The Rise of Labor Representation in Parliament

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THE RISE OF LABOR SEPBESEHtfASIOir ‘HI > »\; -t.* *,* ;*%, ;•j«nT *■ N,,«#»>••• *-* ■ < by JOHN MILLER, JH*

A dissertation submitted in partial fulf iltaant of tbs requireisents for tbs degree of Looter of Philosophy, in the Department of History, in the Graduate College of the State University of Iowa July, 1942

ProQuest Number: 10831773

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debts or gratitude ar© many*

I should like to

express mg thanks to all the members of the History Department of the State University of Iowa* and ©specially to Professor Goldwin Smith*

whose direction this work was

written* and to Professors W+ T. Hoot* w* R* Livingston, and B. J* Tfaovnton*

X should like to thank the staff of the li­

brary of the State University of Iowa for three years of help and cooperation* and the libraries of Cornell, Harvard* and Yale Universities for making many books available to me* I wish also to express my gratitude to Louis© tJehtorff Miller* wife* for her helpful criticisms and constant encouragement*

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TEB RISE OF LABOR REPRESENTATION IB PARLIAMENT Introductory Note Today the Labor Party in Great Britain occupies a powerful position In the political life of that country* With the post-World-War decline of the Liberal party it has become second only In size to the Conservative party3 It served as His Majesty*s Opposition throughout most ©f the period between the wars*

On two occasions, with Liberal sup­

port, it has formed an administration under the leadership of the late James Ramsay MacDonald; on three occasions Labor Party members have filled offices in coalitIsms— during the first World War, after the great economic debacle of the late ♦twen­ ties and early ♦thirties, and during the present struggle against the forces of fascism and lawless aggression*

Ernest

Bevin, Herbert Mori! son, Albert Victor Alexander, and Stafford Cripps hold important offices in Winston Churchill fs coalition government today*

The laborites in Parliament have taken the

lead In Great Britain in demanding a fuller and more resolute war effort. In forcing greater sacrifices upon all economic and social classes, and in envisaging a better world in the years to come after the final victory of the United Hat ions. It is indeed possible that the Labor Party will form an admin­ istration again, and will take an Important part in the domes­ tic and international reconstruction which must follow the de­ feat of the nations of the Axis* As Labor is one of the two leading political parties in Great Britain today, a study of its ideological and physical

-v origins would seem ©specially timely*

European parties repre­

senting labor are of comparatively recent growth*

The British

Labor Party was not the first in the field, but it has been one of the most uniformly successful* relatively unique*

Among labor parties It is

Although it accepts to a large extent the

tenets of socialism, it has never been doctrinaire#

It has

culled from the writings of Karl Marx the principles and the­ ories that can be woven into the British political and econo­ mic fabric, rejecting or ignoring in a manner wholly British Marx’s more embarrassing or difficult ideas* any time declared in favor of revolution*

It has not at

Although it has

flirted with revolutionary hot-gospellers like Henry Mayers Ilyndman, the Labor Farty has abided by the inherently British notions of the Fabian Society, of evolution carried on amid scenes of peace and order, of respect for law and human rights, summed up in Sidney Webb’s pompous but accurate phrase, f,th© inevitability of gradualism*0 The Labor Farty has accepted the historic continuity of British life and institutions; in its policy and actions it has tacitly accepted Edmund Burke’s doctrine that the nation is more than merely the totality of our contemporaries, but that nationality is shared by the liv­ ing with generations long gone and with generations yet un­ born,

James Ramsay MacDonald, himself something of a dabbler

in biological science, never tired of expounding the organic nature of society, a task which he undertook usually with more enthusiasm than clarity. Thus Parliamentary action was completely natural to

-vithe early founders of the party*

James Keir Handle and his

followers, extreme radicals to their contemporaries, were es­ sentially conservative in their hope to democratize the eco­ nomy of Britain through action by an institution which ante­ dates the industrial revolution by several centuries*

British

labor has denounced the House of Lords, but when in power was notably lacking in schemes to ®end or mend0 that ancient body, and Labor cabinets have not been loath to secure a hearing in the upper chamber through the free-handed creation of peers* Theoretically the protagonist of democracy, the Labor Party Is bureaucratically controlled, and demands a stricter obedience from its rank and file than does the Tory party*

At a time when the Tories allowed the most competent

of their Parliamentary group to rail hotly and brilliantly at the party’s bungling and ineffectual leadership, the Labor Party executive expelled, first from the executive and finally from the official bosom of the party Itself, one of the ablest minds ha British polities for advocating a policy at variance with that of Transport House* Such a situation is the normal concomitant of the party’s history and organisation#

It illustrates the para­

doxical fact that Labor’s source of might is also a weakness* The voting strength of the Labor party lies in the trad© unions of Great Britain, for there the party has found orga­ nisation and funds, and has thus built Itself around organized labor, drafting Its policies to suit the leaders of the orga­ nized trades*

Labor unions in Britain are essentially cautious

-viiand conservative; they move slowly, and distrust innovators* This too is a natural circumstance; by adopting orthodox eco­ nomies and policies of gradualism and conservatism in the nineteenth, century they attained legality and respectability* The bureaucratic organization and conservative control of the unions have, however, served to limit end restrict the Labor Party, and ©specially to keep its policies in traditional grooves*

From the point of view of expediency, though, the

party has benefited from the tortoise-like speed with which the organised trades have embraced new policies*

The party

has been forced to keep its ear to the ground, to adopt only programs that are eertain to be accepted by a large portion df the electorate*

The Labor Party has never been free to set

sail upon the sea of theory, or to revel in rhetorical luxury like fcbe Social Democratic Federation and the Socialist League. The success of the British Labor Party Is in no small measure due to the fact that it is geared to the bureaucratic hier­ archy of the Trade Hnion Congress* Following the extension of the franchise in 1867, the political power of the workers came to play an increasingly larger role in British politics*

Both Liberals and Conserva­

tives made strenuous and until 1906 successful efforts to gain the support of labor*

Consequently the Labor Party was faced

with a very difficult task— that of persuading workingmen not to entrust their representation at Westminster to Whigs and Tories, but to send workingmen themselves to the House of Commons*

With the increasing organization of labor after

1850, and with the growth of the Trade Union Congress, the task of the proponents of independent labor representation was obvious— to persuade the unions themselves to adopt poli­ tical action in spite of the abject failure of the Chartist agitation in the ’forties*

Trad© union development and the

Trad© Union Congresses gar*© of great importance in a study of the early growth of the Labor Party*

Organised labor fur­

nished the votes and the money for the movement, while the Ideas and the motivation were frequently provided by middleclass intellectuals and former workers whose connection with the workingmen was intellectual and sympathetic rather than physical*

A large part of this study will therefore be de­

voted to the successful organization of trad© unions, to the campaign to persuade organized labor to adopt political ac­ tion, and to the propaganda to persuade labor leaders to re­ ject individualism in favor of collectivist economies.

This

campaign succeeded because of a combination of favorable cir­ cumstances*

Economic depression, able socialist propaganda,

the devotion and good sense of the leaders of the Independent Labor Party, and th© attacks on the Trade Unions by big busi­ ness and the Judiciary combined to force a reluctant labor hierarchy to accept Keir Hardie and Kamsay MacDonald as leaders Thus the emergence of the British Labor Party as a political power was made poss ible* Throughout the study I have rejected British spelling in favor of American, except in the titles of books and perlodi eals.

I have followed the abbreviations for the names of

- ix -

organlzations current in Britain*

Hence, the Trade Ikiion

Congress Is often shortened to TUG; the Independent labor Party to the XLP* the Amalgamated Society of Engineers to the ASBj the Social Democratic Federation to the SDF; and the Labor RepresentatIon Committee to the LRC*

-X-

Footnotes 1*

labelled from the party for his advocacy of a **popular front11, Sir Stafford1s political fortimes were consider­ ably advanced In recent months during his term as ambas­ sador to the Soviet 'Ghionj when Germany attacked Russia in «Tun@, 1941, Sir Stafford negotiated the terms of Rus­ sia1® alliance with Britain* Be has recently entered the Churchill cabinet as leader of the House of Comrnns^ and increased his fame by his unsuccessful effort to settle India*s political and religions difficulties*

2*

Winston Churchill and Sir Stafford Grippe are those to who® reference is made* ^Transport Bouse is the head­ quarters of the powerful transport and General Workersf Union, of which Ernest Bovin was secretary* He and his lieutenants are thus powerful at Labor Party conferences, where a lfcard voten is employed* For a full discussion of the expulsion, favorable to Sir Stafford* see Patricia Strauss* Besrln and Company. Hew York, G* P* Putnam*s Sons, 1941, ^ * 189-201*

-1RI3K OF LABOR HEPRSSSHTATIOIf IS PARLIAMENT Chapter I The Resurgence of Trade TMions and Labor Organisations Chartism came to its end in the *forties; most au­ thorities since then have regarded the movement as an inter­ esting and significant failure*^ Best of the British ruling class thought that the principles of Chartism were those of revolution and anarchy although they are commonplace enough today when political democracy, at least In the United States and in the British Commonwealth, is regarded as a natural state of affairs*

Th© horror with which the Whigs and Tories

regarded Chartism Is best explained by the fact that Chartist Ideas combined the democratic Six Points of the People *s Char­ ter** with the noisy threats of revolutionary violence roared by Feargus 0 1Connor, Joseph Raynor Stephens, Richard Oastler, Julian Barney, and others of that ilk.

Chartism failed*

It

aroused the fearful opposition of all properties groupsj It could not obtain a suitable hearing in Parliament, and the terrible privation and economic depression of the early ffor­ ties robbed people of the resolve and strength to agitate. In addition, the prospective reforms advocated by William Lovett and Francis Place, mild Chartists who favored education and democracy, were so sweeping is both reality and implication that they precluded any hope of acceptance by either House of Parliament*

Chartism perhaps served as an intellectual and

Ideological catharsis which cleansed the labor movement of violence and irresponsibility,

-2With the collapse of Chartism come a radical change In the nature of labor unions * The unions of fee •thirties and *forties were organised for fee purpose of agitation and combat} their intended function was to extort from the ruling classes by threats or violence what could not he gained by peaceful persuasion.

When feese fighting unions died out,

they were replaced by the exponents of a 11Hew tJhioniaa", a unionism that largely eschewed strikes, violence, and revolu­ tion in favor of peaceful collective bargaining and fee pay­ ment of friendly benefits for sickness, death, and unemploy­ ment * Organised under the laws regulating Friendly Societies, these unions laid more stress upon fee collection of funds and sound actuarial practice than they did upon fighting with their employers and fee law#

With the growth of trade union

funds, the unions themselves, having a financial stake in fee perpetuation of tit® status quo, became conservative#

improv­

ing economic conditions following the repeal of the Corn Laws served to increase real and monetary wages, and in consequence the workers* better fed and clad, became less restive#®

In­

dustrial expansion in the same period served to reduce sub­ stantially the number of unemployed* Many writers on the subject hold that labor in this period avoided politics completely, having been convinced by the collapse of 0 *Cfonnor,s agitation that they could not suc­ ceed in politics*

"More practical counsels" are supposed to

have persuaded labor feat efficient organisation and the right

-3to strike are of more importance than the right to vote*^ Cer­ tainly polities were regarded as of less importance than dur­ ing the era of sound and fury dominated by the Oasfcler-o*Con­ nor type of labor leader*

However* a resent writer has well

maintained that the need for political action was never lost from sight* ant that* especially after the failure of the strike of the Preston cotton-spinners in the •fifties, many workers were convinced that only when the workers* possession of political power would force the Bouse of Commons to repre­ sent labor as well as capital could labor expect fair treat­ ment#5 Miss CiXlespie holds further that the unionism of the later nineteenth century inherited from Chartism two concepts that were basic in their nature— the relationship of politi­ cal and economic power* coupled with a belief that democracy is the only inherently right form of government * Although af­ ter 1850 conservative trade union leaders attempted to secure for the workers specific benefits in the area of shorter hours and better wages and working conditions rather than seats at liestmlnster* no workingman ever questioned his right to full citizenship* or that that right would bring an improved econo­ mic status in its wake* fher© was however a deliberate propaganda against labor participating in polities at the end of the Chartist period*

The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge pub­

lished* about 1847* many pamphlets and articles directed at the literate working man*

Written in simple language * they essayed

-4to instruct labor in a variety of liberal and technical sub­ jects, and interspersed with such instruction were gleanings from the economists of the Smith-Ricardo school#

Labor unions,

strikes, boycotts, and collective bargaining were held to be snares and delusions, and the workers were exhorted to find salvation through hard work, sobriety, and thrift*^ Concurrent with the change in the nature and objec­ tives of trade unionism came a new type of labor leader#

The

o M loud-tongued agitator had been usually merely an exhorter, calling meetings in open spaces or public houses, where he clamored at great length to the men about their wrongs, call­ ing upon them to redress their grievances by violence.

But

as the combative unions were replaced by the new organizations composed of skilled, relatively well-paid technicians, a new sort of labor executive was needed— one more bureaucratic in nature, honest, reliable, literate, with clerical and finan­ cial training, who could capably receive and dispense the not inconsiderable sums handled by the unions in their friendly benefits*

All authorities agree in praising

labor leadership after 1850.

the work of the

After the riotousness and verbal

intemperance of the Chartist leaders, the shrewd, prudent, cool leadership of trad© unionism was particularly effective, especially in convincing Parliamentary leaders and Royal Commissions of the validity of labor organisation. fhe great Amalgamated Society of Engineers has been most frequently credited with being the first of the new unions,

-5a status, however, which the ASS does not properly merit* True, it was the largest and the most successful of the postChartist organizations.

However, its preeminence in its field

and the high quality of its executive have served to obscure the fact that it was antedated by two similar groups, and that its constitution and methods were largely copied from those of the Journeymen Steam Ifogin© lakers * Society, which dates to 1 8 2 6 Partisans of the ASE are however Justified in terming it the ”Hew Model” of trad© unionism, for although Its Organization was not original, its success led other trades to follow the ASE* ^Scarcely a trade exists which did not, between 1852 and 1875, either attempt to imitate the who!© con­ stitution of the Amalgamated Engineers, or incorpor­ ate on© or other of its characteristic features*”9 Before examining the Amalgamated Engineers * Society in detail, it is necessary to glance hastily at two other or­ ganizations which immediately preceded it*

The miners were a

group that suffered gravely from exploitation; in consequence the nineteenth century never saw the acceptance of the hypothe­ ses and dogmas of laiaser-falre by the workers of the pits* It was they who at an early date urged government interven­ tion in industry, and insisted on such collectivist restraints upon laiaaer-falre as the us© of government inspectors and the legal limitation of working hours*

At Wakefield, in 1841, a

group of miners1 organizations of the northern counties feder­ ated their locals into the Miser*© Association of Great Bri­ tain and Ireland*

'Under the leadership of Martin Jude, the

-6Association grew, and by 1844 counted 100,000 in its member­ ship.

The chief object of this union was by banding together

to attain financial strength sufficient to offer resistance to legal oppression.

A majority of the Justices of the peace

were opposed to unions, regarding them as Illegal conspiracies. William frosting Heberts, a radical lawyer,*® had appeared in court as counsel for the Horthuraberland and Durham Miner1s Union, and in 1844 the Miner1s Association retained him at a yearly salary of 1000 pounds.

Despite such auspicious begin­

nings the Association was doomed to an early end.

Greatly

weakened by the depression in the coal trade in 1847-48, It received its death blow in the disastrous failure of the coal strike of 1849#** The idea of ”one big union” was not unknown to Bri­ tish labor.

