Labour policy—false and true

by Lynden Livingston Macassey

The Manchester Resolution of 1917—The Memorandum on War Aims, 1917—The Memorandum on Unemployment after the War, 1917—The London Resolution of 1918—The Prevention of Unemployment Bill, 1919—Labour’s Recommendations to the Industrial Conference, 1919—The Right Hon. A. Henderson’s Addendum—The Southport Resolution of 1919—The Resolution of September 1919—The Recommendations of the Joint Committee on Cost of Living, September 1920—Vote of Censure in Parliament, October 1920—Resolution of December 1920—Labour’s Refusal to Co-operate with the Government, 1921—Labour’s Statement of Policy for Unemployment, 1921—Manifesto on Unemployment, 1921.

The Labour Party claims to have foreseen the present prostration of industry, and asserts that it recommended in advance of the disaster complete preventives and remedies which, if they had been adopted, would have neutralized the present world-wide conditions of unemployment. The successive statements of policy issued, and resolutions passed by the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress since 1917 on the subject of unemployment, disprove conclusively any such claim of prescience.

The Manchester Resolution of 1917

At the Labour Party’s Annual Conference in 1917 a resolution asserted that the Government could, if it chose, prevent any considerable unemployment in this country, by maintaining from year to year a “uniform national demand” for labour. This was to be done by co-ordinating the carrying out of public works, and of orders for State Departments and local authorities. “To prepare for the possibility of there being extensive unemployment either in the course of demobilization or in the first years of peace,” the Government was called upon to arrange for immediate execution, either directly or through local authorities, of the most urgently needed public works. These were described as housing to the extent of two millions sterling, new schools, roads and light railways, reorganization of canals, afforestation, land reclamations, harbour development, etc. To reduce the risk of adult unemployment it was urged that the school age should be raised to sixteen, scholarships established, and hours of labour shortened for young people, and a 48-hour week introduced generally without reduction of wages. It will thus be seen that Labour, in 1917, in exercise of those powers of prevision now so amply arrogated to itself, thought that unemployment after the war would be so limited in this country that it could be remedied by the adoption of the simple measures mentioned above.

The Memorandum on War Aims, 1917

In London, in December 1917, a Memorandum on War Aims was approved at a Special Conference of the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress, and in February 1918, was accepted by the Third Inter-Allied Conference held in London of Foreign Allied Labour and Socialist organizations. This Memorandum proceeded in the same strain. Section 5 urged the Socialists and Labour Parties of every country to press their Governments to execute numerous public works, roads, railways, schools, houses, etc., at such rate in each locality as would, when superadded to capitalistic enterprise, maintain a uniform demand for labour and so “prevent there being any unemployment.” Then followed this fallacious proposition: “It is now known that it is in this way quite possible for any Government to prevent, if it chooses, the very occurrence of any widespread or prolonged involuntary unemployment,” and this comment, “if such is allowed to occur it is as much the result of Government neglect as is any epidemic disease.”

The Memorandum on Unemployment after the War, 1917

There was also issued, in 1917, a Memorandum called the Problem of Unemployment after the War, adopted by the Joint Committee on Labour Problems after the War, representing the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, the Executive Committee of the Labour Party, the Management Committee of the General Federation of Trades Unions and the War Emergency Workers’ National Committee. Its proposals for the prevention of unemployment are worthy of analysis. It maintained that unless prevented by concerted action there would be considerable unemployment after the war, and from these specific causes, namely, the discharge of munition workers, delay in works changing over from war to peace production, congestion of ports, demobilization of the Army and Navy, difficulties in securing adequate industrial capital. Again the remedy recommended was the maintenance from year to year of a uniform national demand for labour by the Government and local authorities giving out their orders “in such a way as to make them vary inversely with the demands of private employers.” The public works that were to be executed were much the same as before: housing schemes, water and drainage works, parks, schools, public libraries, works planned by the Development Commission and Road Board and held up owing to the war, the development of agricultural and rural industries on a national and co-operative basis, afforestation, and the execution of Government printing postponed during the war. The Government was also pressed to encourage works of which the output, like bricks and cement, were necessary for the carrying on of other work, for example, building.

There could be nothing plainer than this sentence in the Memorandum: “It may be urged that no such action would keep up the demand of other countries for our products, and thus the export trades might fall off; it may be assumed, however, that the principal export trades will certainly be busy (coal, machinery, shipbuilding, constructional iron and steel and all woollen goods) and the home demand for cotton goods is also expected to be brisk.” It is obvious, therefore, at this date that the Labour Party never contemplated the present depression in our export trade.

The proposals of this Memorandum were in advance of previous recommendations. To enable local authorities to execute public works, legislation was demanded to facilitate the acquisition of the necessary land. The Government was to use for national purposes the 200 national factories, but for what purpose the Memorandum is eloquently silent. A systematic plan of short-time with full wages was to be introduced for a certain limited period in Government dockyards, arsenals and factories, when the final adjustment to peace-time conditions was taking place. To prevent an overstocked adult labour market there was to be no employment, partial or otherwise, of children under the school-leaving age, which was to be raised to sixteen, and only part-time employment up to a maximum of a 30-hour week for young people between sixteen and eighteen years, the balance of whose normal working week was to be devoted to physical and technical training and education. Twenty thousand additional scholars were to be trained as school teachers, and additional bursaries granted to the secondary schools, universities and technical colleges for pupils from the elementary schools, who would otherwise go into industry. Overtime was to be prohibited, and an 8-hour day to be imposed by statute.