During the four and a quarter years that the world conflict lasted (1914-18), the miners, like the rest of the British working class, patriotically subordinated their interests to those of the nation as a whole. They volunteered for military service in such numbers that they had to be forbidden to leave the mines, and numbers of them were sent back from the armies in order to maintain the output of coal. Where, as in Durham, they had agreements securing them advances of wages in proportion to the rise in the selling price, they forewent these advances; and they contented themselves everywhere with less substantial percentages of rise in rates, and with the two successive war bonuses of eighteen pence a day each—much below the rise in the cost of living—which the Government accorded to them in 1917 and 1918. With the cessation of hostilities at the end of 1918, as the cost of living continued to advance, the Miners’ Federation (which had elected for its new secretary a young South Wales miner, Mr. Frank Hodges, who had educated himself at Labour Colleges; and had also converted its presidency into a full-time salaried post, and for the first time acquired an office in London) again took up the forward movement which it had been concerting five years before; and in February 1919, after balloting its whole membership, and giving elaborate notice, it demanded from the employers a general advance of wages of 30 per cent, the reduction of the hours of labour by an average of one-fourth (the nominal Eight Hours Day to be made a nominal Six Hours Day), and—most momentous of all—the elimination of the profit-making capitalist from the industry by the Nationalisation of the Mines, for which the Trades Union Congress had been vainly asking for over twenty years. As the railwaymen and the transport workers were at the same time in negotiation for improvements in their condition, there seemed, in March 1919, every prospect of the outbreak of a general strike on a scale even greater than that of 1912, the “Triple Alliance” uniting a membership of more than a million and a half, and wielding in combination the adult male labour of something like one-sixth of the whole nation. The Government, which was still, under war powers, directing both the mines and the railways, responded by the offer of a Statutory Commission, under a Judge of the High Court, with practically unlimited powers of investigation and recommendation; at the same time giving the Federation publicly to understand that, whilst a strike would be suppressed with all the powers of the State, the recommendations of the Commission would be accepted by the Cabinet. The conference of the Miners’ Federation spent many hours in deliberation. A large section of the delegates was for an immediate strike. The men had, indeed, an extraordinarily advantageous strategic position. The nation’s stocks of coal were at a minimum, London having only three days’ supply in hand. Ultimately the advice of the leaders prevailed; and it was decided to postpone the withdrawal of labour for three weeks, and to take part in the Statutory Commission, on the express condition that this body presented an Interim Report within that time; and—most revolutionary of all—that the Federation should be allowed to nominate to the Commission, not only three of its own members to balance the three coal-owners who had been informally designated by the Mining Association of Great Britain, but also three out of the six professedly disinterested members, so as to balance the three capitalists whom the Government had already chosen as representing the principal industries dependent on the supply of coal at a moderate price. To these terms the Prime Minister acceded. The Miners’ Federation, setting a new precedent of far-reaching effect, thereupon nominated, along with its President, Vice-president, and Secretary, not three other workmen, but three economists and statisticians belonging to the Fabian Society, known to them by their lectures and writings.
The proceedings of this Commission, which sat daily in public in the King’s Robing-Room at the House of Lords, created an immense sensation. Instead of the Trade Union, it was the management of the industry that was put upon its trial. The large profits of the industry under war conditions were revealed, and especially the enormous gains of the most advantageous mines; and although the Government itself had benefited through the Excess Profits’ Duty by 50, 60, and eventually 80 per cent of these gains, it became apparent to every one that, but for this abstraction, the price of coal might have been reduced and the miners’ conditions improved to an extent never before suspected. It was seen, too, that it was the separate ownership of the mines which stood in the way of the national sharing of the advantages of the best among them. The chaotic state of the industry, with 1500 separately working joint-stock companies operating at very different costs—with no co-ordination of production, and with extremely wasteful arrangements for transport and retail distribution—was vividly presented. At the same time the unsatisfactory conditions under which the miners lived were impressively demonstrated, the scandalously bad housing of the mining community in Lanarkshire and elsewhere making a national sensation. Prompt to the appointed day the Commission presented three Reports. The three mine-owners proposed no improvement in the organisation of the industry, and offered an advance of eighteen pence a day and a reduction of hours by one per day, being only half what was demanded. The six representatives of the miners presented a long and reasoned justification of the men’s case; arguing that, with a unification of the industry in national ownership, with the adoption in all the mines of the mechanical improvements already in use in the best-managed among them, with a more carefully concerted transport system, and with a municipal organisation of retail distribution, it was practicable to concede the men’s full claim of 30 per cent advance and a two hours’ shortening of the working day without any increase in the price of coal to the consumer. The Chairman of the Commission presented a third report, intermediate in its tenour, in which he was joined by the three disinterested capitalist members, proposing an immediate advance of two shillings per day, or 20 per cent, and an immediate reduction of one hour per day, with a promise of a further reduction by an hour in 1920, if the condition of the industry warranted it. With regard to nationalisation, this Report declared that, as there had not been sufficient time to investigate the proposal, the Commission would continue its sittings, and promptly present a further report; but that it was plain, even on the evidence so far submitted, that the present system stood condemned, and that some other system must, by national purchase of the mines, be substituted for it—either State administration, or some plan by which the mines could be placed under a joint control in which the miners would share. This impressive declaration by the judicial Chairman, supported by the three capitalist members who were not mine-owners, made a great public sensation. The Cabinet immediately accepted the Chairman’s Report, pledging itself to carry it out “in the letter and in the spirit.” The Miners’ Federation hesitated, but ultimately, in consideration of the offer of an immediate further examination of nationalisation, in the light of Mr. Justice Sankey’s significant findings, decided to ballot its members, who, to the great relief of the public, by large majorities agreed to accept the Government proposal.