Chartist ideas died hard; the National Associa­

tion of United Trades for the Protection of Labor was a half­ way point between the revolutionary ideas of Harney and 0*Con­ nor and the acceptance of the idea of Parliamentary evolution of the 1sixties and 1seventies.

Formed in 1845 and destined

to last for fifteen years, the National Association was pru­ dently administered and sought moderate goals.

It operated

as a pressure group, lobbying In the Bouse of Commons. Thomas Slingsby Buncombe, a radical M.F., was influential in the in­ ception of the Association at a London meeting of 110 dele­ gates from Manchester, Sheffield, Bill, Bristol, Rochdale, Yarmouth, and from the textile workers of London and the

Midlands. ful#

Certainly the Association was moderate and peace­

It opposed violence# Holding that the interests of

worker and employer are identical, it frowned on strikes and called for cooperation and peace#

At first its efforts met

with considerable success, and by 1846, the time of its sec­ ond conference, 44,000 had Joined#

Its strength was greatest

among the textile workers, but it managed to extend its power to Scotland, where many carpenters, potters, and miners were enrolled#

But not even these peaceful projects could quench

the combined opposition of capital and bench;

with a trade

depression in 1849 cam© a series of unsuccessful strikes, and the fore© of the Association was largely abated#*^2 With the coming of better times at mid-century labor definitely turned away from TTtopIan desires and sweeping enter­ prises*

The decade of the ffifties was the growing time of

the new unionism as exemplif ied by the Amalgamated Society of Engineers# What the new conservative unions desired was res­ pect and recognition*

Accepting orthodox economics, they

hoped to raise wages by limiting supply, and by drawing their membership from the highly skilled and relatively well-paid artisans, to accumulate substantial treasuries for the payment of insurance benefits*

The immediate forerunner of the ASE

was the Journeymen Steam-engine and Machine-makers and Mill­ wrights * Friendly Society, established in 1826.

Unions in

the engineering trades, however, date to the eighteenth century where their origins are lost In obscurity#

The organization

—Q— of the Journeymen Steam-engine and Machine-makers Society was elaborate, possessing a central executive committee and local branch officers*

2h 1848 it claimed 7,000 members, and had

at its disposal a reserve fund of 27,000 pounds, a large sum for a labor union in those days*

It was the largest trade

union In Britain, with a permanent, solid organisation.

Thus

it was logical for this society to assume the leadership in the movement to form a national association of all engineers* The two men who furnished most of the impetus and intelligence for this task were William Hewton and William Allan*

Hewton,

of the London Journeymen Steam-engine Bakers, was "eloquent, astute, conciliatory"— qualities which fitted him well for the work of organising the trade societies in London*

Wil­

liam Allan, a Scot, took the secretaryship of the Steam-engine Bakers in 1848*

Be and Hewton immediately formed a close and

lasting friendship that was later to prove of great value dur­ ing the struggle for legal recognition in th© 1sixties#

Allan

suggested that the Lancashire unions hold a conference of dei legates for the purpose of discussing common problems with a view to amalgamating all th© engineering societies Interested* In March, 1850, the delegates assembled at Warring­ ton*

Hewton and Allan were present, and made proposals of

amalgamation*

Meanwhile a weekly paper was started at Man­

chester, the Trades Advocate and Herald of Progress* which vigorously demanded federation*

Then, under the ubiquitous

leadership of Allan and Hewton, a joint committee of the

London engineering trades called for another delegate confer­ ence to he held in Biminghsm*

The movement for amalgamation

met success at Birmingham; representatives of seven societies met in September, 1850, send established the Amalgamated Soci­ ety of Engineers, which was to serve a# th© model union for thirty years*

Hewton and Allan were skillful, for their soci­

ety virtually swallowed the others*

The ASS accepted almost

in tote "...the elaborate constitution, the scheme of bene­ fits, the trade policy, and even the staff of the Journeymen Steam-engine and Maehine-makers and Mill­ wrights* Society, which contributed more than threefourths of th© membership with which the amalgama­ tion started, and found itself continued down to the minutest details, In the rules and regulations of the m m association* 5.h© Lancashire unions held aloof from th© Amalgamated Society at first, and the Steam-Ehgine-Makers1 Society^ did not Join the ASM until 1919*

Use Birmingham conference had appointed

a provisional committee to superintend the details involved in federation, and on January 6 , 1851, this coimalttee assumed office as the Executive Committee of th© Amalgamated Society of Engineers, Machinists, Smiths, Millwrights and Pattern­ makers *

In th© first year most of th© dissenting unions re­

canted and joined, so that by the end of th© year th© ASE counted a total of 11,000 members, each of whom paid dues of fifteen pence per week*

Because of the wide variety of sizes

among the component branches, th© executive provided for a periodic equalization of funds according to membership; Control

-10was strongly centralized, and strict rules governing finance and trade policies were rigidly enforced* Although, the Amalgamated Society was to serve as a pattern for later nineteenth century unionism, it did not for­ swear politics Issraedlately, as Miss Gillespie has demonstrated* Th© early Issues of the Operative, the trad© organ of the En­ gineers, clamored for political action; in 1851 the Operative called for direct representation of labor In th© House of Com­ mons, to make sure that labor's voice might be heard as loudly as was that of capital, and to force a more democratic fran­ chise upon the reluctant Whigs and Tories*

One of the f irst

of th© purely labor candidatures came in 1852, when Newton campaigned unsuccessfully for the Parliamentary seat at the Tower Hamlets in London, a stronghold of radicalism*15

It

must be remembered that in 1852 only a tiny minority of work­ ingmen possessed the right to vote, and the middle class ©lec­ tors of the Tower Hamlets were not likely to send a laborer to speak for them at Westminster*

The still-born effbrts of

th© Operative at political agitation, plus the demand for irH^psmdsm-h labor

demonstrate that in th© 'fifties

th© trad© miens, though favoring th© settlement of industrial disputes by conciliation and arbitration, were not quite pre­ pared to take the position on the left of the Liberal party which they assumed during the Gladstonlan era*

Th© majority

of the rank and file of labor, with the significant exceptions of the textile workers said th© miners of the north, accepted

th© competitive concepts of classical economic theory* Militant in its early days, the ASE suffered a ser­ ious set-hack in 1852*

A dispute with the employers over the

question of overtime pay led to a lockout lasting over three months*

Hunger and privation at last forced th© m m hack to

their machines | employers took advantage of the situation to refuse 2*©—employment to all who would not sign the "JSoew^nfc!*J-5 Acting on the shrewd counsel of Hewton and Allan, the men signed the •Bscvwwfc* and returned to work*

Maintaining that they

had signed under duress, they retained their union membership anyway.

Thereafter avoiding direct conflict with the owners,

th© ASl regained the ground lost and continued to prosper, aided and advised by some of the Christian Socialists, notably Thomas Bughes, and by positivists Ilk© Frederic Harrison*

By

1855 th© Engineers were completely von over to orthodoxy; th© executive council issued an address to all employers pointing out the advantages of trad© unions to them; th© advantages of unionism, as th© address demonstrated, lay in the fact that unions would promote employers * interests by improving th© character of th© ©splayed, a policy which the ASE effectuated by th© limitation of apprenticeship*5^ Hill© th© Engineers were perfecting their organiza­ tion and accepting to a degree th© doctrines of lalaser-faire. the textile operatives were developing along different lines. In 1852 and the year following, the Spinners1 Union was re­ modelled, and in 1858 they created the North Lancashire Wea­ vers* Amalgamated Society, which served later as the nucleus

-12of the national Amalgamated Weavers * Association* larity of titles is misleading*

Th© simi­

The ASB was an integrated,

centralized, uniform group; policy was initiated from the top. The Weavers* Society was a loosely-knit federation*

lUiile

th® ASB possessed a central fund said uniform benefits, each local of the Weavers had its own separate fund and system of benefits*

Xh trade policy, too, they differed*

The Hhgineers

endeavored to disprove their situation through the limitation of supply and opposition to pieeo-work*

As highly skilled

workers they realised considerable success*

The textile wor­

kers, on th© other hand, were easier to replace; they never accepted classical economies, twit looked to the law for pro­ tection, demanding that shorter hours and better working con­ ditions be established by Act of Pariiament.^ The building trades, following th© example of the engineers, experienced an increased growth in the middle of the century*

Prior to the organization of the ASB, th© Stone­

masons* Society had been one of the most powerful single un­ ions in the United Kingdom; primarily a fighting union, rather than oxi© created for the purpose of paying friendly benefits, it was composed of autonomous branches*

There existed also a

Friendly Society of Carpenters and Joiners, a small and inef­ fective body*

Organized in 1848 was the London Order of

Bricklayers, a purely local group which however served as the nucleus of the national union in 1860*

Then with the rising

current of labor organization in th® ’fifties the builders

—13— awoke#

In 1853 the London masons inaugurated a movement for

shorter hours; in Manchester three years later all the build­ ing trades struck and won the Saturday half-holiday.

Th©

next year th® London carpenters pressed a claim for a ninehour day*

As th# owners peremptorily refused, th# carpenters

organized in London and in Lancashire, whence th# agitation had spread*

2a

London, under th© able if flao&oyant guidance

of Georg# Potter,^ a Joint Committee of Carpenters, Masons, and Joiners was formed to present a strong and milted front to the recalcitrant master builders who refused to entertain the Committee1s claims*

la 185©, backed by the other London

trades, the builders struck, and the employers answered with a lockout and the presentation of the ubiquitous ?!Document"• But the workers showed what can be accomplished when men take heed to their caumion interests, unite, end pursue a policy resolutely*

The other unions were willing to make temporary

sacrifices, maintaining that the interests of the builders w#r© identical with the general good of labor, and during th© winter-long struggle generous f inancial support was given* Ttm ASB demonstrated th© advantages of a national consolidated union, and created a sensation by donating 3,000 pounds in three weeks to the builders* war chest*

Th# immediate result

of this demonstration of united action was a truce • The Document was retracted, and both strike and lockout were ter­ minated, the men returning to work on substantially the con­ ditions of 185©*

The truce was however a moral victory for

—14— labor, for the xyster builders had failed to crack th© uni­ ted front of London labor* The groat advantages of amalgamated unionism hav­ ing been so clearly demonstrated, th® carpenters took heed; limnedlately following the strike, th© national Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners was formed, on June 4, I860* Hi® body grew slowly until the very able Robert Applegarth became secretary*

hereafter the A8G grew by, leaps and

bounds, and soon was second in size tod wealth only to the powerful ASB* ftSsile the iiighly skilled engineers and builders were making successful if not unopposed progress, the miners were again beginning to resist exploitation by the only means they had of alleviating their lot— organization*

Beginning

in Scotland* that land of contentious and able ® a , the move­ ment spread to northeastern England in 1852*

A series of in­

effective strikes in 1855 convinced Alexander MacDonald that nothing could be accomplished save by coordinated action*

As

th© representative of the Scottish Miners1 Association Mac­ Donald, later to sit with Thomas Burt as the first proletar­ ian Member of Parliament, began organising th© workers in the coalpits of northern Ragland In 1856*

Two years later the

indefatigable MacDonald had made such progress that he was able to hold a conference of miners at Ashton*

Scotland,

Yorkshire, Lancashire and Staffordshire seat delegates*

Th©

Ashton conference saw the fruit of his labors; the National

~15« Minors * Association, a federation of the locals represented, was formed and declared itself in favor of legal protection for the miners*2®

At Leeds in 1863 MacDonald was successful

in getting representation from all the important coalfields of England to attend a conference and adhere to the Associa­ tion.

The national Association was not alone in the field,

however} favoring Parliamentary action, it was later opposed by the national Miners* union, a fitting body possessing a central fond and an aggressive trad© policy.^* It may he host to digress slightly at this point and conclude the story of these miners1 unions.

MacDonald

convinced the National Association to confine itself to poli­ tical agitation and conciliation.

The split came in 1869,

when the Lancashire men, desiring a strong national union with central funds and a positive trade policy, broke away from President MacDonald and formed the Amalgamated Associa­ tion of Miners.

For several years the miners were divided}

in 1875 MacDonald rs body claimed 125,000 members, and the Amalgamated included 100,000 miners.22

Then the Amalgamated,

trying to strike on too many fronts at once, collapsed, leav­ ing the field clear for the more conciliatory and parliamen­ tary National Association,23 which declined after its presi­ dent*© death in 1881.

Thereafter, until the Miners* Federa­

tion of Great Britain was formed in the late ^eighties, the coal minors were without an effective national union. 1© have seen how in the industrial centers of Great

-16Britain the various local unions had federated or amalgamated themselves into strong national trades anions , or horizontal eraft anions, in American terminology*

For ameliorating ad­

verse economic conditions, these national anions proved to he excellent*

Concurrently with the development of the strong

and effective “Bew "OnionIsm

labor developed along a differ­

ent tangent a new type of body which was to prove of consider­ able value in political agitation— the trades council*

Hi©

trades council, to borrow the Webbs * phrase, was a local cabinet of trade union officers, quit© frequently the secre­ taries of the various unions in a given city.

Just when the

first permanent trades council was begun is not known.

They

usually had quite informal beginnings, obviously growing in industrial centers from two sources— from local strike com­ mittees, and from the meetings and discussions of trade union officers made easy by close proximity and common problems of recognition, legality, and livelihood.

Glasgow, Sheffield,

Manchester, and London all claim the honor of creating the first council*

Aberdeen had a permanent council in 1848,

followed two years later by Liverpool.^

The host and most

effective up to 1880 was Alexander Campbell fs Glasgow Trades Council which served as the model for the London body.

The

London Trades Council evolved from weekly delegate meetings held In 1859-60 to support the builders* strike of that winter.^

Its formal inception took place in 1861.

It con­

sisted of an executive of fifteen members, eleeted by an

annual delegate conference of tie London unions*

George How­

ell served as the first secretary, and was replaced a year later by George Odger,

The larger unions held aloof for a

few months, but by the end of the year the engineers and the bookbinders had assented*

Hie London Council was composed of

possibly the most able labor leaders to all Great Britain* Most of the unions had their central offices to the metropo­ lis, and to© London Trades Council was essentially a Joint committee of the officers of toe large national societies* The Council set to work immediately and was successful to two undertakings, one bureaucrat ie and the other relating to trade policy*

toe General Trades tfaion Directory was prepared,

listing the names and addresses of trade union secretaries all over Britain#

It absorbed all the funds th© Council had,

for 2,000 copies were printed*

When to to© course of the

building trades dispute over th© nine-hour day th© men at work on th© Chelsea Barracks struck, the contractor used sap­ pers from the Boyal Jtogtoecra, and the Council immediately sent a deputation to the War Office*

to© pleas of labor were

successful, and the troops were withdrawn* So competent was a small informal group of trade union secretaries that It dominated the proceedings of the London Trades Council and the labor movement generally for over a decade, and earned an accolade from the Webbs.

Their

name Junta has stuck to the "cabinet of the trade union world0 to this day*

So hard-working and so ubiquitous were these men

-18that trade union history during the 1sixties is little more than a reeord of the doings of toe Junta, of their direction of th® labor movement, plus their conflict with a few rival groups and leaders.

