall in the volume of employ- 
 ment. The provision of State employment or 
 maintenance offers no escape from this prospect. 
 
 Some reference must be made in conclusion to the 
 effect on general opinion of these developments. 
 Whether or no the intention of the Government 
 was -to challenge the revolutionary forces in the 
 country, such was in effect the issue of the policy 
 of March, 192 1 ; and in the result those forces were 
 for the time dissipated. In each of the three con- 
 stituent groups of the Triple Alliance the wrangle 
 over the events of " Black Friday " ended in virtual 
 majority votes of confidence in the officials. The 
 faith of many trade unionists in the possibilities of 
 direct action had suffered a lasting set-back ; and 
 there was a natural reaction in favour of the political 
 weapon. The I^abour party, while protesting in 
 accordance with its traditions against the imprison- 
 ment of some 70 Communists for seditious speeches, 
 reiterated its refusal to admit them to membership, 
 and commenced preparation for the next election 
 on a larger scale than before. 
 
 All this might signify little more than the " swing 
 
254 lyABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 of the pendulum " were it not that in many sections 
 of the community a change, if not of opinion, of 
 disposition, was commencing. The events of the 
 past few years had raised the question of the social 
 status of the great industries. The battle over 
 the miners' wages suggested that the claim of the 
 worker to adequate maintenance should rest, not 
 on his capacity to assist in profit-earning for the 
 private employer, but on the social value of the 
 service he performed. The reaction (much of it 
 likely to be transient) against State enterprise, and 
 the confusion of the older political schools of thought, 
 left an atmosphere favourable to whatever construc- 
 tive suggestions I^abour could make ; and the mani- 
 fest need of something more than palliative measures 
 deepened the doubt as to whether the pre-war 
 industrial system could ever return unmodified. 
 
 In respect of housing in particular, there arose a 
 dilemma which illustrates the temper of the moment. 
 The failure, and eventual abandonment, of the State 
 scheme, left the problem not merely unsolved, but 
 with no prospect of solution. House-room for those 
 who most needed it remained almost impossible to 
 obtain, and all rents — save those limited by statute — 
 soared to unheard-of levels. For what little Uving 
 room became available " premiums " — fantastic sums 
 demanded as the price of the privilege of paying an 
 exorbitant rental for indifferent accommodation — 
 were exacted in some form or other by almost every 
 species of property holder. In essence, the situation 
 only reflected the natural relation of price to supply 
 and demand ; but the intense indignation of all 
 except the vendors served to remind them that quasi- 
 mechanical economic law is simply brute earth for 
 humanity to set its feet on, and that there is no 
 particular reason why the feet should always move 
 in a circle. 
 
 Never in fact was national progress so much depen- 
 
ZERO 255 
 
 dent upon careful thinking. The situation on which 
 this seven years closes was one in which Britain 
 could certainly " muddle " ad infinitum, but with small 
 hope, as the phrase has it, of " muddling through." 
 Nations may choose if they will the method of trial 
 and error ; but the trial is ^.pt to be long, and the 
 error is punished. War, social and international, 
 would seem to have been fore-ordained for this past 
 decade ; but the meaning of such ordinance is 
 not that war is a necessary phase of collective 
 activity, but that society has to pay the full price 
 of its own mistakes. 
 
 In the industrial field, the war of employer and 
 employed, of capital and labour, is essentially a side- 
 issue. The real campaign is that of just and intelli- 
 gent men on both sides in quest of a better social 
 system. 
 
EPII.OGUE. 
 
 Contemporary history, clutching at the flying 
 skirts of the hour, is apt to fetch up breathless on a 
 few loose ends that only some later survey can bind 
 or bury. Yet all history, however essayed, consists 
 not in an impossible recapture of the infinite vagaries 
 of circumstance, but in the imposition of significant 
 form upon the fluent chaos of experience. As such 
 it is a species of action on the one hand and of art 
 upon the other : both these, less by intention than 
 by the sheer necessity of the mind. Even of events 
 conveniently past, the record is never so much a 
 catalogue as an interpretation ; and from the nature 
 of things, or theyuature of thought, or both (if indeed 
 they be two, and not one) the interpretation appears 
 to follow a broad rhythin of systole and diastole in 
 which, with the regular irregularity of Ufe, points of 
 comparative pause seem to recur giving scale and 
 significance to the endless sequence. And though the 
 odds would lie agaiast the accidental present falling 
 on such a node, the summer of 192 1 may mark in 
 fact the close of a cycle. 
 
 So far, some future writer may discern, the violent 
 eruption of the past decade — of which war was the 
 climax, not the origin — ^has carried social and indus- 
 trial affairs. At leUgth the nation, having been 
 blown high enough to glimpse in the clouds a land 
 fit for heroes to live in, falls rapidly earthward, 
 hoping in vain that the ground may prove no harder 
 
EPII.OGUE 257 
 
 than it was in 1914. I/ike the inflated currency of 
 the war, the inflated hopes of the peace shrink and 
 subside. The cost of living declines by 46 points 
 of the ofiicial index in six months — a swifter move- 
 ment than in any such period of the past seven years ; 
 and the wage-rates of 4J million workers suffer their 
 first general reduction. So also the great reform 
 projects of 1918 are left suspended in the region of 
 aspiration. The national education scheme is in- 
 definitely postponed, while the lyondon County 
 Council overrides the law in flight from its commit- 
 ments. The half-a-million houses that figured in the 
 national reconstruction scheme dwindle to a bare 
 176,000, which the workers may perhaps be able to 
 rent on an improved standard of two families per 
 house. Minimum wage legislation is perforce cur- 
 tailed, while in at least one section of industry the 
 hours of labour are extended. In vain does the 
 Provisional Joint Committee of 1919 dissolve itself 
 in protest against the non-fulfilment of government 
 promises ; more than the Provisional Joint Com- 
 mittee will dissolve before those promises become 
 redeemable. Meanwhile the smoke of factory chim- 
 neys belching again into the unwontedly clean air 
 suggests some normal breath of industry returning 
 after a period of paroxysm ; and employers inmmier- 
 able, and 2| million unemployed, watch eagerly for 
 the first faint sign of a " trade revival." " Work and 
 goodwill," chants The Times ; " Increased output 
 is essential," says Vernon Hartshorn to the miners ; 
 " Now for a good time," bellows John Bull as the 
 pits re-open. Thus does the coimtry settle down, 
 late and painfully, on the edge of the financial crater, 
 uncertain whether on the whole it is more likely to 
 blow up again, or fall in, or by good luck remain 
 comparatively stable ; and those who were nether- 
 most before find themselves nethermost again. 
 The worker, looking on with doubtful eyes and 
 
258 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 lightet pocket, feels perhaps less jubilant than Mr. 
 Battomley. "It is not the intention of the 
 employers," says with variations many a trade agree- 
 ment, " to reduce the economic status of the worker 
 to the pre-war level " ; but it is patently the 
 intention of blind economic law, which human 
 prescience will be hard tried in the long run to 
 circtmivent. Short of financial revolution, the " pre- 
 war level " would seem the utmost limit of what can 
 for many years be hoped for ; and the miner, the 
 engineer, the builder, the textile worker and many 
 another may not unnaturally wonder in ruminant 
 silence whether that is what it is all to come to^ 
 whether the best the years can bring is the gradual 
 and painftd restoration of the status quo ante. 
 