The Coal Industry Commission accordingly continued its sittings, now concentrating upon the issue of Nationalisation and the participation of the miners in control. The dramatic feature of the inquiry was the summoning of a succession of peers and other magnates owning mining royalties to the witness-chair, there to explain to the Commission and the public, under the sharp cross-examination of the Miners’ Federation officials, how they or their ancestors had become possessed of these property rights, how much they yielded in each case, and what social service the recipients performed for their huge incomes. Much evidence was taken for and against State administration. Within a couple of months of almost incessant daily sittings this indefatigable Commission presented its further Report, again hopelessly divided. On the question of ownership of minerals, indeed, the whole thirteen Commissioners were unanimous—a momentous decision—in recommending that the royalty owners should be at once expropriated in favour of the State. All thirteen Commissioners were unanimous, too, in recommending the admission of the workmen to some degree of participation in the management by Pit and District Committees. But there the Commissioners’ agreement ended. What was significant was that not the miners’ representatives only, but eight out of the thirteen (including the Chairman) reported in favour of expropriating all the existing colliery companies and other coal-owners. The Chairman, supported (in general terms and subject to additional suggestion) by the six miners’ representatives, proposed an elaborate scheme of Nationalisation, with administration under a Minister of Mines by joint District Councils and Pit Committees, in which the men would be largely represented. The other expropriating Commissioner preferred to vest the mines in a series of District Coal Corporations of capitalist shareholders, limited as to dividend, and working under public control, with a restricted participation of the men in the administration. Five Commissioners, including all three coal-owners, whilst agreeing to the Nationalisation of Minerals, refused to contemplate any substantial change in the working of the mines, least of all any effective sharing of the workmen in the administration; though even this capitalist minority gave lip-homage to the principle by recommending the formation of purely Advisory Pit and District Committees.
The Government, which had continued in administrative and financial control of all the collieries of the United Kingdom, whilst agreeing to adopt, in the spirit and in the letter, the terms of Mr. Justice Sankey’s first Report, took no steps to bring it into effect, and left the local mine-owners and miners’ Unions to adjust for themselves the hours and new rates of pay which it involved. Suddenly, a few weeks before the new arrangements were to come into force, the Coal Controller issued an order that no increase of rates was to exceed 10 per cent—a patent blunder, as it was the average reduction of output that Mr. Justice Sankey had estimated at 10 per cent, and it was the actual reduction in each district that had to be compensated for. The Yorkshire Miners’ Association had almost completed its arrangements with the Yorkshire mine-owners for a higher percentage of increase when the Government prohibition was received. The result was an angry strike which stopped the whole Yorkshire coalfield for several weeks, and spread to Nottinghamshire. In the end the Government had to withdraw its mistaken prohibition; and the increase of rates, in Yorkshire as elsewhere, was, as the miners had asked, made as nearly as possible proportionate to the expected local reduction in output caused by the reduction of hours. The hasty action on both sides and the misunderstandings due to imperfect knowledge, or imperfect expression, lost the nation some four million tons of coal, and cost the Yorkshire Miners’ Association about £356,000.
In October 1919 Mr. Lloyd George announced that whilst the Government would propose the nationalisation of mining royalties, and some-undefined “trustification” of the mines by districts, there would be no adoption of Mr. Justice Sankey’s Report. The Miners’ Federation refused to accept anything in the nature of capitalist “trustification,” and called in vain on the Government to fulfil its pledge to carry out the Report. In December 1919 the Federation, in conjunction with the Labour Party, the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, and the Co-operative Union, began a campaign of propaganda in favour of the Nationalisation of the Coal Supply, the effect of which, industrially and politically, has yet to become manifest. We have to break off the story in the middle of a critical period.