William Allan of th® Engineers, Robert

Applegarth of th® Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners, Daniel Guile of the national Society of Ironfounders, Biwin Coulson of the London Order of Bricklayers, and George Qdger, a lead­ ing radical and a member of a email shoemakers* union, com­ prised the Junta*

Around these grouped a body of younger men

like John Prior, Georg® Howell, Henry Broadhurst, and George Bhlptogw

Allan and Applegarth were the leading spirits*

former, a tireless bureaucrat, was a splendid official*

The He

kept complicated records perfectly, and his solicitude for funds was positively miserly* interests and larger views*

Applegarth was a man of broad Where Allan was chiefly concerned

with trade matters, Applegarth, using able, lawyerlike argu­ ments, sought a decent social and political status for labor unions*

A promoter of th© First Internal;ional, the Labor Re­

presentation League, and the Hat Ional Education League, he mad© an excellent impression upon public opinion by the var­ iety of his interests, and the alertness and geniality of his «t2 » 32*

Ifrasphrey, History of Labour Heoresentation» p* 17*

S3* ■ George H* H* Sole,, British Working -glass Polities» 18521214* London, 104i /pr ?Sr 34*

Battening— eonf Iseat ion of a workman Ts tools byunionists when he was unwilling to join a union*

35*

Webb, Trade Unionism, p* 259*

36*

Paul, Modern England. Ill, p* 92* Two years later ^ueen1a Bench handed down substantially the same decision in Farrer vs* Close*

37*

Ibid*

38,

Ibid*.,, p* 104*

39*

-Cole, 3t*ort History* II, pp* 99—100*

40*

Webb, o^* ett», pp* 263-72*

41*

Ibid* ,p* 221*

-78-

Chapter III W m Conservative Era The latter half of the decade of the *sixties saw the trade union movement shift to the north*

While the Lon­

don trades were active in polities, Alexander MacDonald and John l a m tolled among fh© unorganised northern workers to create strong labor unions * The growth of MacDonald *s Na­ tional liners1 Tkiion has already been noted*

MacDonald him­

self became chairman of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trade Union Congress in 1871, from which post he earnestly Parliamentary agitation and sought to win the legal of hours and working conditions*

In Lancashire

the Cotton Operatives achieved a position of considerable importance by 1869, and the passage of the Factory Act of 1875, which limited the work-week for women and children to fifty-six and one-half hours, thus indirectly limiting the hours of male employees, was largely due to the strength of the Lancashire cotton spinners as exercised through the TUC end the. Parliamentary Committee* The work of the leaders plus their Parliamentary Victories had considerably improved the legal and social sta­ tus of the unions*

Mo longer regarded as agitators and pot­

house loafers, the elated leaders were inclined to be rather pleased with themselves and the world in general*

With the

exception of the farm laborers and a few energetic campaigners,

*73« trade unionism in the 1seventies and early ’eighties demon­ strated a marked tendency to settle down comfortably• Humd m bureaucracy effectively stifled any crusading aspira­ tions# and no titanic struggles occurred* sat on Boyal Emissions and school boards# Westminster*

leading unionists Two were sent to

t&aion membership showed a marked increase*

Exact statistics are not available* but the Webbs credit the frn m

representing 375,000 workers in 1872# and 1*191,922

In 1874# The agricultural laborers of Great Britain were probably the most poverty-stricken class of workers in the whole country*

Although their work was healthful* they lived

in wretched hovels without any proper sanitary conveniences# As an ■unorganised group without the franchise, they were at the mercy of their employers, the tenant farmers and the land­ lords, who Joined hands in repressing the farm hands#

The

most prosperous of them received wages of twelve shillings a week, but in Dorsetshire a weekly wage of seven or eight was more common*

Then Joseph Arch# seeing their

;* took the lead in creating the Agricultural Laborers* Dhion at a meeting at Wellesboume in February, 1872#

Aim­

ing at a weekly wage of sixteen shillings* the union grew rapidly*

In one year 100,000 joined*

The movement spread

through Oxford* Hereford* Leicester, Somerset, Norfolk, Northampton* Essex, and Worcester, and won the sympathy of such M. f ,fg as George Trevelyan, Fawcett, Mun&ella, and

Naturally one of the union’s major demands was for the extension of the franchise to the counties, and in 1872 Mayor Joseph Chamberlain of Birmingham presided at a confer©nee to inaugurate a campaign for a third reform bill* union naturally aroused the ire of the by most of the Church of Ikigl&nd. parsoi

The

, supported On© cleric recom-

mended publicly that the farm labor leaders should all be ducked In borse-pon&s, to be reminded by Arch that adult baptism was not the custom of the Ghureh of England*^ As has been noted previously the Junta looked with disfavor upon the early Congresses of the trade unions# reasons for this jealousy are obvious enough*

The

The Junta

sought power* and the TUG seemed to Allan, Applegarth, and the others to be a needless rival to their own Conference of o Amalgamated Trades* The TUG grew out of the trades coun­ cils* while the Junta grew out of the large amalgamated so­ cieties*

Therefore when the trades council of Manchester

called for a delegate conference to be held In 1868 to dis­ cuss the doings and reeommendations of the Royal Commission the Junta and the amalgamated unions remained aloof* although some of the Junta.1© adherents attended*

Only thirty-four

unions with a total membership of 110,OCX) were represented* the congress met at Birmingham with greater delegates spoke at Birmingham for 250,000 unionists*

Howell and Odger attended too, but Odger re­

fused to accept a seat on the Parliamentary Committee appointed

-75that year.

B© congress was held In 1870; the Birmingham Con­

gress had voted to meet the next year in London* hut the Lon­ don Trades Council took no steps to convene the assembly* The Liberal government however threw the Junta onto the bosom ©I* the TUC by its bills on trade union funds and s union activity* then th© government *s bill was made known the Junta saw that for effective action, it would need a header base*

Hie Conference of Amalgamated Trades was forth­

with dissolved, and the Junta Itself convened the ‘ Trade Union Congress of 1871*

Ihen the Congress met the Junta’s men began

accepting positions on the Parliamentary Committee*

The Con­

gress adjourned ©very day at 4:30 P*M* that deputations could be sent to wait upon influential M.JP* ’«»

The Parliamentary

Committee then assumed the leadership in the agitation against the bill, at length persuading the Liberal government to di­ vide the Measure into two separate laws*

Then for three

years the trade union leaders tried vainly to get the Liber­ als to amend the Criminal Law Amendment Act*

Home Secretaries

Henry Bruce and Hobart Lowe were unsympathetic* declined to take the matter up*^ and showed unity of mind*

Gladstone

The leaders were determined

Allan, Guile, Odger, and Howell

were reinforced by miners *, spinners’, and ironworkers* leaders* The Trade Union Congresses at Nottingham, Leeds, and Sheffield called upon both parties to change the law*

Th© Congress

spoke with much more authority in 1874 than previously, for it represented over on© million voters*

-76At the general election of 1874 the Liberals were routed, partly because the trade unionists supported the Tories, many of whom Indicated a willingness to m e n d the jz law* The strategy adopted fey labor was that suggested by John Stuart Bill in a letter to Qdger who stood for hh© Southward seat In a feye-election in 1870* you h a w not been successful, I congra­ tulate you on the result of the polling in South­ wark, as it prows that you h a w the majority of the liberal party with you, and that you h a w called out an Increased amount of political feel­ ing in the borough* It is plain that the ihlgs intend to monopolize political power as long as they can without coalescing in any degree with the Radicals. The working ,men are quite right in allowing Tories to get into the Hons© to de­ feat this exclusive feeling of the ihigs, and may do it without sacrificing any principle*. The working men*s policy is to insist upon their own representation,- and in default of success to per­ mit Tories to fee sent into the House until the Whig majority is seriously threatened, when, of course, the Whigs will fee happy to compromise, and allow a few working men represent©tiv©s in In short * the

were recommended to allow

all the advantages of a balanee-of-power third party to ac­ crue to them, and to play one party off against the other to the advantage of labor*

lot all workers agreed with this

li*s victory in 1874 was largely due to the defection of some unionists fro® the Liberal ranks*

This belief was without

doubt erroneous as it ignored the fact that Gladstone*© gov­ ernment had been six years in office and In that time had aroused enough opposition to its domestic and foreign policies

-77to go down In defeat with or without labor*s support* workingmen however agreed with Mill* support to Gladstone*

Few

Most of them gave warm

Benry Broadhurst *s regard for his

chief almost amounted to idolatry*

Generally throughout the

’seventies and ’eighties when the unions were conservative and opportunist the labor leaders ranged themselves Just slightly to the left of th© Liberal forty*-

'In domestic af­

fairs they were liberals with a warm interest In “labor questionsand in foreign policy they took the words of Gladstone as gospel* fee aspect of the 1874 campaign is notable in the light of later events*

The Labor ^presentation League was

at th© high point of Its life, and supported with money and propaganda no less than fifteen candidates,, of whom two were elected,, Alexander MacDonald and. Thoms Burt, the,first real laboring men to become Members of Parliament*

Thomas Halli-

d&y stood unsuccessfully as a Liberal candidate for Merthyr Ty&vilj Howell and Grezaer ran without success as radicals. John lane of the Ironworkers attempted to unseat the Gladstonlan Bolckow at Middlesfeoraugh and submitted a platform that was a blend of radicalism and labor! sm*

Ba favored la­

bor representation in Parliament, reform of th© rural fran­ chise, better education, an Irish Parliament, and accepted the program of the Parliamentary Committee of the TUG— repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, limitation of the summary jurisdiction of the local magistrates, the establishment of

-78— employers* responsibllIty in industrial accidents, and sea­ men’s protection* 1,541*^

But Bolekow beat Kane, 3,719 votes to

In eleven constituencies where laboring man stood

the Liberal vote was split, and Censerv&tives were elected* Bart and MacDonald met with better success by first persuading the regular Liberals not to oppose them*

McDon­

ald stood for the mining district of Stafford on a program including county franchise reform* redistribution of Parlia­ mentary seats* more rigid restriction of child labor, more favorable trade union legislation, international peace, and support of Isaac Butt* the lead®* of the Irish 'Nationalists* MacDonald was returned unopposed, and in Parliament pursued a policy of moderate independence* TIssmsLB Burt was also a miners’ mlo n official, and like McDonald stood for a miners1 constituency* seat had formerly been held by Sir George Grey*

The Morpeth ihen Grey

decided to retire the Morpeth miners invited Burt to be their candidate * Believing be could not win, Burt neverthe­ less accepted on October 18, 1873*

He favored the same pro­

gram as MacDonald, but added disestablishment and disendowment of the Church of England and local option on the subject of the control, of the liquor traffic*

Bart’s only opponent

was the Conservative Major Duncan with whom he enjoyed ami­ able and sportsmanllke relations* constituency together*

lb© two men stumped the

Burt, a staunch Liberal, had only

contempt for the lory laborer*

™Th® Conservative workingman

-79Is either a fool or a flunkey*w His words impressed his hear­ ers, for he heat Dunean, 3,332 votes to .586*? Both he and. MacDonald were paid salaries by their unions to provide for their support while serving in the House of Commons * For the next six years they were the sole labor M«P. fs, but in 1880 they were reinforced by the stalwart figure mid stentor­ ian voice of Henry Broadhurst * Mien Burt and MacDonald arrived in the House of Com­ mons they were well and courteously received*

As neither man

was disposed to attempt any revolutionary changes, they de­ voted themselves to labor questions*

Burt made a short mai­

den speech onlay 13, 1874, In which he almost humbly asked for an extension of the county franchise, and thanked the Q House of Ceaaoas for hearing him* MacDonald on the same day spoke in favor of an increase in the voting l i s t s . R e s e n t ­ ing attacks on the character and worth of working men, Mac­ Donald frequently pointed out that many who made gratuitous assumptions about laborers simply spoke out of ignorance and prejudice*

But he almost angrily denied that he favored any

real alteration of the status quo* deprecating those who de­ manded ^bre&d without work8, or the redistribution of pro­ perty, although in the same speech when he defended indivi­ dualism MacDonald lent hearty export to the bill limiting the working hours of women employees*11

But n***if a twenti­

eth part of the Income of the prosperous public were taken from them today to support the poor* the time might come when

—80all the income of the provident portion of the people might be applied to the support of the improvident*^

He *****looked

with detestation upon a Poor Law as the thin edge of Communi s m * C h i June 28, 1876, In discussing the HtepXoyers and Workmen. Bill, he declared himself as ”strongly in favor of amending the existing Xaw% but went on to point out that no country in the world but Britain passed such legislation to protect industrial workers, and announced that he would M***be no party to declaring against those remedial measures which Parliament had passed even before the adoption of the extended suffrage and the Ballot8* ^ Labor leadership in the ’seventies passed to the Trade Union Congress and its Parliamentary Committee, For a few years, until 1876, the TO? was vigorous, but for th© ten years following 1676 the Congress was largely a placid body of self-satisfied trad® secretaries*

The Congress des­

pite protests and the old cry of ttno polities8 had declared itself in favor of direct labor representation Is 1869, 1871, and 1872, but It did nothing at d.1 to effectuate this policy* Mien Henry Bro&dterst in 1874 demanded that th© Congress raise an election fund through a levy on union treasuries, he spoke

The resolution for direct labor re­

presentation at the TCC proved to be a hardy perennial* was piously passed every year and then forgotten*

It

At New­

castle, in 1876, the resolution received seventy-three votes 14 to nine against it oast by a few orthodox Liberals* In

-81’ 1881 at the London Congress Edward Ooulson voiced the views of the older unionists in warning M s colleagues to steer clear of both political parties* and gave a clear exposition of the topical unionist outlook a t the time* HWe are not violent revolutionists an i®» mediate etw, or wishing and provided by a paternal government, but we are prepared to demand that no obstacles shall be placed by Parliament or the ruling classes in the way of our complete industrial independence »fi1$ Actual direct leadership of the trade union movement was provided by the Parliamentary Committee of the THG*

Its

duties were never expressly defined at any Congress> but in general the Committee watched over the political interests of its constituents by working for trad© union legalisation, for more democracy, for more regulation of business, for more equitable taxation* for education* recreation* and better maintenance of the sick and aged. It examined bills intro­ duced In Far!lament; It watched the budget, the education code* and enforcement of the law*

It promoted private bills

on subjects neglected by the cabinet* and lobbied among min­ isters and H*P **■*.» These imaltIfarious tasks the Committee obviously could not perform completely* but after the legisla­ tive victories of 1 8 % and 1875 the heavy artillery of the leaders m s fired*

Having nothing new to propose, they sat

The Committee for ten years had a long and compli­ cated program, but it differed only slightly from the official

program of the Liberal forty*

It demanded the assimilation

of the county and borough franchises, hut rejected universal manhood suffrage in 1882*

Sot until the Liberals officially

declared for an extension of the county franchise in. 1884 did the Oe&saitbee make up its mind* and Congress failed to make any serious effort to attain salaries for M*P*fs until 1884*

The most important practical achievement of the Com­

mittee in these years was persuading the cabinet through Henry Bro&dburat to appoint actual working men as factory inspectors*

In legal reform the OosBiitte© failed to secure

the cadifieatiem of the criminal law* or the abolition of the unpaid magistracy*

The Liberal government in 1884 neatly

sidestepped that issue by appointing four union leaders to the bench in Lancashire* The early 1eighties were the typical period of Liberal-Laborlsm, of workingman who were eager members, in and out of Parliament, of the Xdberal Party.

Marshalled by

Henry Broadhurst, the members of the trade unions ranged them­ selves behind the banners of William Swart Gladstone, who, despite his wealth and his High Church leanings* won the wor­ kers to him by his munificent voice, his crusading spirit, and his moral fervor * The hlb-haba did not oppose the Liberal administration even when it used coercion in Ireland*

They

regarded themselves as members of the party and as such col-

-8311Instead of a compact* powerful force, holding the balance between the parties and the key to the situ­ ation* dictating its toms* they preferred to be the tag end of a party* In the end they did not get much* but the Congress was successfully captured and mu&sled fey the Gladstonian Go^emssnt*^^ Henry Broadhurst, the archetypical Lib—Lab who be­ came an Undersecretary of State, was ©looted to the Bouse of Commons from Stoke-on-Trent in 1880*

He and William Woodall

contested the constituency for the liberals against two Tor­ ies, and as Bro&dbur&t *& activities as in the Eastern Question Association and, the TUG had mad© him well acquainted with Gladstone and other leading 1ar1iamentarians , it was he who Introduced him much wealthier colleague to the House

To

provide for Bro&^urst and his family his union paid Broadhurst an annual salary of 150 pounds, all the money he re­ ceived until 1885 when Gladstone made him Undersecretary of State for the Horn© department*

m

the ©lection of 1886 the

workmen sent eleven of their number, including six minora, to the House of Goasmons where under Bro&dhurstTa leadership they sat as Liberals*.