 The question comes at a critical moment. For ten 
 years past industrial organisation has been increasing 
 in unprecedented fashion. Among the employers it 
 has reached a degree not merely of magnitude, but 
 of efficiency, of which neither the general public 
 nor the vast majority of trade unionists is allowed to 
 form any adequate idea. Power has been quietly 
 encompassed with such success that in the industrial 
 field, as far as organisation is concerned, a national 
 lock-out is more feasible than a general strike ; 
 while in the poUtical field, in the very House of 
 Commons, the interests of the Federation of British 
 Industries are watched by a larger group of abler 
 men than that which stands for labour. But the 
 decade has also seen a determined attempt on the 
 part of the workers to consolidate their hold on 
 industrial power ; and the principle si vis pacem 
 para helium, formerly applied with such auspicious 
 results in international affairs, is thus informing 
 the social structure ever more thoroughly. In > 
 particular, for the past two years there has been 
 a general move to strengthen the centralised control 
 of the main industrial groups. In the printing, 
 
EPII.OGUE 259 
 
 engineering, iron and steel, building, and transport 
 industries, in general labour, among the clerks, the 
 teachers, and the civil servants, the previous federa- 
 tions, affiliations or working arrangements between 
 various sections are being steadily modified in the 
 direction of complete amalgamation. The process 
 has been accelerated by the wage reduction of the 
 past six months-; but it is as yet far from the desired 
 ideal, and the weakness of the present position is 
 aptly illustrated in the following passage from the 
 Journal of the Amalgamated Kngineering Union for 
 May 2ist — a passage which provides an interesting 
 commentary on the events of 1917 : 
 
 " Once again we are faced with the weakness 
 of our position owing to sectionalism in the 
 industry. We went into conference with the 
 employers to put forward our views against the 
 employers' claim for reduced wages with the 
 knowledge that a few hours previous, officials 
 representing an important section of our trade 
 had agreed to recommend to their members a 
 reduction in wages amounting to 6s. per week. 
 This question must receive the immediate 
 attention of the men in the shop. Neither 
 officialism nor the question of benefits must be 
 allowed to stand in the way. We therefore 
 appeal to the Shop Stewards and local officials 
 to make efforts with the members of other 
 organisations to bring the matter before their 
 respective branches with a view to inducing 
 their officials to take action." 
 Thus do circumstances urge the complete integra- 
 tion of trade unions on a comprehensive industrial 
 basis. To both defensive and aggressive action that 
 is nov/ clearly essential ; and we may look forward, 
 along the line of present development, to such an 
 array of rival forces as will render industrial disputes 
 perhaps less frequent, but ever more extensive and 
 
26o I^ABOUR IN TRANvSITION 
 
 more devastating. Recent experience indeed suggests 
 that the employment of industrial coercion in other 
 than strictly industrial issues is if anything less 
 feasible on the larger than on the smaller scale ; nor 
 does it appear that the expansion of workers! 
 organisation has materially tilted the balance of 
 power in the workers' favour. But it does appear 
 that such industrial disputes as occur must jeopardise 
 the common weal to an ever-increasing degree ; and 
 it is possible that the functions of the State will 
 with increasing difficulty be confined to those of 
 " keeping the ring." It may well be that a policy 
 of non-intervention will fall permanently short of 
 the minimum duties of government, and that states- 
 man of whatever party will find themselves compelled 
 to adopt active rather than passive measures, in 
 defence of the common weal. In such circumstances 
 the ideal impartiality of the State will be more and 
 more difiicult of preservation ; and should the balance 
 of political power between the classes remain sub- 
 stantially unchanged, and the conduct of industry 
 suffer no great and drastic modification, a revolu- 
 tionary situation must inevitably arise within the 
 next few decades even though there be no specific 
 resort to industrial coercion in political issues. 
 
 This process, it must be emphasized, is not 
 dependent upon the deliberate adoption of a 
 revolutionary policy by the trade unions, nor upon 
 any marked expansion of their present sphere of 
 action. And the limits of that sphere are now fairly 
 apparent. As custodians of the economic status of 
 their members,, as instruments for stabiHsing, on 
 occasion bettering the terms and conditions of 
 employment, the trade unions have proved thmselves 
 indispensable to the workers. But on the profounder 
 factors of economic welfare their influence is little 
 more than negative. Despite Whitley Councils and 
 other such joint boards of employers and employed, 
 
KPIIvOGUE 261 
 
 the trade unions are yet unable to lay hold on more 
 of the reality of industrial control than is gratuitously 
 offered them — nor have they proved their title. 
 Except within the narrowest limits, they are unable 
 to modify the rise or fall of the value of thfe wages 
 they secure, or to stay the actual depression of such 
 wages to bare subsistence point where industry 
 demands, or to regulate the ebb and flow of the 
 unemployment they insure against. And if in such 
 cases force majeure be pleaded — as with reason it 
 may — in the free territory of thought their preroga- 
 tive is scarcely better grounded. Despite, or because 
 of, their intimate acquaintance with the working of 
 the present system of industry, the trade unions have 
 made little contribution to current efforts at the 
 solution of its more fundamental problems. The 
 unexampled trade depression brings forth again 
 from the Trade Union Congress the threadbare 
 suggestion that each individual should do less work 
 in order that more may be employed ; as if the 
 deliberate restriction of output by the workers were 
 one whit less culpable than the deliberate curtailment 
 of production by the employers. The most practical 
 proposals for industrial maintenance have been 
 worked out by employers rather than trade unionists, 
 and thwarted in case after case by the internecine 
 jealousy and mutual suspicion of the unions. The 
 origin of the national gmlds scheme lies in far other 
 than trade union circles, and the name borne by the 
 much discussed Foster report is the name of an 
 employer. The pioneers of the building gmlds were 
 respectively manager and journalist ; and the most 
 searching criticism of the most fundamental 
 aspect of modern industry — that contained m the 
 Douglas-Orage credit scheme — has only with the 
 greatest difi^ulty secured a bare hearing from the 
 most proiiiment trade union leaders. Neither in 
 deed nor in thought can it be maintained that the 
 
262 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 trade unions have made positive contribution to the 
 reconstruction of the industry and productive 
 capacity of the nation. 
 
 It will be argued that trade unions do not set out 
 to do these things ; their responsibiUty is simply to 
 their members for such advantages as they can secure, 
 and to no-one else. That is precisely the point. It is 
 forgotten in the constant struggle over the terms and 
 conditions of employment that the ultimate concern 
 of society is not with the fact or the conditions of 
 labour, but with the product of labour and its 
 distribution. The inequities of distribution do not 
 absolve the trade unions from their share of respon- 
 sibihty for production ; the defects of the present 
 social system do not justify the tacit denial of all 
 allegiance to the community. The sanction now 
 given by the State and by society to the extant 
 industrial organisations — a sanction amounting 
 almost to privilege in the case of the trade unions — 
 entails a certain reciprocal obligation of service ; 
 an obligation that is not to be shirked merely because 
 the service is for the most part indirectly rendered. 
 The natural sequel to four years unbridled destruc- 
 tion is many years increased effort for less reward ; 
 yet ca'canny, which was an occasional policy before 
 the war, is now over large areas of industry a mere 
 habit, and bids to become a disease ; and it is not 
 the kind of disease from which recovery can be made 
 on a sudden, at will or behest. If in the future that 
 is not to be regarded as a trade union matter/ and 
 an important one, so much the worse for labour. 
 In sober truth, the trade union must either concern 
 itself, here and now, with the quaUty and quantity 
 of the service its members render to society, or con- 
 sign itself to oblivion. 
 
 But if the sense of social responsibility is at 
 times found wanting in trade union practice, it is 
 infinitely farther to seek among the employers' 
 
EPIIrOGUB , 263 
 
 associations ; for there are activities of these latter 
 in which the interest of the community is not 
 merely neglected, but positively jeopardised. 
 Individual employers, it is true, have in many 
 cases done their utmost to secure the good of their 
 workers and the fair service of the public ; but 
 good and bad alike are bound by the limits of a 
 system that makes the abiHty of an industry to 
 earn a competitive profit for the private employer 
 the determining factor. That principle, abandoned 
 perforce under stress of war, has failed to meet 
 the most crying needs of society in time of peace ; 
 and in at least some branches of industry a change 
 in the sphere of motive is essential. 
 