The Railwaymen
Another great industry, that of the operating staff of the railway system—scarcely mentioned in the first edition of our History—has come forcibly to the front. Right down to the end of the nineteenth century, indeed, the railway guards and signalmen, engine-drivers and firemen, shunters and porters, mechanics and labourers—though they numbered something like 5 per cent of all the male manual-working wage-earners—played hardly any part in the Trade Union Movement. Scattered in small numbers all over the country, and divided among themselves by differences of grade, conditions, and pay, they long seemed incapable of organisation as a vocation. For a whole generation after the establishment of railways no one appears to have thought Trade Unionism any more permissible among their employees than among the soldiers or the police. In 1865 an attempt to establish “The Railway Working Men’s Provident Benefit Society”—which soon became virtually a Trade Union—by Charles Bassett Vincent, a clerk in the Railway Clearing House, was ruthlessly crushed by summary dismissals. In the same year an Association of Engine-drivers and Firemen on the North-Eastern Railway actually started a strike, but perished of the attempt. Not until the end of 1871 was a lasting Trade Union established, and then only by the assistance of Michael Bass, M.P., a large railway shareholder, by whose long-continued and entirely disinterested financial and other help the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants struggled into being, with Frederick Evans as its first effective secretary. Other societies followed, of local or sectional character; but even in 1892, after twenty years of organisation, and various abortive strikes, there were fewer than 50,000 railwaymen in any sort of Trade Union, or less than one in seven of the persons employed. [618]
The objects of such railwaymen’s societies as existed were for many years confined to the protection of members from “victimisation” or other tyranny; to the provision of friendly benefits; and to spasmodic attempts to get accidents prevented or compensated for, and hours of labour reduced. Wages questions took up little of the attention of the railway Unions of these years; but strikes on particular railways—sometimes of particular grades or at particular centres only of a single railway—now and then occurred; usually in resentment of some act of tyranny, or against some specially oppressive hours of labour, and often without the prior approval of the Executive Committee. In 1890 the Amalgamated Society for the first time launched an aggressive policy, mainly as regards the hours of labour, which were indeed scandalous.[619] A prolonged strike for a shorter working day on the Scottish lines at Christmas 1890 ended in failure, and the merging of the remnant of the Scottish Society of Railway Servants in the larger Union. But it aroused public attention and led to an effective exposure by a Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1891-92. As a result the Board of Trade was given certain statutory powers in 1893 to remedy this tyranny—powers of which, unfortunately, little use was made. Not for nine years afterwards did the Board of Trade even call upon the railway companies for a return showing in how many cases men were kept on duty in excess of twelve hours at a stretch. Four-fifths of the railwaymen were still outside the ranks of Trade Unionism and could therefore be both oppressed by their employers and flouted by the Government Department. Their very right to combine was denied. Sir George Findlay, the General Manager of the London and North-Western Railway, voiced the common opinion of the Companies when he declared that “you might as well have a Trade Union or an ‘Amalgamated Society’ in the Army, where discipline has to be kept at a very high standard, as have it on railways.”
In December 1896, indeed, a determined attempt was made to root out Trade Unionism in Sir George Findlay’s own railway company by the dismissal of men discovered to be Trade Unionists. Through the activity of the Society these victims found influential friends, who by public and private pressure compelled their reinstatement. The excitement caused by this incident had some share in swelling the membership of the Amalgamated Society, which doubled its numbers during the year 1897; and made its first big stride in the “All Grades Movement” in that year. Previous movements had been local and sectional, and nearly always in the interests of particular grades. For the first time all the railway companies were approached simultaneously, with a request for improvements in all grades from one end of the service to the other—a reduction of the time of duty, so as to bring the working day down to ten, and for some grades eight hours; extra payments for overtime, and a uniform advance of 2s. per week for all grades except those for whom an eight hours day was sought. The Companies refused even to consider this very moderate request, and nearly a decade was to pass—a decade of slow building up of the organisation, first under Mr. Richard Bell and Mr J. E. Williams, and then under Mr. J. H. Thomas—before the Trade Unions of railwaymen were able to compel a hearing for their case. [620]
Meanwhile the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, and with it the whole Trade Union Movement, suffered in the law courts a temporary set-back. An impulsive strike on the Taff Vale Railway in South Wales, accompanied by extensive and successful picketing, was not countenanced by the Executive, but was eventually endorsed by its decision to take up the men’s case; and the Railway Company sued the Society for the loss occasioned by what were alleged to be the unlawful acts of its officers. To the surprise of the lawyers, as well as of the public, the judges held that—in spite of what had seemed the explicit provisions of the Trade Union Acts of 1871-76—a Trade Union could be made answerable in damages for all the acts of its officials, central or local, as if it were a corporate body, whilst still being denied the privileges of a corporate body. The strike and legal proceedings cost the Society from first to last nearly £50,000, whilst the danger to the corporate funds of all Trade Unions that the decision revealed put a damper on even the best justified strikes until, under persistent Trade Union pressure, strengthened by the entry into the House of Commons of a reinforced Labour Party, the Trade Disputes Act of 1906 restored the law to its state prior to the judicial decisions of 1902.