All of them however worked in the

interest of labor, supporting labor legislation and working to get working men appointed as Justices of the peace and as inspectors*

Henry Bro&dhnrst, often called by his

a traitor to labor *s cause, refused a canal boat in600 pounds a year, believing that he eould better serve the workers as a member of the Bouse of Coumions • He became one of the best campaigners of the Liberal party;

with ft bluff, downright manner h© possessed a great appeal for the voters, who admired him for his integrity and his

Broadhurst and the Lib-Labs opposed socialism and collectivism,

fee Liberal party with its radical doctrines

and its moral program, appealed to them even although its ranks were full of landlords, merchants, and manufacturers* fee Liberal-Laborit©a accepted most of the tenets of lalaserfairs and Individualism*

They did not demand much stats re­

ef business, nor did they ask for pensions, grants, housing, or work relief*

Their definition of

economic freedom implied the freedom of workmen to organise peacefully to protect themselves* *®e do not seek to interfere with the free compe­ tition of the individual in the exercise of his ©raft in his own way? but we reserve to ourselves the right either to work for or to refuse to work for, an employer according to the circumstances of the ease, just as the master has the right to discharge a workman; and we deny that the indivi­ dual right is -in any way interfered with when it is don© in concert* 3$ Hhem the Liberals introduced a Reform Bill in 1884, giving to agricultural laborers the right to vote, the trad© unions turned out in support of the measure*

Lhen it seemed

that the Rouse of Lords would present the addition of two mil­ lion voters to the registers, the radicals and the London Trades Council organised another monster demonstration; a parade of twenty-five or thirty thousand workingmen marched to Hyde Bark, bearing such mottoes as "The Franchise for every

-85working man,9 and “Shall the peers rob the people of the voter113'9

With great effrontery young Lord Randolph Churehil3,

of the guerilla Fourth Party of Ola&stone-baiting Conserva­ tive 3, organized counter-demon&trations In the Midlands*

At

Ashton Park in Birmingham five platforms of Conservative ora­ tors including Sir Stafford Morthcote harangued all and sun­ dry to the accompaniment of brass hands and fireworks*

The

national Bnion of Conservative Associations to insure good attendance issued 120,000 free tickets to the park, and made available a large number of ©heap excursion tickets to Birm­ ingham from the surrounding countryside*

But Churchill1s

demonstration failed to impress Parliament as he intended, for the Conservatives had been a trifle careless and inadver­ tently gave whole blocks of tickets to the Birmingham Radical clubsj on October IB, 1884, Ashton Park was dominated not by Tories but by radicals, and the proceedings waxed violent* The Liberal® passed the bill in 1885, bat it was primarily a Liberal measure, unlike the Act of 1867 which bore the im­ print of radicals, labor!fees, Conservatives, and Liberals, In the election of 1885 the laborites entered the field with considerable success, despite the handicap that a resolution stating that the Parliamentary Committee be em­ powered to form a fund for the election and payment of Mem­ ber® of Parliament had received only four votes in the TUC# In 1886 however Threlfall fs resolution passed with a majority

-86* of fifty votes*

Th© resolution stated;

“This Congress views with satisfaction the growing intelligence of the masses to recognise in their emancipation the power they possess to demand the inalienable right of men in making laws to which they have to subscribe; and la order to give prac­ tical effect to the various resolutions passed at previous Congresses on the question of Labor Repre­ sentation it Is essential to form an Electoral La­ bor Committee which shall act in conjunction with the Parliamentary Committee, the Labor Representa­ tives Sn the B m m of Comons, and the friends of Labor Representation throughout the country* “20 H j® Labor Electoral Committee was appointed*

Included in the

membership were Threlfall, John Wilson, and William Abraham, Originally intended to be a subsidiary of the TOC, appointed .by it, the Committee became separate in 1887, calling Itself the Labor Electoral Association*93

The T0C of 1887 passed

a resolution reeommending that workers* societies support the Association*"

The Electoral Association was a radical

body, part of the advanced wing of the Liberal party*

It

was typical of the conservative trade union politics of the ’eighties that it refused to support Keir Bardie, or to co­ operate with any of the wordy members of the Social Democra­ tic Federation*

its cautious policies met with some success.

% 1890 the affiliated bodies had a total membership of 750,000*

Harking through the trades councils, it supported

only labor candidates approved by either a trades council or a labor federation*"

Between 1882 and 1892 chiefly because

of the Association’s work the number of workers* representa­ tives on local governing bodies increased from twelve to two

—87— hundred*.

In 1895, the last year of the Association's life,

650 labor men eat on borough councils in Great Britain, largely because official Liberals did not oppose Lib-L&b candidate®* If labor largely esehewed independent action and radical policies during the conservative era, it did not fail to make considerable galas*

The Improvements in trade

union law and Mi© law relating to employers and workmen have already been discussed*

fa 1880 the pertenacity of MacDonald

and Bro&dhnrst was rewarded when Parliament recognized the employer’s responsibility in safeguarding his workers against occupational injuries*

The slow and easy methods of Liberal-

Laborlsm sent eleven working men to Westminster, where they were heard with attention and respect.

When the Liberal

Unionists deserted their party over the issue of Home Rule for Ireland, the labor1tee, long sympathetic with Irish na­ tionalism, stayed with the Liberal rump and thus won a more Important position In the organisation*

The climax of Liberal-

Laboriam cams in 1885, when Gladstone recognized the new posi­ tion of the working man in the state by naming Henry Broadburst as a Minister of the Grown* On the debit side of the ledger, the faults of con­ servative trade unionism were numerous.

By acting as a wheel

horse In the Liberal caravan, the TUG slowed down the develop­ ment of its own policies*

Frequently the official Liberals

like Joseph Chamberlain were far more radical than the

**•88—■ Parliamentary Gojssalttee*

Steeped in laisser-faire philosophy,

the trade secretaries ignored or opposed the contribution of socialism to economic thought, and refused to cooperate with James Heir Bardie 1m his fight for independent labor represen­ tation*

The Parliamentary Committee and the Labor Electoral

Association were too humble and too easily satisfied*

Having

sleeted a dozen M*f**s, they quickly relapsed into official Liberalism, falling to realise that the dozen Parliamentary labor men could act only as a pressure group, and that real labor measures could only he passed When Mi® members enjoyed either a numerical majority or by Independent action held the balance of power among the three major political parties*

Footnotes 1* Paul, Modern Snjgland. H I , p. 537* 2* Webb, Trade Unionism, pp* 280-81. 3*

See above, chapter two*

4*

Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. Third Series, Vol. CCXII, 1872, p.* 1132.

5* Webb, op*, elt.„ p* .286* 6.

Quoted in ibid.. p* 288*

7*

Maecoby, English Radicalism. 1853-1886. p, 124*

9*

Hansard’s farllamentarv Debates. Third Series, Vol. CCXIX, 1874, p. 221-22*

10* -• Ibid., pp. ■•IIWMaMP — • ——1 232-35. 11, Ibid. . pp. 1448-49. 12*

Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, Third Series. Vol. CCXX. 1874, p. 2 # r * ------* ------ -

13*

Hansard’s Parllamentarr Debates* Third Series, Vol. CCXXV, 1875, pp* 660-70.

14,

W. I. Davis, The British Trades Union Congress, London, 1910, p. 08*

15. Ibid.. p* 85. 18, 17*

Henry Gr&mpton, quoted in Webb, on. eit.» p. 363. Benry Broadhurst, Banry Broadhorst. M,F*. The Story of

M m Life-. London, iStchlnson and'Go*7X901, p.101. 18* TUG Memorial to the Home Secretary, April, 1875, quoted in Webb, op. elt* p * 295* 19* Maeeoby, 033* bit*, pp* 289-290* 20. Beer, British Socialism. II, p, '224*

*90* 21#

Hifisiplsrsyp.

c l t ♦ j P* 84*

22*

D a v is , o ^.

p , 132♦

23,

Busaphrey, o£. ctt,» p, 100*

-91-

Ohapter IV The Else of Socialism While the established "trade unions complacently ac­ cepted the established order of things in the ’eighties, new winds of economic doctrine blew ewer Great Britain*

Labor

organisations served the highly-skilled artisans relatively well, but did little or nothing for the depressed unskilled workers*

the latter, neglected by the chief leaders of the

Trade Union Congress, elected to pursue their interests them­ selves, and organised their own miens and battled valiantly for a better way of living*

With the temporary decline of

Liberalism as the doctrine of the progressively-minded, new philosophies were propounded*

Henry George *s accurate ana­

lysis of the problems of industrial society fired the minds of many young men and women* Even in the placid matrix of the Church of England a new spirit was growing*

Thereafter many clergymen like

Stewart Headless and Canon Barnett were no longer content merely to preach and pray, bat attempted to play an active role in Improving the economic and social life of the people* lew soeie&Ies sought to persuade Britain to accept the gos­ pel according to Karl Marx*

although individual Marxians

like Byndmam, Morris, Bax, and Champion quarrelled constantly among themselves and were cordially distrusted by Marx him­ self, they did succeed la implanting in many bourgeois minds the tenets of dialectic materialism and economic determinism* With labor they met less success*

The stolid, pragmatic

British working®®® gave scant attention to the brassy trumpetings and sanguinary prophecies that characterised Marxian 1

overtures,

The socialism that British labor eventually ac­

cepted was un-Marxian,

It was the practical, evolutionary,

peaceful, constitutional, eminently British reformist social­ ism advocated by l£eir Bardie and the Fabian Society that the \?orkers finally adopted* the Importance of the statements of the socialist propagandists was greatly enhanced by a series of monumental statistical studies of living conditions and wages in London in the ^eighties.

Siese studies proved scientifically and

conclusively that the socialists* descriptions of industrial society were correct*

But toward socialist propaganda and

statistical surveys the Trade Union Congress adopted an at­ titude of bland indifference*

It gave heed to the socialists

infrequently, turning only now and again to strike down so­ cialist motions by large majorities*

Labor agitation and the

movement for Parliamentary representation must therefore be studied outside the trade unions themselves*

For ten years

the attempt^/(to)l.e.ir Bardie and his friends to arouse the TCC to show either fighting spirit or interest in socialism were in vain*

Official Liberalism held the loyalty of Broad-

burst, Oaurles Fenwick,

Burt* and Cromer.

They opposed la­

bor independence and socialism almost as resolutely as the capitalist members of the Liberal Party. The placidity of the Trade Union Congress may be

**>03— partially explained by the severe economic depressions of the Seventies and the Eighties which seriously weakened the unions,

British escorts fell from m

annual value of

256,000,000 pounds sterling in 1872 to 192,000,000 pounds in 1879* while tmempXoyment figures increased by fro® one to twelve percent. dustries,

Hardest hit were the coal and iron in­

the coal miser© * wages* based on the price of

coal* declined perilously.

Strikes failed.

One-fourth of

all the trade unionists in Britain received unemployment re­ lief from their unions»s

S&aployers took this opportunity to

retract some of the concessions made la better times* were cut* h o w s lengthened,

Wages

Trad© union membership declined*

Coupled with disputes with employers were internecine rows among the miosis over questions of jurisdiction* “demarcation disputesw. The trade unions despite these problems weathered the storm and demonstrated their permanence, if not their belligerency.

Trad© improved by 1882, only to decline again

toward the end of the decade*

American and German competi­

tion, technological improvements which rendered much British t heavy machinery obsolete, and capital Invesment abroad com­ bined to render extremely precarious the position of the British workers# and the result of the trade depression of the ^eighties was a growing acceptance of socialism and the need for independent labor representation in Parliament. The new militant socialism differed considerably from the old benevolent Gwenlta Utopianism,

The long resi-

denes of Earl Harx in London, and the conversion of John Stu­ art Mill to socialism were important factors in the promot ion of the now socialism*

Moreover there was a growing disgust

in the Radical ranks with the policies and practices of the Liberal Party*

Probably the strongest factor contributing

to the socialist revival came in 1879 in the form of the pub­ lication of Henry George *a Progress and Poverty* vhleh en­ joyed a tremendous circulation throughout the British Isles* George1s aggressive* dogmatic tone was far more palatable and congenial to the radical mind than the complacence of the classical economists* and when George toured Britain in 1882 lm lectured to large and approving audiences*

John Stuart

Mill himself accepted one of the basic tenets of Progress and Poverty by approving of the taxation of the unearned incre­ ment In laid* Ihe first organisation to publicise the doctrines of lari Marx was the Democratic Federation* headed by the ubiHenry Mayers Hyndman*

She workers of Great Britain clearly discerned the dift h « — the stratification of

e©Gnomic gprnps-* the rapid increase of profits over wages, the bare subsistence standard of living* constant panics, crises, and dislocations*

What Marxism through its most of­

festive

and William Morris, tried to do

fer the British worker was to provide him with a logical and plausible explanation for his difficulties, which were at-

•“9 5 1*

trlbutable not to any fault of the workers but to the Indus­ trial Revolution and the divorce of labor from ownership* Hyndraan, am ex-stockbroker, became acquainted with the doctrines of Marx about 1880# when he read Das Kapital in French*

As no Knglish edition of that monumental work

was then available, only a very few Britons knew anything about Marxian socialism*

landman was much impressed by Das

Eanltal and in 1880 or 1881 became acquainted with the German scholar*

Although Hyndmaa admired Marx, the latter, proud

and dictatorial, disliked and distrusted him from the first*5 This dislike was only enhanced by Hyndiaanfs subsequent acti­ vities*

Ih January, 1881, his optimistic uDawn of a Revolu­

tionary Epoch11 appeared in the nineteenth Century*

Then

%ndman, well aware of the average Englishman^ dislike of foreigners, wrote ^iglaiid for All, a popular and faeile ex­ planation of Marxism, without even mentioning Marx or Das by nmm*

Marx was both proud and irritable, and

'b bland neglect to give him credit mad© him furious* Sven in 1883 when %mdman*s Historical Basis of Socialism quoted Harx m d Sagels freely the cross-grained old scholar was mot assuaged* Advocating at first programs essentially radical In nature, the Democratic Federation was founded in 1881* At that time its only indisputably socialist goal was nation­ alization of the land*

The Federation was established at a

meeting at the Westminster Palace Hotel called by Hyndman—

the Gonferenee of Delegates of Radical and Working Men* a Clubs and Irish Committees*

fh© Federation demanded adult

suffrage, triennial Parliaments, equal electoral districts, salaries for

the abolition of the legal power of the

Sons© of herds, legislative Independence for Ireland, land notionalIsatIon, and a Federal Parliament for the colonies*^ lh© Federation was little different from the old Chartist bodies except that it never gained any real basis of popular ># Its close associations with Michael B&vitt1a Irish caused the London radicals to steer dear*® Despite its lack of public support and the quar­ rels which marked its contentious leadership, the Federation did manage to do a great deal of work.

Its membership in­

cluded at on© time or another nearly all the leading British radical socialists— %ndman himself , Henry Hyde Champion the ex-artillery officer, Belfort Bax, William Morris, Edward Aveling, Eleanor Marx-Avellmg, and James Macdonald,

In 1883

it printed 100,080 copies of the pamphlet Socialism Mad© dialectic proved unpalatable in Bri­ tain* the Federation did succeed in,

known the

labor value theory and the idea of economic determinism.