 It is on this score that the demand for workers' 
 control has gained many adherents. But those on 
 whom at present the onus prohandi rests must 
 prove their case on more counts than one. In the 
 first place, it is by no means certain that a sense 
 of social responsibility, at present largely to seek 
 among trade unions, will be more easily inculcated 
 as their development proceeds ; yet unless the 
 inculcation of that sense is timely begun, the 
 functional organisation of society implied in workers' 
 control would conceivably raise more problems than 
 it solved. But granted that a change in the sphere 
 of motive were thus satisfactorily effected, there is 
 a farther issue. " Workers' control," like many 
 another time-honoured phrase, is now thoroughly 
 cant-encrusted, and its implications are not so 
 simple as appears. Control of any sort implies 
 that the liberty of someone or other is to be 
 restricted ; and the immediate practical point for 
 industry is whether or no the restriction carries 
 the voluntary consent of the controlled. In so far 
 as workers' control might secure the consent of a 
 larger proportion of the population it is ipso facto 
 desirable as tending to the smoother working and 
 
264 I.ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 increased productivity of industry. It is upon this 
 initial advantage that the success of the building 
 guilds has so far been secured ; but there is a second 
 testv In the long rvai—^ace Lenin— workers' control 
 can only justify itself to society by proving intrin- 
 sically better control. The affairs of modern industry 
 admit of no more bungling from the workers than 
 from any other body ; and it is an open question 
 whether, were some unforeseen turn of forttme to 
 saddle the trade unions with the reahty of workers' 
 control at short notice, the gain in the sphere of 
 motivation would outweigh for as much as six months 
 the certain loss in practical efficiency. There is in 
 many quarters a tacit assumption that the abstract 
 justice of the idea of workers' control would in some 
 way redeem that loss. We are too easily deceived. 
 There are possible states of society which, while 
 verging on the intolerable through social injustice, 
 are yet liable to utterly disastrous collapse at too 
 drastic and sudden an application of strict social 
 justice. I^et modern civiUsation beware how it 
 tempt the blind goddess. 
 
 In the advance towards any radical change in 
 the conduct of modern industry the interests of 
 society demand that the workers should seek always 
 to widen the scope of the forces they take with them. 
 An exclusive or jealous interpretation of their 
 ideals could be justified only by the existence of a 
 plethora of technical and directive ability within 
 the trade unions which at present is not there. The 
 process of " change in the sphere of motive " must 
 for permanence be a conversion rather than a 
 catastrophe ; and the conversion must include 
 the largest possible proportion of those now engaged 
 in industry. Kvery effort towards a wider basis 
 of service may therefore contribute to the ultimate 
 reorganisation. The building guilds, the co-partner- 
 ship schemes of private employers, the efforts at 
 
BPII.OGUE 265 
 
 reconstruction made by the Joint Industrial Councils, 
 the solid, quiet work of the lyabour Research 
 Department, the effort of every agency engaged 
 in the education, and especially in aiding the seU- 
 education, of the workers, and, above all, the 
 great co-operative movement, with its social and 
 educational activities — these things are a surer 
 ground of hope than reams of print and seas of 
 agitation. In the present organisation of the trade 
 unions labour has at least a ready-made opportunity 
 of advancing not merely the economic status, but 
 the intrinsic value, the moral and intellectual worth, 
 of the workers ; and that opportunity is in the last 
 resort more momentous and of fuller promise than 
 the coercive force of industrial combination. 
 
 For it is in and through such educational effort, 
 broadly conceived and patiently pursued, that the 
 psychological revolution, the " revolution in the 
 spirit of man " for which since Ibsen's day so many 
 have called in vain, can be brought about. It is 
 the curse upon the present system that goodwill 
 among men — of which there is far more, even in the 
 industrial world, than the vulgar press discerns — ^is 
 so largely suppressed and thwarted. Among the 
 various groups of workers, despite much rivalry and 
 jealous exclusiveness, there is a nascent consciousness 
 of confraternity that is not to be regarded as an evil 
 thing merely because its range is limited and its 
 action sometimes misapplied. The task of the future 
 is not to suppress, but to educate and Hberate that 
 consciousness. Membership of so large a community 
 as the nation is seldom a dynamic, generally a poten- 
 tial factor of human motive. Consciousness of 
 smaller communities is, however, an ever-present 
 and ever-active stimulus ; and in the light of recent 
 history the sense of mutual service appears a more 
 durable cement of the social fabric than the cash 
 nexus. Here it may be lies the compensatory ele- 
 
266 I^ABOUR IN TRANSITION 
 
 ment for the deficiency of personal motive in modem 
 industry^ — in the consciousness of recognised public 
 service, rendered and acknowledged through the 
 industrial group. 
 
 What modifications of constitutional theory and 
 practice that social revolution may entail it is 
 the task of the I^abour party, not the trade unions, 
 to discover and prepare. The political movement 
 will have, as its constant preoccupation, the inter- 
 pretation step by step of the labour ideals with a 
 view to their acceptance by, rather than their en- 
 forcement upon, public opinion ; since to their 
 realisation the support of a large measure of pubhc 
 opinion is absolutely necessary. Ultimately the 
 political movement will be called on to solve the 
 anomaly by which at present the great industrial 
 groups have no existence as constitutional entities 
 nor any sort of constitutional connexion with the 
 executive organisations of government — an anomaly 
 by which the efiiciency of government as well as 
 industry is impaired. And it will be called on — 
 it, or whoever else can — to solve the greater and 
 truly staggering discrepancy between real and effec- 
 tive demand : the discrepancy by which at present 
 appalling destitution and unprecedented productive 
 capacity can coexist in the same areas of the same 
 country. Before such tasks can be accomplished 
 the limitations of the present trade union outlook 
 must be exceeded — ^where necessary, over-ridden; 
 and in the meantime labour leaders must regard 
 themselves as charged with the education both of 
 general and especially of industrial opinion. That 
 policy may seem slow ; but it is as swift as the 
 realities of labour organisation and the national 
 temper will allow, and its promise is surer than that 
 of any more drastic alternative. 
 
 For the central tradition of British history, the 
 very genius of the race, lies in plasticity and in the 
 
EPIIvOGUK 267 
 
 power of assimilation. That tradition has persisted 
 through many vicissitudes — thwarted sometimes, it 
 is true, by interludes of violent struggle, but only 
 to reassert itself when the noise of battle is ended 
 and the captains and the kings depart. Over indus- 
 trial history in particular the lesson is writ too plain 
 for even the most doctrinaire reading to ignore. 
 The greatest inequities have arisen not by sudden 
 enactment but by gradual cumulation, and as con- 
 comitant by-products of positive material advance ; 
 and it is in the last degree unlikely that the Hi- 
 adjustment of the social balance will be firmly 
 righted by any sudden kick of the beam. The one 
 wise policy in national affairs is that of dehberate 
 disinterested acquiescence in the main tradition ; 
 and persons or parties that run counter to it, with 
 no matter how laudable intentions, work in the long 
 run to postpone, to jeopardise, possibly to destroy 
 the common weal. Great and tangible sacrifices, 
 of power and privilege and possession, will ultimately 
 prove necessary to the establishment of a better 
 social order ; but the demand must be made in the 
 name of the community, and endorsed by an author- 
 ity not less than national. The militant strength of 
 labour will remain a last desperate and doubtful 
 resource ; but it is the interest of all who care for 
 Britain that in due time the necessary sacrifices 
 should be secured, not by the industrial power of 
 labour driven to drastic measures of coercion, but 
 by the general conscience of the community roused 
 to a finer sense of what is just. 
 
 THE END. 
 
SELECTED AUTHORITIES, ETC. 
 
 GENERAI.. 
 
 The principal authority for the whole period is the 
 daily and periodical Press, in which practically all 
 important statements of the Government, Ministry 
 of Munitions or other authorities were published as 
 issued. The Trade Union Journals, particularly the 
 Monthly Journal of the A.S.K- and the British Trade 
 Union Review, supply valuable detail; and the 
 official Labour Gazette contains statistics and reviews 
 of labour legislation, important disputes, etc. 
 
 A note may be added on the Ivabour Press. The Daily Citizen 
 was published from October, 1912, to June, 1915. Its pre-war 
 circulation reached at one time 300,000, but it dedined from the 
 close of 1913. It represented moderate opinion and was not 
 sufficiently individual to compete with the popular newspapers. 
 The Herald commenced publication as a daily early in 1912 ; 
 it was published weekly during the war, and was restarted as a 
 daily on March 31st, 1919. It took up a decidedly left wing 
 attitude and latterly became an organ of extremist opinion* 
 supporting the " direct action " policy. . Its principal financial 
 support comes from the Miners' Federation and the N.U.R. Its 
 circulation in the years 1918-1921 has varied from about 230,000 
 to 330,000 ; during the railway strike of 1919 the drcidation 
 rose to nearly 500,000. The I.Iy.P. has been represented through- 
 out by the Labour Leader (weekly), which during the war was 
 extreme Socialist and pacifist. The Labour Leader republished 
 the account of the Clydeside meetings of December, 1915, after 
 Forward (Clyde Workers' Committee organ) was suppressed. 
 Other left-wing organs to which reference should be made are : 
 
SElrECTED AUTHORITIES, ETC. 269 
 
 The Call, Solidarity, and Workers' Dreadnought (the last originally 
 a women's suffrage paper). The Call, formerly the organ of the 
 British Socialist Party, was amalgamated with the Communist 
 in the autumn of 1920. The circulation of the latter averaged 
 49,000 weekly during April, 1921, and over the Triple Alliance 
 crisis rose to 60,000. 
 