By

1884 the society had definitely embraced Marxism, and began publishing Justice

weekly*

the n m m of the organisation was

changed to the Social Democratic Federation,

Ihe 3BF, as it

was familiarly termed, was doomed to virtual failure, however* As has been noted, British workers rejected Marxism, and did

-97not m e n embrace leir Sar&le’s mild social Ism until the *nine­ ties*

The leaders of the SSF were hardy the type to lead a

successful revolutionary body*

Intellectual, undisciplined,

individualist, they wrangled constantly among themselves over policy and over petty personal matters*

Hindman, wealthy,

energetic, tactless, ami dictatorial, tried to run affairs with a high hand, only to find that Morris and Champion could he as stubborn as himself*

Aveling, though intellectually

capable, was tricky In money matters and so cruel to Eleanor Marx-Aveling that she poisoned herself in 1898*s %ndman had established Justice in a fit of violent optimism*

As it proved difficult to sell, the paper was a

constant drain on the society’s finances, and had not Cham­ pion placed his coders Press at the disposal of the 333F, It sever would have appeared at &IX*^

The Federation did not

lack for propaganda, despite the poor press it received*

Its

members were all voluble, and the London air resounded with their speeches, especially those of Morris, Bax, Edward Car­ penter, Jack Williams, and James Macdonald*

Strikers were

encouraged! glowing revolutionary utopias shimmered in the verbal distance^*

The doctrines of Karl Marx were laboriously

expounded! once at the Blue Bibben Ball in London the insuf­ ferable Aveling saw half M s alienee walk out when he in­ structed them to take notes on his address I George Bernard Shaw nearly enrolled in the SET, but decided to adorn the Fa­ bian Society instead#

James Ramsay MacDonald joined the SXF*s

-98a branch at Bristol for a short time In 1885#°

\

Oat of the numerous internecine quarrels of the SDF the Socialist League was bom* parliament if possible,

Hyudman favored action through,

William Morris on the other hand de­

cided that PariIament existed primarily to preserve the es­ tablished order.

Despairing of reform through constitutional

means, he advocated direct action, and following a quarrel in 1884 with %ndm&n over the latter*s high-handed dominance, walked oat of the Federation, taking Eleanor Marx-Awellng, AveXIng, and Bax with him, while Joha Bums, Champion, Harry Queleh and Williams stayed with Hyndman*^

In 1885 the So­

cialist League was organised by the dissidents, but its lack of cohesion was more flagrant than its rival’s.

The only

reform technique which Morris would countenance was direct action through a general strike, revolution, and the Immediate reconstruction of society,

She body politic to him was a

mechanical contrivance which could be dismantled and reassembled by any skilled revolutionary mechanic#

Although the League’s

membership Included a great deal of talent, no one possessed the qualities of organising ability or of tactful leadership, with the result that th© Socialist League exercised less in­ fluence than the SDF, was founded in 1888*

The Ooirmienweal with Morris as editor W m n a group of anarchists joined the

League’s scant membership In 1888, the Parliamentarians with­ drew, followed by Morris himself, for by 1890 he had rejected anarchy as the means of social regeneration,

-99Having decided upon a policy of legal and constitu­ tional reform, the Social Democratic Federation decided to attempi to influence the general election of 1885*

The quar­

rels between radicals and Liberals mad© Byndman optimistic* He even approached Joseph ^yamberl&in with an offer of ad­ vice and support, only to he rebuffed* a curt refusal to stop the SDP*

But it took more than

2® order to harass the Li­

berals, three measbers of the Federation* John Bams, Jack Williams, &*& John Fielding, stood as Social Democratic Par­ liamentary candidates for Nottingham, Hampstead, and Kennington*

Although they polled only negligible votes, It was later

proven that their eandi&atur©s had been partially financed by “Tory gold”, paid to the naive Champion by Maltman Barry* Kenry lee* the secretary of the SBF* always maintained that the acceptance of the “Tory gold” was innocent, that the SDF did not know the source of the money.

Years later James Keir

Hardla asserted that Barry was a paid Tory agent, a statement which the latter did not deny*^ donej the &£F was discredited*

The damage however was The Fabl&n Society and the

Socialist League righteously and shrilly condemned the Feder­ ation* tbe League terming the Federation’s executive a “dis­ reputable gang** Departlng a time from the ideological disputes and scholastic disputations of the verbose and theoretical Marx­ ians, It is necessary to look briefly at the more mundane world of practical politics*

We have seen the comfortable

-100stodginess that characterised the professions and policies of established trade unionism*

From Birmingham and the screw

business* however, had emerged a new and vivid personality who refused to worship at the old shrines of Ihiggery and Toryism#

A republican in his youth, Joseph Chamberlain with

his opposition to monarchy, his “ransom* speeches, M s cau­ cus, and his municipal socialism was “Jack Bade* to Conserva­ tive stalwarts like Lord Salisbury*

neither the Liberal Party

nor the Trade Bhlon Congress were as far to the left as Cham­ berlain#

But his ability and leadership were not to be de­

nied, and he progressed swiftly from mayor of Birmingham to BUP* to a seat in a Liberal cabinet under Gladstone*

The

Parliamentary radicals like Charles Bradlaugh, Charles Bilk®, and Henry Labouehere, all able men in their own right, fol­ lowed him stoutly, and finally through the local Liberal As­ sociations and the national Liberal Federation Chamberlain’s voice within the party earn© to speak with ever-increasing authority*

Although Chamberlain’s reforms were neither Marx­

ian nor truly socialistic, they were clearly far more ad­ vanced than those advocated by any other responsible politi­ cal leader, and for twenty years they served as an electoral platform for the leading radicals* In the general election of 1885 Chamberlain brought forth his famous “unauthorised program®, unauthorized in the sense that it was his own, and was not the official program of the Liberal Party*

H© demanded better housing, better

education, fair reacts# salaries for M*P.fs, the end of plu­ ral voting, disestablishment of the Church of England, secuof farm tenure, and revision of the tsac system*

Lord

an antediluvian $hlg, repudiated the program, to flouted by Chamberlain thusi futile and ridicalous for any w n Winkle to coma down from the mountains on which he has teen to tell us that these are to te excluded have to account for and to grapple with the m s s of misery and destitution in our midst, coexistent as it la with the evidence of abundant wealth and teeming prosperity* it is a problem ’ which some mm. would put aside by references to the eternal laws of supply and demand, to the necessity of freedom of contract, and to the sanctity of every private Tight of property* But***these phrases are the convenient cant of selfish wealth,11!* the

of the third Reform BUI, ho exulfceds

r?At last the m a jo rity of the nation will be repre­ sented by a majority in the House of Commons* and ideas and wants and claims which have been ignored in legislation will find a voice in Far1lament, and will compel the attention of statesmen* Radicalism, which has teen the ©reed of the most numerous sec­ tion of the Literal Farty outside the House of Com­ mons, will henceforth te a powerful factor inside the walls of the popular eftamter* *2he stage of agi­ tation has passed, and the time for action has come* •♦Vih© path of legislative progress in l&gland has been for years, and must continue to be, distinctly flAd4a1'4'sHfe% **1» ^£*.^ja-4,eton* Sh&ckleton won*

When Lord

Beresford was sent fey the Admiralty to command the Fleet, the Woolwich constituency was left open*

The

Conservatives tried with one Geoffrey Drag©, the apostle of a vague sort of Tory socialism* the election#

The Liberals did not contest

Drag© stood little chance against the popular

labor nominee. Will Crooks, who was well known In local poll-* ileal and labor elreles, having served on the county council and as mayor of Poplar Borough*

Big, bearded, and Jovial,

Crocks outlined a Fabian policy, and on March 11, 1903, was sleeted fey a majority of over 3,000* The most striking LEG victory prior to 1906, however, was the ©lection of Arthur Henderson at the Barnard Castle Division of Durham in a three-cornered fight in 1903#

Hender­

son was one of the most valuable additions the I ® group in the Hsus© could have received*

Shrewd and cunning, he was a master

at the sort of political spade-work necessary to win an election#

-160-

Bomest and reliable, be was devoted to principle, and bis sin­ cere religious belief® and idealism served to attract many to the Labor Party* lay preacher, was a member of Union, and until 1903 was the Liberal Party* s agent in Barnard

>* Be attended tbs Heweastle Confoi^enc©

and was mmlnated for only local*

9

'MG executive, but at that time his ,

Hb was not sleeted to the executive, but

be- was mad© party treasurer*

He made something of an impres­

sion at Newcastle when be demanded m o m adequate local electoral As an ©lection agent, he knew whereof he spoke* !*t*- for Barnard Castle, Sir Joseph Pease, had announced hi® decision to retire*

a ® Ironfoiinders then de­

cided to run their own candidate, and naturally selected Benw&3 endorsed by the LHC in April* Pease in JOn©#, Before 1903, the workingmen of Barnard voted Liberal, mad possibly to maintain their allegiance th© Liberals asked Renderson to run as their candi­ date*

To their great amasswent he declined, explaining that 14 h® was campaigning on a labor platform* Tkm astounded Liber­ als then ram Herbert Beaumont, and the Zionists sponsored the

export among the workers was naturally great* a® was his knowledge of the techniques of electIona mt the basis of class interest, but also discussed broader questions*

A confirmed free trader, he worn an advan­

tage when Beaumont hedged on the tariff question*

Both David

-161-

ShaekletGn and John Hodge cam© to Barnard Castle to helj John SMgc # &

Scot* was an expert at th© feesldLing m &

often crude banter that prevails at British election meetings* rally in a mining tillage Benderson was refused, a One man in particular was especially noisy*

Hodg©s

on whose tongue the heather lay thick, quieted the disturbance by pointing at the man and asking* ,sWall acme kind friend pit

a vissp e* straw la yon calf's aooth?"15 Before the results of the election were announced, Henderson foreeast that- he would win by a majority of loss than 100 over his nearest opponent* *»•

Th© results of the ©lection were as follows! ■ Bsnderson* 3*570 Vane* 5,325; .Beaumont* 2*609* fSmm there were flir© LEG men at .Westminster— Hair Pardie, Crooks, Bell* Shaekleton, and Henderson. count for mneh* as he m s really a Lih^Lab*

Bell did not

in 1903 he sont a

of support to th® Liberal candidate in a bye-eleetion Georg© Baberts of the ILP, who was also nest year Bell left the LEG and Joined the LibGroofcs, Henderson, and Sh&ekleton worked well together*

Selr Bardie was always a solitary spirit*

In 1904

Henderson was elected to the LEG easseutiw©, and there worked in ©lose associat-ion with MacDonald* each other admirably*

Th© two men complemented

McDonald was .flighty

Henderson w m firm end stolid*

often ready to bility forbad© such tactics*

a- little un-

$her© MacDonald was

Henderson *s solid respecta­ Henderson, himself best at behind-

-162-

the-seenes coiMitte© work, realized MacDonald^ capacity for leadership although the two men were in frequent disagreement „ Th© dominant issue in British politics in the years from 1902 to 1905 was the tariff question.

Protection, revived

by Joseph Chamberlain after nearly two decades of acceptance of free trade, had split the Conservatives*

The chief result

of Chamberlain1s demand for an Imperial %oilver© in was the resuseitation of the Liberals, who were free traders almost to a man*

The laborifces found it difficult to keep their heads

above the swells and currents of the storey waters of the tar­ iff question*

Th© LEG and all the trade union leaders wer*©

solidly closed to a high protective tariff*

Thus Liberals

and the LEG spokesmen were apt to find themselves taking the same side and using the same arguments, Some Laborites thought of re-uniting with the Liberals in opposition to high tariffs* ihen Bell refused to stq*port George Huberts at Harwich in his three-cornered fight# he gave as his reason his wish to pre­ serve the fro® trad© vote intact*

Even Henderson and Shackle-

ton spoke from Liberal platforms*

The LEG was forced to op­

pose a protective tariff to win th© workers* support*3-6 the Fabians were dissident*

Only

Th© Webbs had no faith in free

trade, as it formed part of the Individualist philosophy* The Conservatives, impressed by the electoral vic­ tories of the Labor Representation Committee, changed by poli­ cies a little in an effort to capture some labor votes.

In

1397 they had made an effort to gain labor support * Colonel

-163-

Hbward Vineent introduced a bill excluding goods made in foreign prisons from British markets*

She bill, which re­

ceived th© support of Havelock Wilson, passed*

In 1903 David

Sh&ekleton attempted to recover for the unions some of the ground lost by the faff Vale Decision*

Union, funds were se­

cure against criminal suits, but since 1901 they had lain at the mercy of civil litigants*

Shaekleton*s bill would have

secured union funds against civil proceedings, and defined peaceful persuasion*^

Bell, the Llb-Labs, and Herbert Henry

Asquith supported the bill, but it lost the second, reading, 246 votes to 286, and Borne Secretary Arthur Akers-Douglas per­ suaded the House of Commons to submit the question to a Royal

.The feeling had grown in Britain as a result of sta­ tistical studies and socialist propaganda that th© government should take some respons lbillty for those thrown out of work by economic depression*

Keir Bardie and his associates had

long demanded a labor department, public works, employment ex­ changes, and what in America would be called conservation meetsures— marsh draining and reforestation*

When Joseph Chamber-

lain was liberal President of the Local Government Board he had called upon municipalities to help solve the problem of unem­ ployment through public works, and Sir Henry Fowler had sugges­ ted that local Boards of Guardians tackle the problem by the purchase of land and the opening of workshops.

The revelations

of Booth showed the complexity of the problem of unemployment,

-164snd several Parliamentary committees had studied it*

VVhen

trade declined again in the winter of 1905 th© workless again became prominent* seal*

John Burns demonstrated some of his former

The London County Connell appointed M m as chairman of

a committee to investigate unemployment in linden*

He joined

with Will Crooks and Keir Bardie in demanding a labor ministry to deal with the problem.

The Conservatives did not accede

to their demandsg but they had already empowered metropolitan boroughs to establish labor bureaus#

Walter Long, President

of the Local Government Board, set up mixed committees of rep­ resentatives of borough councils. Boards of Guardians, and social workers in London to provide work, financed fey private charity*

At the same time he drew up a bill (passed in 1905

after Gerald Balfour had replaced him) giving these committees legal powers to draw upon th© rates for some of their expendi­ tures and empowering the government to establish similar eomin other towns, These seem paltry measure, yet in principle they were ;» Miter Long and his Tory colleagues fey their acts admitted on© of th© fundamental propositions of Keir Bardie and the y&felans— that the central government should assume responsibility for those who through no fault of their own could not find work* with the passage of th© Aliens Act in 1905 th© Con­ servatives made another bid for the workers’ favor*

For a

generation th© number of aliens residing in Great Britain had

countries, thousands of Jews entered Britain, where their capacity for hard work, their thrift and morality, and their high birth, rate enabled them to flourish both in mmabers and in wealth*

For a short time in Britain there appeared a most

un-British phenomenon— a wav© of antl-Semitism swept over the country in 1900,

For years the TUG had demanded passage of a

law excluding destitute aliens.

Any Jobless foreigner was a

threat to the British trad© unionist* for from among such peo­ ple earn© sweatshop

employees, strike-breakers, and blacklegs,

hi 190S the Conservativea passed the Aliens Act, which placed more stringent conditions on the admission of aliens to the country*

taaaties, mental defectives* habitual criminals, and

those possessed of incapacitating diseases, were excluded, as were other undesirables--*those who were not possessed of or in a position to procure a hygienic means of making a living* the Tories struck at sweatshops*

Thus

The Borne Secretary was em­

powered to deport alien paupers, vagrants, criminals, and those living in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions* These acts were not effective la persuading the wor­ kers to vote for Conservatives * Probably them came too late, Frequent depressions, unemployment, lockouts, and insecurity had been the lot of many werkers for years*

The establishment

of the Employers* Parliamentary Council, and the employers1 at­ tacks on labor had persuaded the TBC to endorse political in­ dependence, aid the Taff Vale Decision further persuaded the

-166-

uffi9Um»« The Conservatives wooed too late*

The LBC had worked

quietly and well after it was founded, although the smoke and fury of the tariff and education controversl©s had rather hid­ den it from view*

Its growth was rapid*

In 1900, 376,000 of

the 1,230 3000 workers represented in the TUG belongedj

by 1902

that figure was more than doubled, and when the BIG entered the general ©lection of 1906 it had slightly less than 1,000,000

The results of the election were surprising to the That the Conservatives were beaten was not surpris­ ing, considering the record of the Conservative government after 1900*

In 1906 only a bare handful of the one© huge

Tory majority was returned to the Bouse of Commons*

One hun­

dred and thirty Conservatives and twenty-eight Liberal Tfiaionists faced 429 Liberals and Laborltes, plus eighty-three Irish i« About twenty-four Lib-Labs supported Sir Henry b-Bannermam m d his cabinet» The great surprise of the election was the success of the Labor Farty*

Although only

six years eld, it ran fifty candidates and elected twenty-nine, including Will Theme, George Barnes, John Robert dynes, Kelr Bardie, Henderson, MacDonald, and Snowden*

In tie fifty con­

stituencies fought by Labor, a total of 860,000 votes were east, of which Labor won 523,200* The Issues in the election were often crossed*

Many

Liberals came to Westminster pledged to protect union funds, and the Labor

*fs were pledged to free trade and Home Rule

-167-

for Lreland*

la general, the Liberals had not opposed Labor=

only five Labor nominees were sleeted in three-cornered fights, while twenty-four had Conservative or Liberal Unionist oppon­ ents*

Of the unsuccessful aspirants, eighteen ran in three*

cornered fights, seven were beaten by Conservatives or Liberal Unionists, and Curran lost to a Liberal* Liberal-Labor agreement,

There was no general

although the two parties- worked

They agreed on the T&ff Vale, tariff, and 3M.sh >* Him© L&feorltos ran beside Liberals*

Hamsay Mac­

Donald and Broadhurst were returned by Leicesterj both George Roberts and Snowden, elected by Worwieh and Blackburn, were returned

Liberals*

In Scotland the Labor Forty co~

with the Scottish Workers* Representation CoMnlttee, but

only two— George Barnes from the Black—

friars Division of Fourteen of the

, and Alexander Wilkie from Dundee* were sent to Westminster by the Miners1 m e t had little connection with the trad©

All the pro-labor groups had taken an active part in Kb© S W nominated twelve hopefuls, all of whom All the labor groins, even those allied in the Labor JParty, had different campaign platforms*

The ILF endorsed

women*© suffrage3 on that question the LRC was silent*

Al­

though the separate programs indicated a lack of agreement among the forces of labor, they also indicated a healthy state* One of the weaknesses of minor parties is their insistence upon

-168-

dectpinal ortliodossy*

Major political paries-—Liberals, Con­

servatives, and later Laborites In Britain, Republicans and Democrats in the felted States— are more tolerant * They do not Insist that all members agree on a long and detailed pro­ gram*

General agreement on important issues Is enough*

In

this way there is room for debate, growth, development, change* This party laxity is democratic 5 a tightly organised, well party whose members all quote the same slogans is somewhat alien to a democratic state* ha 1906 the Labor Hepresentation Committee appealed to the trade unionists to vote for labor candidates to protect them from a high tariff on foodstaffs, and to work for slum clears®®©, taxation of land values, and financial assistance for the aged poor*

lb thing was said about socialism*

More

challenging was the Independent Labor Party, which attacked Liberals and Conservatives alike*

It campaigned frankly as a

socialist party, but stressed chiefly workers* solidarity and labor representation*

The Miners* Federation can-

>, ^i-omislng to cooperate with labor *s other representa­ tives, advocated social reform* 'The Trad© felon Congress was naturally insistent that a trades disputes bill protecting UBftosi funds from civil suits be passed, but the Parliamentary Goasslttee also asked for such social legislation as the eight hour day, workmen *s compensaticn, pensions, and better housing, and demanded adult suffrage*

porkers were requested to vote

for those who sysmathised with labor*s a Sms;

thus neither

-169-

Liberals nor Lib-Labs could be offended* There ©an be no doubt that the success of the Labor Party in this election greatly influenced the course of Liberal legislation after 1906* were met*

la large measure the TUC*s demands

Labor had demonstrated its potential political power,

and Liberal chieftains were quick to take heed*

For years there­

after Winston Churchill and David Lloyd Georg© vied with each other in demonstrating their radicalism*

Liberal Imperialists

like Asquith and Richard Burden Haldane sanctioned the radical measures*

Haldane years later served as Lord Chancellor in

the first Labor cabinet. The ©ours© of Liberal legislation was not directed so much by fee number of Labor Party members who sat in the House of Commons as by what they represented and portended*

The Lib­

eral Party had a vast majority in the House, but the twentynine LaborIt©s were merely the advance guard of hundreds more, if the millions of British workers were to vote together*

In

fee election of 1906 the Labor Party clearly showed that it was a peal political party, with at least the basis of electoral machinery of Its own*

Unlike some of its ^predecessors like

the Labor Electoral Association, it was not swallowed by the Liberal Party* to be easyi

Its course in Parliament after 1906 was not

wife so many radicals among the Liberals it often

had difficulty In maintaining its Identity*

When Arthur Hen­

derson, the new chairman of the Labor Party executive, welcomed the new delegates to the party conference at Memorial Hall,

-170-

Loudon, on February 15, 1906, he Indicated feat Labor* s course In the new Parliament would be*

Be admitted the existence of

divisions within the party, especially between the socialists and the trad© unionists,^ but expressed his belief that those divisions did not need to stand in fee road of political success* He promised the Labor Party would play an opportunistic role in the new Parliament, supporting the new Liberal government when possible and opposing it when necessary*

-171

Footnotes 1*

Pease, Fabian Society, p* 149.

2*

Ealevy, ^ilOKue. i# p, 263*

3*

Sfiwder*, Autobiogranter. I, p,92*

4*

R* 0* &* lasor toGoldwin Smith,May 14, 1940 (unpublished X#

3*

Holevy, pp.* elt**.p* X05*

6*

Rioted in Pease, ££* e|t*, p* 138*

7*

B&Xevy, OP.* el^t** p# 106.*

8*

BESsphrey, Labour Representation. p* 148*

9*

ffelewy, OP*

p* 263*

10* .Ibid.** p* 272* 11.

lebb* Trad© feionism* p* 604*

12*

COlo,. British Working M a a s Polities* p* 174*

13*

Humphrey, op*,d.t* ., p* X58»

14. Hary Agnes Hamilton, Arthur Henderson, London, 1938, p. 42* 15* ' Ibid.* p* 44* 16* Balcsy, op*. ©It.-** p.- 303*. 17* Hansard*s Parliamentary Debates » Fourth Series, VoX„ CXXII, 1903, pp* S S I - M * 18*. Cole, British Barking Mass Polities* p* 1SX* 19* That division still exists today, lme3t Bevin and the other trade unionists in the Labor Forty hope chiefly that the La­ bor Party c m Improve wages* hours, and working conditions* Harold L&ski and Sir Stafford Grlpps have been the chief ex­ ponents of the mere radical view that the Labor Party should immediately rebuild the social and ecommie order along so­ cialist lines, of course through peaceful and constitutional means*

-172-

Ghapter VII m e Labor Party in Parliaiaent, 1906-1911 When the Labor members entered Parliament In force in 1906, there was considerable speculation on the signifi­ cance of the rise of the Labor Party*

S o w observers detec­

ted in it a new trend, even a menace, in British political life*

m e Labor Party M*P*fs were all committed to advancing

the interests of labor*

Some were socialists*

Ixi principle

at least the Labor members differed from the Lib-Labs,

In

theory they wore opposed to the major parties* but for several years political events prevented them from carrying this in­ transigent policy into practice,

The large Liberal majority

made the Campbell-Bam^rman cabinet free from alliances and coalitions*

The radicalism of the younger Liberals made them

largely sympathetic with the alias of labor,

Thus the Labor

Party, which sat at first with the opposition, voted with the government on nearly all important pieces of legislation* The ’’mad41 Parliament of 1906 was a comparatively youthful body of men, and over 300 were new to Westminster* m i s figure naturally included all the Labor M.P.’s except the handful— Keir Har&ie, Shackleten, Benderson, and Crooks— of the years before 1906, fledged Liberal,

Richard Bell bad become a full-

Eeir Bardie *s services naturally entitled

him tjo the party leadership.

Be undertook that function re­

luctantly as he was essentially a solitary figure, a rebel, m e mantle of leadership was uncomfortable for him*

The other

-173-

leading laborltes after 1906 were Shaekleton, Snowden, Clynes, Henderson, and MacDonald* MacDonald, like so many of his colleagues In the party* had been converted to socialism by reading Progress ffiOd Poverty ,^

a task he undertook while yet in M s native

village of Ioasleaiouth* don*

Like many Scots, he migrated to Lon­

There he lived in humble circumstances, and studied

biology in the evenings* learning enough to salt his later speeches with a scientific flavor*

For several years he

served as secretary to Thomas Lough, Liberal M.P* for lest Islington*

MacDonald was then (1888-1891) a Liberal, combin­

ing with that faith membership in the Society*

and the Fabian

Be did not actually abandon Liberalism as a politi­

cal creed until be joined the ILP in 1894*

When he fought

M s first Parliamentary ©lection at Southhampton in 1895, he stood m

& socialist, but polled only 866 votes*

After M s

marriage to Margaret Gladstone, a niece of Lord Kelvin, in 1896, the McDonald home In Lincoln *s Inn Fields became a sort of labor salon.

There gathered socialists, trad© union

leaders, and H*P* rs, and the reputation of the MacDonalds was greatly enhanced*

Margaret MacDonald was a woman of consider­

able intelligence and charm, and her husband1s debt to her was g great, as he freely acknowledged* Philip Snowden, elected in 1906, added his sharp Yorkshire tongue to the Labor Party chorus*

A cripple, he was

much less prepossessing than either the picturesque Keir Hardie, the solid Henderson, or the handsome MacDonald, but his

-174

©osmand of incisive language won the r&sp&et of the House# la M s yonfch be toe had been a Liberal, hut he was converted to socialism#

Invited to address the Cowling Liberal Asso­

ciation cm the subject of socialism, be was at a loss until he bed done some reading-# Commencing with Mrkm>*s Inquiry iflt© ^eialism, be began- a reading course on the subject# iSngland for All and Historical Basis of jSociallayi left him- unimpressed, but the- Fabian facets, essays, and the writings of Bdward Carpenter convinced him that socialism was the cure for modem industrial problems,

t&ien he addressed

the Cowling Liberals, he astounded them by defending rather g socialism. He did not study the works of

111 have met a few men who have claimed to have read and studied the three hug© volumes of Las xCapxfcal. but the fact that they are still alive^Skes me in©lined to east doubt upon their claim* ^ Hi© future Viscount Snowden*s political career had its origin In local village politics*

He was elected to the

Cowling Parish Council, and to the school board*

\Vhen he

moved to Keighley in 1899 the local labor group elected him to the town coimelX and the school board, and in 1898 he be­ came a member of the National Administrative Council of the 2J&,

la 1905 Snowden became National Chairman of the ILt, and

by M s own account he ruled with an iron hand.

He disliked

loquacity myi verbal vacuity as much as unsound finance.

Gar­

rulous speakers whom he silenced at party conferences compared M m to the Cgar of Kussieu^

175'

John Robert dynes, later to servo as ParXlamentany leader of the opposition against Bonar Law, was a mamml wor­ ker like Henderson*

Neither MaoBonald nor Snowdon were pro­

letarians, although they identified themselves with the work­ ing classes*

dynes worked as a cotton-spinner as a small

boy, but studied at night, mainly Shakespeare and the King James Version of the Bible* Will Hborsft*

In 1098 he became associated with

Bs took a job at thirty shillings a week as or­

ganiser for the Gasworkers and General Laborers * Union in Lancashire* in 1896*

CXynes became Lancashire secretary of th© union

As a member of the ILF he preached Its gospel all

over Great Britain, meeting a great deal of opposition from g the workers themselves* When he became president of th© Oldham Xrades Council in 1897, he assumed leadership of th© .second largest such body in Britain*

dynes attended th©

London conference of 1900 which created the LHC, and was elec­ ted to the executive*

Ha© early successes of th© Committee

were due, dynes mlntained* to MacDonald’s organising ability n and to Margaret MaeDonald’s ^indomitable personality1** When fom Fox approached him in 1905 at th© head of a deputation to ask him to n m in the approaching ©lection as Labor candidate for th© Northeast Division of Manchester, Olynes accepted in full anticipation of defeat, for he had neither adequate organisation nor a full treasury to support Mm*

In addition he was opposed by Sir James Fergusson, a

cabinet minister*

Perhaps Glyxses overestimated th© obstacles,

-176-

as he was always a modest man, for he won a smashing victory in the election*

He received 5,386 votes to 2,954 for Per-

gusson* Some mention has already been made of the early career of Arthur Benders©m*

Be was b o m in Glasgow, but moved

to HewcastXe-on-^yne, and went to work In an iron foundry* His gifts tor negotiation and administrative work found a place for him in trade union work, and he became secretary of his local union branch*

"M 1892 his fellow workers elected M m to

the Newcastle lows Council, whore he advocated Chamberlain’s municipal socialism*

2h the same year Henderson left the iron

foundry and worked at fifty shillings per week as district delegate for the Ironfounders * Union*

la that post he tried

to promote the settlement of industrial disputes through peace­ ful .means*, and succeeded in. persuading employers and labor in the Newcastle area to establish conciliation, boards*

M s m t 1894*

attended M s first Hrade Union Congress in

3& those day© he was a sort of radical or Christian so­

cialist* Although he had not joined the Bit in 1893* he ad­ mired lair Bardie and Bruce Glasler*^

In July, 1096, Hender­

son was marly shocked out of his faith in the Liberals when they decided.to run -James- Craig for Parliament with John Morley* Hie Liberal Association had first talked of naming Henderson as their candidate, and the selection of Craig convinced Hen­ derson that the Liberals were a party of money and wealth* He did not them leave the Liberal fold* Jack Pease, later Lord

-177-

Gainford, had. met Henderson while the latter was engaged in his activities as a union organiser*

Observing his skill,

Pease suggested to his father that Henderson would make an excellent agent *

Six* Joseph Pease, M*P. for the Barnard Cas­

tle Division of Durham, was a Gla&stonian radical of the type so long endorsed by the TOO*

He employed Henderson as his

electoral agent at 250 pounds a year, and received excellent return for his money.

3h the general election of 1900, a

time of widespread political disaster for the Liberals, Pease’s majority was more than doubled* Bowing to Darlington in 1897 to do his work better. Benderson was ^Mediately elected to the Barham County Council* In 1900 he visited th© London meeting which built the LSC, and three years later he became m y o r of Darlington*

The circum­

stances of hi® election to Parliament have already been diecussed In chapter ¥1. The leaders of the Parliamentary Labor Party war© m m of considerable ability*.

Experienced in trade union work -

and in local polities, they 7/ere mot mere fsssstears* worn they mere theorists*

Neither

ihsy always kept firmly In mind

that whiah was practlcabi©, while mot losing sight of their ultimate goal*

All were Intelligent and well-informed.