 Among books of general reference the following 
 may be mentioned : 
 
 Aimuai Registers, 1914-1920. 
 lyabour Year Books, 1916 and 1919. 
 Webb : History of Trade Unionism. 
 Askwith : Industrial Disputes. 
 Gray : War-time Control of Industry. 
 Bums : Government and Industry. 
 Money : The Case for Nationalisation. 
 Dewar : The Great Munition Feat. 
 
 Ministry of Labour : Reports on ConciUation and Arbitration for 
 1914-1918 and 1919. 
 
 Reference is also made to reports of Trade Union 
 and Labour Party Conferences, etc., Acts of Parlia- 
 ment and Hansard. The following are among the 
 authorities relating to special periods or aspects : 
 
 PART ONE. 
 
 Cole : I^abour in War-time. 
 
 Report of Workers War Emergency Committee, 1914-1916. 
 Special Reports of Board of Trade on the State of Employment 
 in October, 1914, December, 1914, February, 1913. (Cd. 
 
 7703,7755.7850.) 
 Reports of I,ocal Government Board on Distress Committees, etc. 
 
 (Cd. 7603, 7763, 7756.) 
 Drake : Women in the Engineering Trades. 
 Report on Bad Time-keeping. (H.C. 220.) 
 On the munitions supply question, see {inter alia) : 
 
 Repington : The Great European War. 
 Caldwell : Experiences of a Dug-out. 
 Arthur : Life of Lord Kitchener (Vol. III). 
 Hansard: H.C, LXX, 1277; LXXI, 277-329, 1642 seq,; 
 LXXII, 18, 1221-22 ; LXXVII, 96 seq. 
 
270 SEI.KCTED AUTHORITIES, ETC. 
 
 On the influence and work of the Press, see especially : 
 
 Cook : The Press in War-time. 
 
 Ch. XVil of Caldwell, op. cit., is particularly valuable ; see also 
 the Debate in H.C., March nth, 1918 ; Hd. 104, 73 seq. 
 
 On recruitment : 
 
 I/abour Year Book, 1916, and Cole, op. cit. (details relating to 
 
 various industries). 
 Repington, o/>. cit. 
 War Cabinet Report, 1918, p. 95. 
 
 PART TWO. 
 
 Goodrich : The Frontier of Control (valuable bibliography). 
 
 War Cabinet Report, 1917. 
 
 Commission of Inquiry into Industrial Unrest : Reports. 
 
 (Cd. 8662-9 ; 8696.) 
 I/abour Memorandum on War-aims. 
 Union of Democratic Control : pamphlets — 
 
 The National PoUcy. 
 
 War and the Workers. 
 
 The Morrow of the War, etc. 
 I,abour Press as indicated. 
 
 PART THREE. 
 
 War Cabinet Report, 1918. 
 
 Report on Clyde Munition Workers. (Cd. 8136.) 
 
 Reports of the Whitley Committee. (Cd. 8606, 9085, 9099, 
 
 9153-) 
 Industrial Reports of Ministry of I^abour, Nos. 1-4. 
 Bulletins on Work of Joint Industrial Councils (Ministry of 
 
 I<abour). 
 Industrial Council for the Building Industry : Garton 
 
 Foundation. 
 Month's Work (monthly record of Ministry of I/abour). 
 Health of Munition Workers' Committee : Reports and 
 
 Handbook. 
 Juvenile Employment during the War and After : Ministry of 
 
 Reconstruction. 
 Report of Departmental Committee on Juvenile Education. 
 
 (Cd. 8512.) 
 Findlay : The Young Wage-earner. 
 Report of War Cabinet Committee on Women in Industry. 
 
 (Cmd. 135, 157.) 
 
SEI.ECTED AUTHORITIES, ETC. 271 
 
 The Position of Women after the War : Report of Standing 
 
 Joint Committee of Women's Organisations. 
 I<. K. Yates : The Women's Part. 
 
 PART FOUR. 
 
 Housing : Report on Emergency Problem. (Cd. 9087.) 
 
 Housing and Town-planning Report. (Cmd. 917.) 
 
 Housing in England and W^es (Ministry of Reconstruction). 
 
 Housing : Journal of Ministry of Health. 
 
 Report on Position of the Building Industry after the War. 
 
 (Cd. 9197.) 
 Ministry of Health: Second Annual Report (1921). 
 Coal Industry Commission : Reports, Cmd. 210. (Details of 
 
 disputes, etc., in Labour Gazette and I^abour Press.) 
 
 On Socialist opinion generally : 
 
 Beer : History of British Socialism. 
 I<abour and the New Spcial Order. 
 I/abour and the Peace Treaty, (Ministry of Labour). 
 R. W. Polegate : The International during the War. 
 R. P. Dutt : The Two Internationals. 
 Robert WiUiams : The New I^abour Outlook. 
 Pamphlets, etc., of National Guilds I^eague, British Socialist 
 Party, I/abour Party, Communist Party, etc. 
 
272 
 
 STATISTICS 
 
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 273 
 
 PERCENTAGES OF TOTAI, UNEMPI^OYMENT 
 
 AMONG INSURED WORKPEOPI.E AND TRADE 
 
 UNIONISTS AFTER THE WAR. 
 
 
 1919. 
 
 1920. 
 
 1921. 
 
 End of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 U.I. A. 
 
 T.U. 
 
 U.I. A. 
 
 T.U. 
 
 U.I. A. 
 
 T.U. 
 
 January 
 
 9-93 
 
 2.5 
 
 6.10 
 
 2.9 
 
 8.2 
 
 6.9 
 
 February 
 
 10.71 
 
 2.8 
 
 4.42 
 
 1.6 
 
 9-5 
 
 8.5 
 
 March 
 
 * 
 
 2.9 
 
 3-63 
 
 I.I 
 
 II-3 
 
 lO.O 
 
 April 
 
 * 
 
 2.7 
 
 2.8 
 
 •9 
 
 15-0 
 
 17.6 
 
 May 
 
 * 
 
 2.1 
 
 2.68 
 
 I.I 
 
 17-31 
 
 22.2 
 
 June 
 
 * 
 
 1-7 
 
 2.62 
 
 1.2 
 
 17.81 
 
 23.1 
 
 July 
 
 * 
 
 2.0 
 
 2.73 
 
 1.4 
 
 14.80 
 
 16.7 
 
 August 
 
 * 
 
 2.2 
 
 2.88 
 
 1.6 
 
 1315 
 
 16.5 
 
 September 
 
 * 
 
 1.6 
 
 3.80 
 
 2.2 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 October 
 
 * 
 
 2.6 
 
 4-iot 
 
 5-3 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 November 
 
 8.32 
 
 2.9 
 
 37 
 
 3-7 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 December 
 
 6.58 
 
 3-2 
 
 5-8 
 
 6.1 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 * Percentages not available. 
 
 t On 15th October, after which date no ftirther statistics under the Acts 
 of 1911-16 are available. The November figure relates to the Act of 1920. 
 
 The Trade Unjon percentages relate to from sj to 4 million workers, 
 mainly of skilled workpeople : they understate tiie proportion of general 
 unemployment, but are on a more constant basis than the Insurance 
 figures. The latter up to November 8th, 1920, cover from 3J to 4 million 
 workers, skilled and unskilled, among whom the liability to unemployment 
 was on the whole greater than the average among the 11,900,000 workers 
 to whom since November 8th the figures refer. In the former period from 
 two-thirds to three-quarters of the insured workpeople were demobilised 
 men and women; and throughout 1919 an absolute majority of those 
 registered were women, {Labour Gazette, 1919-1921.) 
 
274 
 
 STATISTICS 
 
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INDEX. 
 