While

none of them was a diversity graduate, they had attended board schools and had continued to study and think long after the end of formal schooling* Th© logical position of the Labor Party was streng­ thened after 1906*

In 1907 th© Parliamentary levy was increased

-178-

to twopence per member,

Income in 1906 had totalled only

4,000 pounds, labile expenses had amounted to 6,290 pounds, 5,800 of that sum. being paid as Parliamentary salaries* Th© party also withstood another effort by Ben TIilett to make It primarily a trade union body*

Be moved that only trad© union­

ists be selected as Parliamentary candidates, and that the so­ cialists be compelled, to join unions. As such a measure would have deprived the Labor Party of the services of MacDonald, Snowden, and Heir Bardie, both John Ilodge and dynes .success— 9 fully opposed, the measure, Party organisation was farther strengthened after 1906' by the admission of two local Labor Parties from Durham* increased rapidly*

thereafter th© number of local parties 2h 1909 there were forty*

As a result in­

dividuals found it slightly easier to get into the party*

Be­

fore 1906 only trade unions and socialist and cooperative so­ cieties comprised the party*

If an individual wished to join,

he had to belong to or enroll la an affiliated body*

frith the

growth of local parties a man who belonged to a recalcitrant union found It easier to work with the Labor Party*10 The Labor Party made an explicit declaration of prin­ ciple at th© Bull conference in 1908 after several years of vagueness*

William Atkinson, a member of the SBF and a trade

union delegate, moved, that the aim of the Labor Party should be to bring about th© overthrow of the capitalist system of private ownership and control of the means of production, dis­ tribution, and exchange.11

Atkinson’s motion received support

179-

from Victor Grayson, the troublesome M.P* for the Coin© Valley, a M from Harry Queleh, editor of justice, a Social Democrat, and a delegate from the London Trades Connell. of the ILF opposed them stoutly#

Brace aiasler

He demonstrated that Atkin­

son’s motion would exclude from th© Labor Party most of the trade unionists.

The ILF, he declared, would not force Its

Ideas upon the Labor Party, but instead preferred to maintain th© alliance with the trade unions that had proved Itself so well in Parliament.

dynes also declared his opposition to

Atkinson’s proposals*

A union man himself, he was anxious to

mint aim the alliance, and to uao the party to work In Parlia­ ment for such trad© union goals as social legislation.

Atkin­

son*® motion, with its Implications of the class war, lost. The Hull meeting several days afterward did pass a socialist resolution, 614,000 vo tes to 469,000*

The Labor

Party declared that It was ultimately in favor of th© sociali­ sation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange* These functions were them to b© operated by tim democratic state in the interests of the eoimmmity*

Labor was to be eman­

cipated from the dominance of coital, and the social and eco­ nomic equality of the sexes was to become a reality* were to be the ultimate goals of the j objectives*

Thus the unions were not

These

not its immediate away, and gra­

dual social reform as a m a n s of

tis© workers * lot was

la 1909 the

and enlarged by

the adherence of the Miner’s Federation,

In 1908 party member-

ship stood at 1,159,000$

in 1909 after the miners joined,

1,486,000, and th© miners1 M.P•*g joined, th© Parliamentary Labor Party* The veteran Eeir Handle became uncomfortable as Parliamentary leader when the Labor Party attained respecta­ bility*

He was, happiest when he could float authority*

The

Intricate details of procedure in the House of Commons merely Irritated him, and at the end of 1906 he was glad to hand th© reins to David Shackleton.

Shackleton held the office for a

year, and was succeeded by Henderson, who for two- years had been the party ’s chief whip*

As whip fee served th© party so

devotedly and whole-heartedly that some called him a slavedriver and a,bully#

But Henderson’s chief interests lay in

party organisation rather than in Parllsraentary leadership* He served two years*.and was followed by Georg© Barnes in 1910*

Discerning th© qualities for leadership possessed by

secretary MacDonald, fee persuaded tee party to name him leader, and also persuaded the trade unions to accept the choice*

12

MacDonald’s first period of leadership lasted from 1911 -until tee outbreak of war in 1914*

In 1911, Henderson was selected

as party secretary, a post which he held for twenty-three years* Even during those early years MacDonald *s vanity and egotism, bis dislike of cri ticism, his tendency to place him­ self in the role of a savior, worried his colleagues.

He was

suspected of harboring a plan to enter Asquith’s cabinet before tee war*

firing the constitutional conference of 1910 after

-181-

th© first election of that year David Lloyd George made some overtures to the Conservatives regarding a coalition cabinet* Disregarding Barnes, Lloyd George approached McDonald*

Mae—

Donald , apparently, was to be given cabinet ofifice, and in ad- ^ dition Henderson was to b© given an underseeret&ryshlp along with one other Labor M*P*

MaeDonald thought the proposal a

good one, but Henderson flatly refused, and suggested that MacDonald do likewise*

fhe whole project collapsed with the

refusal of the Conservatives to enter a coalition*3,3 the electoral successes of the Labor Party between 1906 and 1910 were few*

When Broadhurst died in 1906 the

party did not contest Leicester#

In bye-elections in the same

year Robert Millie was badly beaten at Cockcrmouth, but Rus­ sell Williams lost Huddersfield by a scant 340 votes*

The

next year William Harvey won Hortheast Derbyshire with Liberal support, and South Aberdeen elected Fred Bramley, a socialist* But at Belfast, William talker was beaten, as was Ben Gooper at Stepney*

Running as an advocate of women’s suffrage, Ber­

trand Russell lost at Wimbledon to a Conservative*

A miners’

candidate, Albert Stanley, was elected at Northwest Stafford­ shire in July, 1907*

fh© only Labor Party victory in 1907 was

that of Pete Curran, who beat an Irish nationalist, a Liberal, and a Unionist at Jarrow-on-^Pyna. Six weeks later th© ,stormy, Irresponsible revolutionary socialist Victor Grayson was sent to Parliament by the Coin© Valley Division of Yorkshire*

In

Parliament the intractable Crayton sat among the Labor members

-182-

but caused the party chiefs nothing but embarraseBBent*

1908

was a year barren of electoral success for Labor, but in 1909 Joseph Pointer of the H P won the Attercliffe Division of Sheffield*

In that same year the Scottish Workers* Committee,

previously opposed to the Labor Party, dissolved, and the Scot­ tish trad© miens began joining the Labor Party* Ws&n the Labor Party members arrived in the Hons© of Commons, they wore received with good will*

Class antagonism

scarcely existed save for the purposes of rhetoric*

Social

intercourse— frowned on by sterner spirits like Parnell and Heir Bardie— began immediately, and the average Labor M*P. quickly caught the tone and spirit of the House of Commons, When Grayson mad© violent scenes he was condemned by the bulk of th® membership, who wished to b© exemplary and respectable* , himself an old hand at scenes, condemned the claims of the Laborites to political they had received much Liberal support in the election of 1906*

In Parliament, th© Labor Party retained Its

but vo ted with the Liberal government * The were quit© willing to cooperate with the Labarites, and appreciated their support * ^Haldane*s and 0r@y*s comments upon the relations of ministers to their large and heterogeneous fol­ lowing were full of Interest* They were both agreed that the Labor Members gave them much less (j trouble than gentlemen in closer political connec­ tion— a fact which they were Inclined to ascribe to the circumstance that most of the Labor Party had

-183-

through their Trade Unions become men or affairs, aH^ practical issue submit— On© amusing if trivial issue related to proper Par1lamentary dress*

Heir Bardie bad refused to conforai to West—

minster*® standards, but many of the new Labor M*P **s, anxious to show their respectability, appeared in Parliament wearing silk bats and frock coats*

,

When a prominent Liberal violated

bis usual custom by appearing in the House in a silk shirt and felt hat, he gave as an explanation his reluctance to be mis­ taken for a member of the labor Party*'**® John Bums, now a full-fledged Liberal, sat on the Treasury

BenCh as a member of the cabinet— President of Local

Government

Board*

He had of course severed his connections

with all revolutionary and labor bodies, but he had not lost hie almost boorish self-assurance*

When Sir Henry Gampbell-

Bamerman first invited him to join the cabinet, he is reported to have slapped Sir Henry on the back, telling Sir Henry the appointment was his most popular act*1®

la Parliament his man­

ner remained w e h the same as it had been during his revolu­ tionary days*

He was.

%**a breesy optimist overflowing with illustrative figures to show that all was well with the world, or if not, his department had things in hand, and we might m a t content. ®*1/ Some -attention m m t be paid to the Liberal reform legislation of these years*

The Liberal reforms of 1906-1914

are a clear indication that the Liberal Party recognised the

-184-

fast—growing political power possessed by organised labor*

In

a sense the reforms of those years partially out the ground from under the feet of the Labor Party*

The Labor M •P **s in

most eases were forced to lend their support to the Liberal bills, for they could not very well oppose them and still claim to represent tbe interests of labor* fee of the most pressing questions before the new Parliament was naturally trade union liability.

The Taff Vale

Decision ted aroused the trade union world to such an extent that

Balfour*s government ted appointed a Boyal Commission

to study the problem*

The Commission presented its report in

190b, but Balfour withheld it to prevent Liberals and Labor-

IS The report recom­

ites from, making political capital of it*

mended legalising the right to strike except when it would in­ volve a breach of contract, exemptions for individuals from civil suits, and In dealing with the situation brought about by the Taff Vale ease, the Commission recommended that unions should be exempted from suite for damages if th© damages were caused by unauthorised acts of members, and if those acts were Immediately disavowed*.

This report the Labor Tarty would not

accept, mm It did not go far enough in protecting funds.

The

unionists wished to be completely free from liability for civil damages. fe March 28, 1906, Attorney-General Sir John Walton arose to explain the bill which the Liberal government had decided to bring forward*

The Liberal measure was based upon

-185-

the report of the CossmissIon* Sir John advocated widening the definition of peaceful persuasion, more specifically defining conspiracy, and recognised that the results of th© election had necessitated a change in the existing laws*

The LiberalsT

bill, recognising that the law of conspiracy was largely Judge— made law, applied th© principle of 1875 to civil cases*

Acta

committed by groups were legal if the same acts were legal when committed by a single individual*

The hill as explained

by Walton did not totally abolish liability*

Unions were not

to he held responsible for th© unauthorised acts of officers and Betters, hut executive committees of the unions were to define the duties of union agents*3^ The Conservative opposition asserted that the meas­ ure would set up class privileges and make th® unions iramn© to all laws*

The Labor members rose up in arms against the

bill, and were supported by

Liberals who had

to their constituencles to revise the David Sh&ekleton, pointing out that the

Taff ?ai#

than that of the

power of the 3

unions, civil suits*

union funds be protected from

Walton tod prepared linos of retreat by saying

m of the bill was for Parliament to determine* The Labor

irty had prepared its own measure, which it promptly The labor bill agreed with Walton’s bill on most on the Taff Vale fuestion it specifically stated union could not be told liable for damages on

486-

account of illegal acts committed by its members* fe the second reading of the Labor b i H on March 50 proceedings grow tested*

Heir Handle declared his unalter­

able opposition to the government bill*

He reminded the

Hsu#©- that the Labor bill exempted only union funds, not in­ dividuals , from legal action, ate warned M*P* *s of the wrath of organised labor if they refused to teed its wishes* Prim© Minister Sir Berry Osmpbell-Barmerman intervened*

Then Ee

desired to restore trade unions to the legal position they enjoyed between 1875 ate 1901, and therefore suggested that tea Bouse of Ooiaaons vote for the second reading of the Labor bill*®®

Ite Labor bill was then to be embodied In the Liberal

measure*

Arthur James Balfour, the Conservative leader, re­

marked drily that tea Literal government was ** **» hon.

to* Keir Hardle’s lino as much as that in his m&mnts of wildest ambition wf progress on tee Trades Disputes Bill was

rapid, ate it tion by a scant

the Bouse of Commons over feeble opposiof Conservatives * Sir Charles Bilk©, ate an unofficial adviser to the

Labor members in

,,

successfully added an smendju&ieial proceedings even f or

Lord Lansdowne’s advice to the House of the bill*

The enact­

ment of this law was a great advance for labor generally, and represented an important Parliamentary victory for the youth-

-187ful Labor Party* Nineteen hundred six was a fruitful year for labor legislation*

Si addition

to the Trades Disputes Act the

Liberal government promoted a new workmenrs compensation bill.

The Conservatives tod made some advances along these

lines in 1897 ate 1900*

On May 19, 1904, David Stoekleton

asked that the House of Gammons pass a workmen1s compensation bill which the Conservative government tod introduced but had failed to presa*^

She Conservatives did no more, however#

The Liberal Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1906 con­ solidated ate amended all existing legislation on the subject, ate made it almost universally applicable*

The only worker©

excluded were non-manual workers receiving annual wages of more than 250 pounds, casual laborers, ate a few other small groups*

Included under the terns of the law were clerks in

stores ate domestic servants*

The Conservative legislation

had applied to 7,000,000 workers; benefits to 6,000,000 more*

the 1906 law extended

Injured employees were enabled

to collect one-tolf their weekly wages starting one week af­ ter a disabling accident*

On the insistence of the Labor

Party a clause was included whereby persons whose injuries disabled them for longer than a fortnight could eolleet com­ pensation starting from the time of the accident.

The Labor

Party also succeeded in excluding special contracts with el­ derly workers*

Xu addition to the victims of Industrial ac­

cidents, sufferers from several industrial diseases— anthrax,

-188load* mercury, phosphorus, and arsenic poisoning, and ankylos— tomiaa is— were covered by the terms or the law*

The Labor

Party supported the Liberal bill, voting with the government In all the divisions*^ Labor profited much by the legislation of 1906.

The

Trades Disputes Act especially helped the cause of th© unions, for It gave them a position in law even more solid than that of the years before 1901.

Although the principle of the Work-

m@nfs Compensation Aet was not new* the existing legislation was integrated, and the area of application was practically doubled*

The year ,1907 saw less favorable legislation.

The

Liberal government passed a few laws of a socialist character but they did not directly affect the workers.

A coolness

developed between Labor and Liberals, partially reflected in the more independent spirit exhibited by some members of the Parliamentary Labor group.

The socialist groups outside Par­

liament experienced a temporary excitement, as H. 6 . Wells attempted to change the Fabian Society into a political party. The independent Labor Party exhibited some discontent with its leaders, who were also the leaders of the Labor Party. The Clarion group left the ILP because of the complacence of the executive.

The SOP changed itself into th© Social Demo­

cratic Party* and Hyndraan, irrepressible as ever, suggested a fusion of all the labor and socialist parties, only to be rebuffed by all th® groups eoneemed* Xt is probable that th© origin of this spirit of

-189unrest was as much Parliamentary as economic.

Xt is true that

unemployment dolled during the winter of 1907-1908, but prob­ ably what worried the IIP and the other socialists was th© spectacle of the Labor E*f*fa comporting themselves calmly and quietly in th© Bouse of Commons . The Lsborites, being a real party* were no longer free to provoke violent scenes as leit Bardie had done.