 FAGS 
 
 Addison, Rt. Hon. C. ... ... ... ... ... ... 98, 192 
 
 Admiralty and labour supply 31 
 
 housing 192 
 
 Agriculture, Board of ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 191 
 
 Wages Boards 144, 173, 179-80, 182 
 
 workers, organisation of ... ... ... ... xv, 163 
 
 hours of labour ... ... ... ... ... 183 
 
 See also Women. 
 Amalgamated Society of Engineers. See Engineering trades. 
 Amalgamation Committee, Metal Engineering and Shipbuilding 
 
 Trades 93-6 
 
 of Trade Unions. See Trade Unions. 
 
 Anderson, W. C quo. xxii 
 
 Appleton, W. A., ed. Democrat ... ... ... ... ... quo. 217 
 
 Apprentices, building trades 195-8 
 
 employment of ... ... ... ... ... ... 32 
 
 ex-service ... ... ... ... ... ... 176 
 
 and Whitley Councils 182 
 
 Arbitration 36, 42, 55, 57, 67, 74, 75, 116, 124, 178, 181 
 
 Interim Court of . 178-9 
 
 See also Committee on Production. 
 
 Armament firms 29,30,66,151 
 
 Armaments Output Committee 46 
 
 Armistice xv, 127, 137, 152, 177, 178, 185 
 
 Army, pre-war 11 
 
 reserve called out ... ... ... ... ... ... 239 
 
 See also Enlistment, Recruiting. 
 
 Askwith, Lord 35,37,40,58,64,67-8,120-21,172 
 
 Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H. 49, 51. 53, 78. 165 
 
 Attestation scheme ... ... ... ... ... ... .1.78-80 
 
 Badges, exemption ... ... ... ... ... •'■ 56, 80-2 
 
 Balfour-Macassey Commission 60,71,73,90 
 
 Bank rate 12,186 
 
 Barnes, Rt. Hon. G. N 115, I37 
 
 Beer, M. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... g«o. xxi, 162 
 
 Belgians, employment of 27 
 
 Belgium, invasion of ... ... ... ... • ■ • • • • • • • 8,9 
 
 BeUoc, HUaire 3cxiii 
 
 Bergson xxiii 
 
 S2 
 
276 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Bismarck 
 
 " Black Friday " 
 
 Board of Trade s 
 
 Bolshevism 
 
 See also I,eiiiii, Soviets. 
 
 Boot and shoe trades 
 
 Booth, G. M 
 
 Bottomley, H 
 
 Box-makers 
 
 Brace. W 
 
 Brest-Utovsk 
 
 Bridgeman, W. C. 
 
 British Socialist Party 
 
 Building guilds 
 
 Building trades 
 
 Joiat Industrial Council 
 
 Bulgaria 
 
 Button, F. S 
 
 27.4 
 
 PAGB 
 
 xzi 
 
 243-4.253 
 
 42. 49, 55. 68, 185, 223, 228 
 ... 104, 112, 138, 140 
 
 164, 
 
 '. ... .'.'. "68, 
 
 112. 
 
 231, 
 
 xvii, 104-5, 137, 
 
 160, 200-4, 261, 
 
 5, 25, 29, 163, 189-204, 
 
 ;[96, 
 
 28 
 
 46 
 
 258 
 
 28 
 
 227 
 127 
 
 251 
 
 210 
 264 
 
 237 
 
 200 
 
 62 
 
 122 
 
 Cabinet 
 
 Ca'canny 
 
 Call, The ... 
 
 Camberwell Housing Scheme 
 
 Camps, army 
 
 Canteens 
 
 Capital levy 
 
 See also Conscription of wealth. 
 
 Capitalist system 
 
 Carson, Sir Edward (Lord) 
 
 Central Labour College 
 
 Chemical trades 
 
 Children, employment of 
 
 provision of meals 
 
 Churchill, Rt. Hon. W 
 
 Civil Commissioners 
 
 Civil Liabilities grants 
 
 Civil Servants, organisation of ... 
 Class war ... 
 
 See also Communism, Direct action. 
 
 Clerks, organisation of ' 
 
 Clyde Dilution Commission 
 
 munition workers, report on 
 strikes, 1915 
 
 1916 
 
 1917 
 
 See also Trade disputes 
 
 Workers' Committee 
 Clynes, The Rt. Hon. J. R. 
 Coal Industry Commission Act ... 
 
 Sankey Commission and 
 
 control of 
 
 decontrol of 
 
 District boards ... 
 
 general 
 
 Hours of Employment Act 
 
 Minimum Wage Act 
 
 8. 31. 4°. 76, 123, 143 
 57, 194, 223, 262 
 quo. 137, 165 
 199-200 
 29,151 
 52, 153 
 136, 170 
 
 xiv, xviii, 117, 136, 137, 149, 165 
 
 3 
 
 149 
 
 25,26,29 
 ,147, 152, 153, 156-7 
 
 15 
 
 99. 119. 164, 172 
 
 241 
 
 176 
 
 163,259 
 6, 95.97. "7. 139.169 
 
 ... XV, 163, 259 
 
 85,91 
 
 71.73 
 
 39,48.91 
 64, 69-71, 91-3 
 
 99 
 
 ... 84-5,91-3 
 ... 122 
 160, 2l8 
 
 reports 218-221 
 
 127, 144, 216 seq. 
 
 161, 225, 231-3, 238 
 
 220-21, 249-50 
 
 ... 24,28,57 
 
 160, 184 
 
 67 
 
INDEX 
 
 36, 
 
 39-42 
 
 Coal Industry, Mining Industry Act 
 
 output of 
 
 subsidy 
 Coal, price of 
 Coalition Government, Asqnith 
 
 Lloyd-George . 
 
 Cole, G. D. H 
 
 Committee on Production 
 Communism 
 Communist, The ... 
 Communist International (Third) 
 
 Party 
 
 Communists, imprisonment of ... 
 Compositors, London Society of 
 
 Conciliation B oards 
 
 Ministry of Labour reports on 
 See also Whitley Councils. 
 Conscientious ob j ectors 
 
 Conscription, industrial 40,46 
 
 military 
 
 See also Military Service Acts 
 of wealth ... 
 
 See also Capital Levy. 
 Contracting-out schemes, unemployment insurance 
 Contracts, army ... ... „. 
 
 Control of armament firms 
 
 government establishments 
 coal mines. See Coal industry, 
 railways 
 Control Boards 
 
 277 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ... 161,221,245,249 
 
 220, 224-5, 227, 230-31 
 
 245-7. 249-50 
 
 ...223-4, Z3I-2 
 
 53.58 
 
 140, 164-5, 192, 217 
 13,15,69 
 
 68, 120-21, J 78, 180 
 
 xviii, 150, 209 
 
 ... 212 
 
 ... 209-10, 212 
 
 161, 210-14, 242 
 
 213,253 
 
 50 
 
 xix 
 xix, 178, 179 
 
 50. 53. 57, 77. 
 
 Co-operative Society 
 
 Co-partnership 
 
 Corn Production Act 
 
 Cost of living 
 
 Cotton industry ... 
 
 CouncU of Action ... 
 
 Cramp, C. T. 
 
 Crayford agreement 
 
 Credit scheme, Donglas-Orage 
 
 202, 242, 246-7, 265 
 
 265 
 
 61, 144, 173, 182 
 117, 180, 185-6, 223, 252, 257, 274 
 4, 26, 143 
 160, 207-8, 211 
 ... 226 
 
 35 
 
 ... 261 
 
 Daily Herald 
 
 Defence of the Realm Act 
 
 Amendment Act No. 
 
 Regulation 8b ... 
 Defence Corps (1921) 
 Demarcation rules 
 Demobilisation 
 
 Deportation of Clyde shop stewards 
 Derby, Lord, and Dockets' battalion ... 
 attestation scheme 
 
 Dewar, G. A. B 
 
 Dillon, J 
 
 Dilution. See Labour. 
 
 Dilution Commissions 
 
 Diminishing return ' 
 
 ... 145 
 
 79, 86, 170 
 63, 77-8 
 
 ... 108 
 
 186-7 
 
 28-30, 34, 37, 44 
 
 37. 54-7. 66, 85 
 
 74 
 
 144 
 
 142. 173 
 
 237, 246, 268 
 
 92, 105, 168 
 
 31. 46. 56 
 
 ... 31 
 
 ... 239 
 
 • 33. 37. 70 
 
 • 164, 174-5 
 
 92 
 
 ... 50 
 
 77-80, 83 
 
 quo. 132 
 ... 79 
 
 85, 91 
 ... 189 
 
278 
 
 INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Direct action 117, 135, 163, 166-8, 170, 207-8, 223, 237-45 
 
 See also Trade disputes. 
 
 Direct labour 198-201 
 
 Distress comtaittees •■• ••• ••■13> '4 
 
 Distributive trades ... ■•• ■•• ••• ■•■ ^^ 
 
 Dockers 40.5° 
 
 battaUon 5°. 77 
 
 Douglas. C. H 2°' 
 
 Downing Street '^5 
 
 Diink question ... ... ... ... .•• ••• ••• ••• 5i~* 
 
 Duckham, SirA 220-21 
 
 Education Act, 1918 127, 145-8, 150, 257 
 
 Education, adult 149.265 
 
 and Whitley Councils 182 
 
 Election of 1906 ^ 
 
 1911 ... .■■ ••• ••• ^^i 
 
 1918 127. 164-6 
 
 Electrical Trades Union 167-8,241 
 
 Electricity scheme, national ... ... ... ... ••. •>■ 164 
 
 Embargo on imported coal, transport workers' ... ... ... 245 
 
 Embargo strike, Coventry .■• 127,142 
 
 Emergency Powers Act 161,226-7,239 
 
 Employers, organisation of xix, 258, 263 
 
 Employment in 191 4 ... .•• .-• •■■ 4 
 
 See also Unemployment. 
 
 Employment committees ... ••■ ••• ^73-4 
 
 exchanges ... .•• 173-4. ^99 
 
 Engineering Employers' Federation 37. 99. 131 
 
 Engineering trades (general) 24-5, 39, 43, 83, 84, 93-6, 98, 108, 
 
 119-21, 131, 142, 144, 157, 168, 184, 236, 259 
 Engineers, Amalgamated Society of 35, 39, 42, 50, 70, 90, 94-5, 99. 
 
 130-31. 155. 238. 259 
 
 Enlistment 13,17,22,24 
 
 Excess Profits Duty 87,193,224 
 
 Exemption from military service ... ... 79582,129 
 
 Ex-servicemen 168,175-6,186,196-8,210 
 
 Fabian Society xvii, xxi, 15, 113 
 
 See also Socialism. 
 
 Factory Acts ... ... xv, 153 
 
 Fairfield strikes ... ... 60,70 
 
 Fatigue, industrial ... ... ... ... ... 52 
 
 Federation of British Industries ... ... 258 
 
 Fellowship of Reconciliation ... ... ... ... ... ... 65 
 
 Festubert ... ... ... ... 43 
 
 Fisher, Rt. Hon. H. A. I/. 146 
 
 Flax industry ... ... 143 
 
 Fleet Street 185 
 
 Food prices ... ... 12,118,185-6 
 
 See also Cost of Mving. 
 
 supply 12,49 
 
 trades ... ... ... ... ... ... 25 
 
 Forty-eight hour week ... ... ... ... ... ... 172,183-4 
 
 Foster report ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 200, 261 
 
 Franchise, 1914 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... xiii 
 
Franchise Act, 191 8 
 Furniture trades ... 
 
 INDEX 
 
 279 
 
 PAGE 
 
 127. 145 
 ... 25 
 
 xvu, 41, 
 163, 
 
 GallipoU , 
 
 Gambling 
 
 Geddes, Sir A 
 
 General Federation of Trade Unions 
 
 General labour 
 
 " General staff " scheme 
 
 General strike 
 
 George, Rt. Hon. D.^tloyd xxi, 41, 45, 46, 47, 51, 53^,55, 58, 69, 
 
 84. 91, 97. 115. 145. 165, 172, 183, 188, 215, 217, 220, 225, 
 German Social Democrats, manifesto of 
 
 war indemnity ... 
 
 Gibb, Sir George 
 
 Glass industry 
 
 Grahame, Cunningham 
 
 Greece 
 
 Group credit in industry 
 
 Guaranteed week ... ... ... ... ... ... 184,188, 
 
 Guild socialism xxii, 
 
 ...62,65 
 ... 156 
 ... 129 
 206, 208 
 
 " Hands off Russia " Committee 
 
 Hardie, Keir 
 
 Hartshorn, Vernon 
 
 Health of Munition Workers Committee 
 
 Health Insurance ... 
 
 Health, Ministry of 
 
 Henderson, The Rt. Hon. Arthur 
 
 Hewins, W. A. S 
 
 Hindenburg 
 
 Hobson, S. G 
 
 Hodges, Frank 207, 
 
 Hopwood, Sir F 
 
 Home, Sir R 
 
 Hostels for munition workers 
 Hours of Employment Bill 
 
 Hours of labour 21,52,126, 
 
 House of Commons 77,79,86- 
 
 Housing Acts, 1914 
 
 1919 
 
 policy 
 
 in munition centres .. 
 
 shortage, statistics 
 Housing, joumaJ of Ministry of Health 
 Hyndman, H. M. ... 
 
 241. 259 
 
 ... 208 
 
 142, 187^ 207, 223, 246 
 
 77. 
 
 239, 243 
 
 65 
 
 229 
 
 36 
 
 29 
 
 8 
 
 62 
 
 203 
 
 200, 203 
 
 200-204 
 
 ... 206-7, 210 
 
 7 
 
 227,257 
 
 ... 153 
 
 ... xxii 
 
 192-3, 196, 202 
 
 7, 42, 68, 84, 112, 165 
 
 47 
 
 62 
 
 ... 201 
 217, 222, 238, 243, 248, 249 
 
 36 
 
 1 71-2, 223, 225 
 
 153 
 
 183-4 
 
 155-6, 172, 175. 183-4, 219 
 -7, 164-5, 185, 197, 242, 258 
 
 191 
 
 192-3 
 
 164, 189-204, 254, 257 
 26, 38, 116, 151-3, 158, 192 
 
 189-91 
 
 ...quo. 199-200 
 ... 104 
 
 independent I<abour Party xvii, xviii, 6, 19, 65, 95, 97, 102, 104, 105, 
 
 III, 137, 211-12 
 
 Industrial Advisory Council 172, 185 
 
 Conference 1919 160, 172, 179, 183, 185, 257 
 
 Courts Act 160, 179, 182 
 
 Fatigue ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 154 
 
 and Provident Societies Acts 20 j 
 
 Unionism xviii, 93-6, 123, 163, 209, 259 
 
28o INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 Industrial Unrest Commission and reports ... 61,115-17,119.191 
 
 Workers of the World 95 
 
 Cnstructional Factories 175 
 
 Insurance Acts, 1911 xaii, 16, 273 
 
 See also Unemployment. 
 
 Inter- Allied Socialist Conference, 1917 61 
 
 1918 112, 127 
 
 Interim Industrial Reconstruction Committees 144,173 
 
 Internationale. See Socialism. ' 
 
 International I,abour Conference, Washington 183 
 
 office ... ... ... ... ... ... 184 
 
 Iron and Steel Trades xv, 26, 149, 163, 259 
 
 See also Engineering trades. 
 Ironmoulders' strike ... 160 
 
 Joint Board, Labour Party and T.U.C xvii 
 
 Joint Industrial CoimcUs. See Whitley Councils. 
 