Instead they abided strictly by

Parilamentary procedure* and tried through exemplary conduct to win th© respect of th® larger parties*

Hesponsib 11ity had

a sobering effect upon the M*F**s# who to a man earn© to ac­ cept th® rules and customs of th© Bouse of Commons* The spirit of socialist unrest was embodied by the noisy Victor Grayson, elected to the Bouse from the Coin© Valley in 1907*

He professed to be especially perturbed about

th© state of the unemployed*

Certainly his speeches to th©

jobless were inflammatory*

2h Parliament, however, he did

little but provoke scenes*

Snowden regarded Grayson as sim­

ply an exhibitionist who raised violent disturbances to draw attention to himself * His concern for the unemployed, Snow­ den stated* m s highly fictitious, for in the first year of hl«.brief Parl lamentary career Grayson never one© mentioned tab© state of those without work*25

Finally during a debate

on a licensing bill on October 18, 1908, Grayson interrupted to ask the Bouse of Commons about the unemployed*

When the

Speaker declared M m out of order, Grayson rudely refused to stop speaking and sit down, whereupon he was expelled from

-190the Bouse*s^ The serious nature of unemployment in 190? and 1908 did lead the liberal government to undertake remedial measures* The regions hardest hit were the industrial districts of Glas­ gow and London*

^hen Prince Arthur of Connaught visited Glas­

gow In the autumn of 1908* there was rioting in

the streets*

Grayson assembled htmger-marchers to go to London*

In London

itself the jobless paraded in Hyde Park while their leaders breathed fire and brimstone.

Grayson bellowed* "If we cannot

get bread for our starving wives and children* then let us rob and plunder all round*®

"Brush them aside like smoke®,

©shorted Cunninghams Graham*^ Asquith took the matter seriously*

Ih spring in

1909 the Labor Party had demanded the use ©f public funis to po provide work for the unemployed, although John Burns ex­ pressed his opposition

to hastily contrived work relief * In

the meantime the famous foor Law Commission had published Its report after four years of study*

The Webbs* having disagreed

with the rest of the Commission, filed a separate minority re­ port advocating something like state socialism* including na­ tional labor exchanges and "the right to work", or work relief. Borne Secretary Winston Churchill applied the Webbs1 Ideas in a measure establishing labor exchanges and work relief which 29 Henderson called "the Right to Work Bill in penny numbers". The bill passed in January, 1910* and eighty exchanges were immediately established.

—191— The other Liberal informs are well known end need not be discussed in detail here*

m o fact, however, that the

Liberal goverasaent passed in a few short years such laws as the Trades Disputes Act* the ibrlasen1® Compensation Act* the Miners1 Eight Hours Act* the Trade Boards Act* the National Insurance Asst* the Coal Mines Act of 1910* and the Trade Union Act of 1915 would tend to support Halevy1© claim that the election of 1906 was a victory for the proletariat disguised as a success Cor free trade. Somm steps needed yet t© be taken* however* until the labor Tarty could proceed on its way unhampered.

The Con­

servatives and the Liberals, counted many meters who also be­ longed to trade unions affiliated with the Labor Party* Many of these men did not like to have part of their union dues used for political purposes, especially to support socialist SUP* *8 who opposed both major parties*

The worried leaders

of the Labor Barty asked Sir Hebert Held and Sir Edward Clarke if it m s legal for trade m i e n funds to be used for politi­ cal pwrp©saa--for running election campaigns and for paying salaries to Labor M*T*ts* quite legal*

They were assured that this was

In July, 1908, W* V* Osborne, a dissident mem­

ber of the Amalgamated Society ©f Railway Servants* decided to test the 1omm and asked that his union be Judicially en­ joined from using funds for political purposes*

Apparently

liberally financed from capitalist sources,20 Osborne appealed his case to the Bouse of Lords*, which struck at the Labor

-192Party by upholding Osborne’s contention.

The Lords of Appeal

announced on Decoder 21* 1909* that although Parliament had never incorporated trad© unions they were essentially corpor­ ate bodies formed by statutory authority.

It therefor© fol­

lowed logically that a corporate body could not lawfully do anything outside the purposes for which It was created.

As

the payment of Parliamentary salaries and ©lection expenses was mentioned nowhere among the purposes of trade unions* the use of funds for political purposes was unlawful.

It was im­

perative that M.P.’s be paid salaries by the government if the Labor Party was to survive. The adherence of the Miners’ Federation in 1909 had increased the Labor Party’s seats in the Bouse of Commons to forty-four*

In the January ©lection of 1910 labor suffered

the loss of four seats.

Lack of money partially explained

the defeats* but it cannot be denied that the Liberal reforms had caught the attention of the electorate.

Henderson, Shackle-

ton* and Bodge seemed lamentably timid when compared to the shining young Liberal lights* Winston Churchill and Lloyd George.

In January, 1910* the Labor Party returned forty

M.P. fs, including Henderson* Snowden* MacDonald, Keir Hardie, dynes* George Barnes* and James Thomas* but George Lansbury, Pete Curran, and Will Crooks were defeated.

In the second

©lection of 1910, in December* the Laboritos increased their PayIjjQ'mfoptpyy representation by two when George Lansbury and Will Crooks were added to the Parliamentary group.

-193The payment of M«P.f3 had been a standard radical demand for nearly a century* taken it up*

The Labor Party had logically

On fey 11, 1904, Henderson, seconded by Fen­

wick, presented a resolution asking for Parliamentary salaries* The custom of unsalaried £UP**s, he claimed, m s not consis­ tent with representative government» The Tories opposed this resolution*

Their chief argument was that salaries for M*F* *s

would create a class ©f professional politicians* Graham Mur­ ray quoted from Barnes Bryce to demonstrate the bad effect that professionalism had had upon American political life* The motion lost.^

On fey 12, 1909, the Labor Party succeeded

in carrying a motion in favor of payment of M*P. fs through the Bouse of Coifsnons by a siaeable majority*^

Throughout the

constitutional crisis engendered by the rejection of Lloyd Georg©1© budget of 1909 by the House of Lords, the Labor ferty supported the Liberal government of Asquith against the peers, Ihen the balloting in the December election of 1910 was ended, it m s found that the Liberals and Conservatives each had 272 seats in the Bouse of Commons« The balance of power lay with the eighty-four Irish nationalists and forty-two Laborltes, The Labor Party, after years of talk about playing off v/higs and Tories against each other, continued to support the As­ quith government* more independence*

If anything, it possessed less rather than From 1906 until 1910, the Liberals were

secure in office, and the Labor Party could afford itself the luxury of an occasional defection from the ministerial ranks,

-194but from 1910 to 1914 such defections were fraught with more risk* The Liberals, however, immediately met the demand of Labor and the Irish, the latter with the controversial feme Buie Act that so stirred the Ulstermen*

In 1911, with

little noise or trumpeting, an act was passed providing that each member of the Bouse of Commons would thenceforth be paid an annual salary of 400 pounds, In 1915, by the Trade Union Amendment Act, the use of money by trade unions for political purposes was legalized.

Any trad© union desiring to employ

its money for political ends could Include a statement of Its purposes in its constitution, and spend money for that purpose, if a poll of its membership showed a majority of those voting in favor* From that time onward the position of the Labor Party In British political life has been assured*

The growth of In­

fer unions ; the granting of political rights to all workingmen; the rise of socialism;

and the development of the movement

for political action by labor were the chief factors contri­ buting to the growth of the Labor Party up to 1914*

From the

early days of Keir Hardi© and his friends, the Labor Party has grown until today It is the second largest party in Great Bri­ tain*

The once mighty Liberal Party, although far from ex­

tinct, Is represented in Parliament by a scant handful.

The

first World War probably insured the success of the Labor Party*

Since then it has inherited many of the ideals, and

-195Maeh of the membership and votes of the Liberals* When the twenty-nine Labor M.F.*s took their seats in the House of Commons early in 1906, many leading politi­ cians were well aware of the threat which they offered*

Yet

when men like Balfour explained why the Labor Party was a threat, they saw the menace in terms of socialism itself*

As

Balfour expressed its h a w here to do with something more lusportant than the swing of the pendulum or all the squabbles about Free Trade and Fiscal Reform* are face to t'mm C m doubt in a milder form} with the Socialis­ tic difficulties which loom so large on the Contin­ ent* Unless I am greatly mistaken, the election of 1906 Inaugurates a new era* That the Liberals saw the meaning of the election of 1906 there can be no doubt*

Bor is there any doubt that much

of the pre-1914 reform legislation m s passed because the La­ bor M*P* ,sa. representing 2,000,000 men by 1913, sat in a body in the House of Commons*

Lloyd George clearly recognised the

signs of the times, and urged that Liberal leadership place itself at the head of the labor agitation*

Speaking at Car­

diff in October, 1906, he declared: nYou must remember that up to the present there has been no real effort to counter-act the socialist mission amongst the workmen* Mien that effort Is made you may depend It will find adherents even a— mongst working men* Geiamon sense bids Liberals and Labor to get along together as far as we can today, and not to block the road of progress by standing on it in groups to quarrel about the stage we hope to reach the day after tomorrow. We want the assis­ tance of Labor to give direction to the policy of Liberalism and to give nerve and boldness to Its at­ tack*** If at the end of an average term of office it were found that a Liberal Parliament had done

nothing to cope seriously with the social condition of the people, to remove the national degradation o* slums and wide-spread poverty and destitution in a land glittering with wealth, that they had shrunk to attack boldly the main causes of this wretchedness, notably the drink question and this vicious land system, that they had not arrested the waste of our national resources on armaments, nor provided an honorable sustenance for deserving old age, that they had tamely allowed the House of Lords to extract all the virtu© out of their bills, then would a real cry arise in this land for a new party, and many of us her© in this room would join In that ery.u*^ Clearly some of the Liberals expected to swallow the new party, and as Indicated above much of the venom was drawn from the fangs of the Labor leaders by the radicalism of Lloyd George and Churchill* but support them*

The Labor Party could do little else

Writing ©a recently as 1921, Max Beer

thought that the Parliamentary Labor group bad been weakened by its refusal to oppose the Liberal cabinet* be blamed for M s lack of foresight.

Beer can not

Since be wrote the Labor

Party has made its advances at the expense of the Liberals. The World War of 1914-1918 wrecked the party of William Ewart Gladstone, while the Labor Party was eventually strengthened by its attitude of patriotic idealism.

The Liberal Party, in

power when the war broke out, was saddled with the defeats, shortages, and mismanagements which unfortunately seen to at­ tend the first stages of a British war effort.

Mien Lloyd

Georg© formed his coalition govenwaent, Including In it Lib­ erals, Conservatives, and Laborites, he split his party. The ousted Prime Minister, Asquith, never again spoke to Lloyd

-197Georg© in th© years after 1918, and the Asquith Liberals re­ mained aloof from Lloyd George1s followers*

Mien Lloyd George,

seeking support from the electorate to strengthen his hand at the Versailles Conference, appealed to the chauvinist senti­ ments of the country in the Khaki Election of 1918, he won. But his tenure of office was dependent mainly upon the sup­ port of the Conservative M*P**s»

The consequent shiftings

and turnings of Lloyd George until 1922 alienated his former Liberal supporters without winning new ones in the Conserva­ tive ranks. The Labor Party on the other hand gained in stature and respect*

Some of the pacifists of the XLP like Keir Har-

die and Georg© Lansbury caused some trouble, and the attitude of MacDonald, misunderstood in 1914, caused many to doubt the patriotism of Labor.

On the whole, however, the Labor Party,

once war had been declared, advocated a resolute prosecution of the British war effort#

fen Tillett and Robert Blatehford

entbraeed a brand of patriotism as violently nationalistic as that of the yellow press. war lasted.

The TUG outlawed strikes while the

Arthur Henderson, George Barnes, and John Clynes

joined Lloyd George *3 second coalItIon• By its attitude toward the peace settlement and the Iuterra11on# I problems immediately following the war the La­ bor Party gained new converts*

Laborites first enunciated

many of the principles later embodied in the Fourteen Points* The Labor Party firmly supported the policies of Wilson, es-

-198— the League of nations, while Liberals trimtised and wrangled,^

Following the ratification of the Treaty of Ver­

sailles the Labor Party, opposed to taking vengeance on Ger­ many, advocated collective security and disarmament • Daring the troubled nineteen-thirties pacifism and opposition to fascist aggression threatened to divide the party, but the threat presented by the Axis erased the possibility of a choice between war and peace, and since 1939 the leaders of the Labor Farty have called earnestly for a more determined war effort, and have demanded a better world after the defeat of Hitler and his allies and satellites. At the same time, the domestic policies of the Labor Party have served to attract many votes, especially former Liberal votes#

The policy of the Labor Fsrty is essentially

the same today as in 1908— socialism through evolutionary how this Is to be brought about has expressed*

Beither has the party explained

reconstituted society will be like* natural*

This

The aversion of the average Briton

to theoretical programs and doctrinaire schemes is well-known, and the Labor tarty is as essentially British as the Common Law or the Monarchy* trol of the governme

if the Labor Party assumes con, Its policies and techniques will be

clarified, not by theoretical disquisitions, but by constitu­ tional action*^

•199Footnotes 1*

H. Hessel Tiltman, J. Ramsay MacDonald. Hew York. 1929. p. 18. * * *

2*

For a sincere tribute, see J. Ramsay MacDonald, Margaret Ethel MacDonald. Hew York, 1924. --- ---

3.

Snowden, Autobiography, I, p. 61.

4*

Ibid.* p. 62*

6*

Ibid., p. 114.

6*

Glynes, Memoirs. I, p. 84.

7*

3bId. , p . 91.

8*

Hamilton, Benderson, p. 27*

9.

Humphrey, Labour Representation, p, 169.

10. 11

It was not until Henderson reorganized the party In 1918 that individuals were allowed to enroll in the Labor Party.

. Beer, British Socialism. II, p. 330.

12*

Hamilton, on# clt*, p. 72.

13.

Ibid. 9 pp. 74-5.

14.

Sir Aimeric FItsroy, Memoirs, Vol. II, sixth edition, Lon­ don, 1925, pp* 329-30*

15.

Snowden, op* cit*« p. 125.

16.

Joseph Burgess, John Bums* third edition, Glasgow, 1911, p. 196.

IT.

George K* Barnes, From Workshop to War Cabinet* Hew York, 1924, p* 77.

18.

H i e B&lew, History of the English. People, Epilogue, 19051915* Vol. IlT'SSon, M , p. 92.

19.

Parliamentary Debates. Fourth Series, Yol, CLIV, 1906, pp. S?^ lS0 9*

Tiltman does not mention the incident.

Parliamentary Debates, Fourth Series, Vol. CLV, 1906, pp. . '61-4.

20

-20021.

** P* 1530*

22*

3tep^n Gwjna and Gertrude M, Tuekwell, Hie Life of the ||» |°B» H E Charles jaite. Vol. II, Sew York, 1917, pp.

23,

____ Hansard1s 1904, pp* 4$8-^9*

24* pp. 52&-98 25*

Debates. Fourth Series, Vol. CXXXV,

Abates, Fourth Series, Vol. CLXVX, 1906,

2E* Sit.. p.# 166*

26.

Fourth Series, Vol. CXCXV, 1908, p.

27.

XI, p * 230 *

28*

Debates. Fourth Series, Vol. GIAXXVI, 1909,

29*

Debates. Fifth Series, Bouse of Oosaaons, Vol* p » &f9, The Eight to Work Bill was first intro­ duced by Keir Bardie, and 'fee Labor Party regularly brought it forward during every session of Parliament*

30*

Osborne never

31*

.f'S 1904, pp*

34.

Debates* Fourth Series. Vol* CXXXIV, t, Fifth Series, Ebuse of Conmiens, Vol.

32* 33*

where all the money for lawsuits * £&* eit*. p* 179*

Balfour to Lord Shollys, quoted in Sir Sidney Lee, K i m Mward VII, Vol. XI, lew York, 1927, p. 449* in Beer, op. cit., pp. 348-49*

33*

ibid*. p* 377*

36*

For a good discussion of the Labor Party and the first World liar, see Brand, British Labourfs Bise to Power,, 2-7,

37*

The stateiaent Is predicated upon the assumption that the Later tarty will receive a clear majority in the House of Commons* IT it must lean upon other parties for support, as has happened twice before, probably nothing significant will occur*

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