 Joint Stock Acts ' 201 
 
 John Bull ... ... ... ... ... ... ... quo. 257 
 
 Jowett, Ben. ... ... 104, 105, 165 
 
 Jute trades ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 40 
 
 Juvenile Employment, Committee on 156 
 
 Kellaway, F. G 83 
 
 King's Roll 175-6 
 
 King's Squad scheme ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 52 
 
 Kirkwood, David ... ... ...84,91 
 
 Kitchener, Lord ... ... 20, 27, 31, 42, 50 
 
 Krupp's mimition works ... ... ... ... ... 27 
 
 Labour Advisory Committee ... ... ... ... ... ...42,48 
 
 Labour Advisory Boards, local ... ... ... 73 
 
 Labour and the New Social Order ... ... ... ... ... 1 35-6 
 
 Labour Exchanges ... ... ... ... ... ... 26,49 
 
 foreign ... ... 27 
 
 Gazette ... ... ... ... ... 4, 5, 12, 184, 252, 268 
 
 Leader ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 96-7,268 
 
 Ministers ... 97, 137, 162 
 
 Ministry of xvi, 120, 144, 175, 179, 182, 185, 196 
 
 Party xvii, xviii, xxi-xxii, 6, 9, 19, 58, 65, 97, 103, 105, 
 
 133-40. 148-9. 182, 187, 205-8, 210-11, 222, 241, 248, 253, 266 
 redistribution of (1914) ... ... ... ... 21 sej., 46 
 
 Representation Committee ... ... ... ... ... xxi 
 
 Research Department ... 265 
 
 skilled, supply and dilution of 23, 24, 27, 32-7, 40-43, 45, 
 
 50. 56-7, 64, 70-73, 84-7. 89-93, 99. 106, 119 
 
 building trades ... 195-8,237 
 
 Supply Committee 60,72 
 
 Lang, Messrs., Clydeside 69 
 
 Lansbury, Geo 104 
 
 Lasalle ... ... ... ... xxi 
 
 Law, Rt. Hon. H. Bouar ... ... ... 219-20 
 
 League against War 65 
 
 Leamington Congress. See Miners. 
 
 Leather trades ... ' 25,26,28,143,186 
 
INDEX 281 
 
 PAGE 
 
 lyeaving Certificate 56, 60, 61, 70, 73-4, 77, 80, 84, 106, 116, 
 
 119-20, 129, 142 
 
 I^enin ... 112, 135, 139, 209, 210, 211, 264 
 
 Liberal party ... xxi-xxii, 8, 113, 164 
 
 Local Government Board 191 
 
 Locomotive Engineers, Society of 241 
 
 London County Council 257 
 
 Macdonald, Ramsay ... ... ... ... ... ... 104-5, 165 
 
 Machines, nianning of 32,34 
 
 McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald 87 
 
 Mackensen 62 
 
 Macnamara, Rt. Hon. T. J 197 
 
 Majuba, battle of ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 58 
 
 Mallon, J.J 122 
 
 Man-power 80-83, 85-6, 116, 126, 129, 131, 152 
 
 See also Military Service Acts, National Service. 
 
 Man-power Distribution Board ... 81 
 
 Marconi shares ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 3 
 
 Marx, Karl 149 
 
 Maternity benefit IS 
 
 Military Service Acts 60,76,78,80,81,83,116,131 
 
 Miners, enlistment of 25 
 
 Federation 42, 67, 106, 112, 149, 160-61, 212, 217-28, 232-51 
 
 Lanarkshire xxii, 239 
 
 organisation of xv 
 
 Reform Committees 212-13 
 
 South Wales 60,67-9,117,212-13,215,226-8 
 
 Strike, 1920 ., 161,186,223-9 
 
 1921 ... ... ... ... ... 161, pt. iv, ch. vi 
 
 Yorkshire 4.1^8 
 
 Mobilisation " 
 
 Munitions Act, 191S 54-7. 66, 68, 69, 71, 73, 77, 84, 90 
 
 1916 60,74,87,92,116 
 
 1917 61,87,99 
 
 Munitions Acts, cessation of 177-8 
 
 Munitions Committee, Treasury 47.53 
 
 Munitions Committees, local 52 
 
 Ministry of ... 53, 55, 56, 79, 82, 98-9, 132. 142. i53. 
 
 175, 182, 192 
 
 supply 29 sej., 44-8, 66, 83, 126, 132 
 
 Murphy, J. fC 96 
 
 Nation, The 
 
 
 quo. 14 
 
 National Guilds 
 
 
 124, 261 
 
 See also Building Guilds. 
 
 
 
 Minimum wage .. . 
 
 
 136 
 
 Munitions factories 
 
 
 48,66,71,157 
 
 Register 
 
 
 78-9 
 
 Service 
 
 
 79, 86 
 
 ■ Ministry of 
 
 
 81, 129 
 
 Union of Railwaymen. See Railwaymen. 
 
 
 
 Nationalisation of coal-mines 
 
 ... pt. 
 
 iv, ch. v and vi 
 
 munitions industries 
 
 
 91-3 
 
 public services 
 
 
 136. 137 
 
282 INDEX 
 
 PAG9 
 
 Neuve Chapelle 43. 4? 
 
 New Age ... ... ••• xxii 
 
 New Statesman ?«"■ 82, 97, 227 
 
 Newman, Sir Geo ••• ••• 156 
 
 Nietzsche ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... xxiii 
 
 No-conscription Fellowship 65 
 
 Northclifie press ... .■• 77 
 
 Observer 
 
 Office of Works 191,199 
 
 Old Age Pensions xxii 
 
 Orage, A. R 261 
 
 Osborne judgment ■•■ xxi 
 
 Output restriction ... 33.36,261 
 
 See also CX'canny. 
 Overtime 33, 34. 39, 5°. 52. 92, 126 
 
 quo. 163 
 
 ••■ 137 
 60,84 
 
 ... 75 
 60, 65, 109 
 137, 229-30 
 
 ••■ 175 
 
 119-21, 156 
 
 142, 168 
 
 ... 187 
 
 in'ii 
 ... 124 
 ... 182 
 
 234 
 
 Pacifism. See udder various societies. 
 
 Pankhurst, Sylvia 
 
 Parker, J 
 
 Parkhead strike 
 
 Payment by results 
 
 Peace overtures, 1916 ... 
 
 Peace treaty 
 Pensions, Ministry of 
 
 Piece-work 36,64,75,116, 
 
 Police 
 
 Poor Ivaw relief 
 
 Population, adult, 1914 
 
 Pottery industry ... 
 
 Joint Industrial Council 
 
 Premiums, housing 
 
 Press xiii, 26, 40, 44, 51, 63, 77, 110, 139, 164, 165, 237 
 
 Prices, food 12, 49, 58, 64, 118-19 
 
 See also Cost of living. 
 
 Prince of Wales Fund 13 
 
 Pringle, W. 70 
 
 Printing trades 258 
 
 Profiteering 64,118 
 
 Profits, of armament firms 30, 35, 37, 39, 41-2, 55, 58, 64, 66, 84, 86-7, 106 
 
 of coal-mines ... ... pt. iv, ci. v and vi 
 
 Proletariat, dictatorship of ... 7,135,209 
 
 Protected occupations, schedule of ... ... ... 60,82,129,131 
 
 Railways, control of 144 
 
 decontrol ... ... 232,236 
 
 nationalisation of ... ... ... ... 164 
 
 wages boards ... ... 160, 173 
 
 Railway workers 50, 67, 82, 106, 143, 149, 184, 226, 236-7, 241, 243, 245 
 See also Triple Alliance. 
 
 strike, 1919 160,221 
 
 Rank-and-file movement... ... ...89-99, 108, 130, 170, 209-12, 245' 
 
 Reconstruction, Ministry of ... ... ... 144,189 
 
 Recruiting campaigns 19,27,39,63 
 
 " Red " Trade Union International 212 
 
INDEX 
 
 Registrar-General, statement on housing 
 Relief works 
 
 Repington, Col 
 
 Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act ... 
 
 Rhondda, Lord 
 
 Riot Act read in Glasgow 
 Rivetters, broken squads. . . 
 Road construction 
 
 Roberts, The Rt. Hon. G. H 
 
 Runciman, The Rt. Hon. Walter 
 Russia, first revolution 
 
 Albert Hall demcmstration 
 
 Soviet revolution 
 
 invasion of 
 
 resumption of trade 
 
 Russo-Polish war 
 
 283 
 
 PAGE 
 
 190 
 
 ... 187 
 
 ... 8,48 
 
 160, 177-8 
 
 ... 118 
 
 ... 168 
 
 ... 36 
 
 ... 187 
 
 68, 137 
 
 41, 68, 69 
 
 60, 96, IOI-3, 112 
 
 60, 103 
 
 61, 112, 138-9, 170 
 
 138-9, 206-8 
 
 187 
 
 207-9 
 
 See Coal Industry Commission. 
 
 ... 23 
 
 ... 105 
 
 ... 62 
 
 ... xxiii 
 
 ... 50 
 
 — 34 
 ... 36-7 
 
 •■• 153 
 
 24-5,143.157.163,236 
 
 163 
 
 108-9,130-31, 142, 170,209, 211-12, 259 
 
 Sankey, Lord Justice. 
 
 Sawmilling trades 
 
 Seamen's and Firemen's Union 
 
 Serbia 
 
 " Servile State " 
 
 Sexton, James 
 
 Sheffield engineering conferences 
 
 Shells and fuzes agreement 
 
 Shift- work ... 
 
 Shipbuilding trades 
 
 Shop assistants, organisation of 
 
 Shop stewards 39, 61, 84-5, 88-100, 
 
 See also Workers' Committees 
 Short time 
 
 " Slavery Act " 
 
 SmiUie, Robert 
 
 Snowden, Philip ... 
 Socialism ... 
 
 See also Communism, Fabian Society, Labour Party, etc. 
 
 Socialist conferences, inter-allied 
 
 SociaHst Council, United 
 
 education 
 
 International 
 
 Labour Party ... 
 
 Society, South Wales .. 
 Solidarity 
 Somme, battle of ... 
 
 Soviet, Petrograd 
 
 republic. See Russia. 
 
 Soviets, British 
 
 Sparkes, Malcolm 
 
 Specialisation 
 
 Standard of living, working-class 
 
 See also Cost of living. 
 Stockholm conference 
 Stop-the-War Committee 
 Sub-contracting ... 
 Sub-division of processes. 
 Subsidies to builders 
 
 4. 13. 187 
 
 55 
 
 104, 106-7, 122, 217, 225 
 104, 165 
 
 xxii, 123, 133-6, 163, 203 
 
 .6,7, 
 
 127. 133 
 104, 139 
 
 ... 149 
 9, 111-13, 139 
 ... 210 
 ... 210 
 quo. 165 
 80, 96 
 103, 112 
 
 104-6, 137,210 
 
 201, 203 
 
 ••■ 155 
 
 . 49, 157-8 
 
 61, 112 
 
 ... 65 
 
 29 seq. 44, 47 
 
 155-6 
 
 193. 198 
 
284 
 
 INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Subsidies to 'building unions ... 197-8 
 
 to coal industry ... ... ... ... ... pt. iv, ch. vi 
 
 Subsistence allowances 34.52 
 
 Sunday schools, socialist ... ... ... ... 149 
 
 Syndicalism xxii, 95 
 
 Teachers, organisation of 163,259 
 
 Textile trades ... xv, 25, 26, 29, 57, 68, 143, 163, 186, 222 
 
 Thomas, The Rt. Hon. J. H 143,211,227,240,243 
 
 Time-keeping in munitions centres 51-2 
 
 Times ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 257 
 
 Tinplate industry ... 25 
 
 Town-planning schemes ... 193 
 
 Trade Boards Act, 1918 127 
 
 establishment of xv, 144, 173, 179-80, 184 
 
 Trade Card scheme 81,82,98 
 
 Trade disputes, 1912 xx, xxiii 
 
 1913 ... XX, 4 
 
 1914 4. 18 
 
 1918 141-3 
 
 1919 167-71 
 
 1920 ... ... ... 167 
 
 See also separate trades. 
 
 Trade practices, nature and suspension of 32-4, 44-5, 55-7, 64, 66, 
 
 90, 99. 195 
 
 restoration of 34-6,56,160,177-8 
 
 See also Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act. 
 
 Trade Union Act, 1913 ... ... ... ... 205 
 
 Trade Unions, amalgamation of ... ... ...xvi, xvii, 94-6, 259 
 
 See also. Amalgamation Committee. 
 
 funds of ..'. ... 16,17,187,242 
 
 number and membership of xv, xvi, 163, 272 
 
 Trade Union Congress, 1912 ... ... ... 182 
 
 1915 77 
 
 1916 62,78 
 
 1919 ... 160, 221 
 
 1920 ... ... 161, 222-3 
 
 1921 ... ... ... 208, 237, 241, 247, 261 
 
 membership ... xvii, 272 
 
 general functions, policy, etc. xvii-xviii, 107, 
 
 137. 185, 206-8 
 
 Trades and Labour Councils ... ... ... xviii, 199 
 
 Training grants ... 176 
 
 Transport, Ministry of ... 160,187 
 
 Transport workers xv, 7, 67, 106, 163, 183-4, 207, 236, 243-5, 259 
 
 See also Triple AUiance. 
 
 Inquiry ... ... ... ... 160 
 
 International Federation of ... ... ... 245 
 
 Treasury conference and agreements ... ... 41-2,51,57,68,177 
 
 Tribunals, Military ... 80,81 
 
 Munitions 56,70,74,75,84 
 
 Triple Alliance xxiii, 106-8, 135, 161, 168, 170, 206-8, 221, 225-7, 237-44, 253 
 
 Truce, industrial ... ... ... ... ... 18,39,169 
 
 political ... ... ... 18, 62 
 
 Tube railway strike 168 
 
INDEX 285 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Tupper, Capt 105 
 
 Twelve-and-a-half per cent, bonus 61,120-21 
 
 Ulster ... 3 
 
 Unemployment, 1914 13, 22 
 
 1915 26 
 
 1920 185-8,228 
 
 1921 186-8, 231, 242, 252, 257, 273 
 
 general policy, etc. 113, 136, 171, 172, 182, 186-8, 
 
 195-200, 203, 216, 261 
 
 donation 175, 186 
 
 relief 13-15,29 
 
 See also Unemployment insurance. 
 
 Insurance Act, 1920 161,186-7 
 
 1921 186-7 
 
 Union of Democratic Control ... ... ... ... ... 65, 1 09-1 1 
 
 United States of America in 
 
 University tutorial movement ... ... ... ... ... ... 149 
 
 Unofficial strikes, 1 91 7 98-9,116 
 
 1918 142-3 
 
 1921 245 
 
 Urbanisation 151 
 
 Vickers, Crayford 35 
 
 Vigilance committees ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 209 
 
 Volunteer workers, agriculture ... ... ... ... ... ... 152 
 
 munitions. See King's Squad, War Munitions 
 Volunteers. 
 
 Wage-rates, statutory enforcement of ... 72-3, 75, 172, 178-9, 182-3 
 
 See also Trade Boards. 
 
 Wages, general 64, 118, 142, 1.^4, 179-80, 184-5, 236-7, 
 
 252-3, 257 
 
 of munition workers 56,72,75,157-8 
 
 of miners ... ... ... 67, pt. iv, ch. v and vi 
 
 Temporary Regulation Act ... ... ... ... 127, 178-9 
 
 Wales, labour opinion in 116-7 
 
 Sei also Miners. 
 
 War-aims 61, 102, 110-14, 129, 133 
 
 War-bonus system ... ... ... ... ... ... 18,39,67 
 
 War Cabinet report, 1917 125 
 
 1918 128 
 
 Wardle, Rt. Hon. C. H 137 
 
 War Emergency, Workers' National Committee 14 seq., 38, 49, 59, 64 
 
 War Munitions Volunteers 53-4. 56, 81 
 
 War Office 82,192 
 
 Webb, Sidney xvi, xxii, 15, 135-6 
 
 Welfare work ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 153-4 
 
 Whitley Committee and reports ... ... 61, 122-4, i44. 1^3 
 
 Councils 124-6,144,173,180-84,260 
 
 Williams, Robert 104, 241 
 
 Wilson, President 109-10,113 
 
 Wire manufacturing Joint Industrial Council ... ... ... ... 182 
 
 Withdrawal of Labour Committee (Clyde) 39.9° 
 
 Women, employment of 15,34,35.45,69-71,83,132,152-7 
 
 organisation of ... xv, 49-50, 163 
 
 in Labour Party 134 
 
286 INDEX 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Women, Register for war-work ... ... ... ... 49 
 
 Women Workers, National Federation 50 
 
 Workers' and Soldiers' Delegates, Councils of 104-6 
 
 Workers' Committees 93-6,109,130,138,209-13,245-6 
 
 ■Workers' Control 84-5, 91, 95-6, H7. 123-4, 2<^9, 263-4 
 
 Workers' Dreadnought ?«o. 150, 165 
 
 Workers' Educational Association ... ... , ... 149 
 
 Workers' Socialist Federation < 210 
 
 Workmen's Compensation ... ... ... ... ... ... xxii 
 
 Ypres 43 
 

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