PART III of England in Arms
By
Lacey Amy (1877-1962)
From
The Canadian Magazine, July 1917.
Digitized
by Doug Frizzle, July 2016
No one is qualified to speak didactically concerning the relationship of English labour to the war. The medley of
events that should form a reliable
basis for deduction is apt to leave one more at sea in the selection of general terms for describing that relationship than
would a less complete sum of information. The Labour Party of
England has been perhaps as consistent
and fair in its attitude as would
be any other organization that held together for entirely different purposes
two and a quarter million men, including many thousands —perhaps
hundreds of thousands— who, from lack of opportunity or time or ambition, have not developed
that equilibrium of reason which alone is competent to control the daily
routine of one’s existence to rational lines.
Labour has lent itself to the most
uncompromisingly inimical deeds—
deeds which if persisted in, would have
accomplished that which the enemy can never effect. It has struck with seeming
ruthlessness and disloyalty at the very foundations of the Empire. It has
demanded that which to grant would have been to yield to the Germans. It has
thrown down tools absolutely necessary to victory. It has declared for peace at
any price. It has, in fact, permitted itself to run the entire gamut of treason
at one time or another, in one locality or another.
But to judge from those black chapters in the
history of an aggregation that must, like any other organization, be of motley
sentiment in matters that do not immediately touch its raison d’etre would be as disastrous to authoritative
conclusions as to estimate the calibre of the German from isolated acts. If
one must deduce from individual incidents, there are those which stand out with
unquestioned authority, with undoubted right to claim precedence in any consideration
of the manner in which Labour in England has conducted itself towards the
great struggle. Put to the vote, Labour has expressed itself in no ambiguous
terms. It has given of its numbers in millions to the perils of the front. And
its leaders have stood out almost en masse as examples of British patriotism
and determination to overcome the enemies of the Empire.
The chapter of Labour treason is black, but it
is only as black as a few of its unlicensed leaders whose hold on the
imagination of the workingman has been their ladder to everything their
perverted intelligence has considered worth while. Such men as Ramsay MacDonald
and Phillip Snowden, types of the agitator who along with a certain cleverness
and misused mentality,
possess a keen appreciation of their sole claim to distinction, have never
for a moment been Britons, even under the dire threat of the terrible war. And
in their wake follow a number of lesser lights who are willing to emulate the
worst of the “big” men they see as the simplest way of obtaining influence.
No consideration of the stand of Labour in
England can arrive anywhere without first of all informing itself of the power
of Labour before the war, as well as of its methods. Any numerically inferior
political party that holds the balance of power in the nation’s legislative
chambers is certain to go astray in some vital particulars. However honest its
legislative representatives, its unearned power will make it lust for more at
the cost of fairness and unselfishness, will render unreliable its sense of
proportion. And Labour was in that position in the British House before the
war. Only a small fraction of the strength of the two parties in the House, it
was yet of sufficient numbers to hold the weaker of the two in power, a
condition which British law does not avoid even while fully conscious of its
dangers. The Conservatives, easily the Government in point of numbers, were
forced to remain in opposition. But only so long as the Liberals conceded to
Labour its demands. The result was unavoidable without a change of Government;
and the Labour Party was in a position to effect that at any moment it wished
and as often as it wished with either party.
It might not be fair to say that Labour
controlled Great Britain, but in theory it was so, and in fact, even as it is
apparent to-day, it was nearly so. That Great Britain is what it is sums up the
moderation and wisdom with which Labour must have yielded its almost unlimited
power. The one outside restraining influence was that it knew it had little to
expect from the party it has kept so long in opposition.
That accounts for the first stage in Labour’s
official connection with the war, as well as for most of the unfortunate acts
of misjudgment it has indulged in since. Premier Asquith, perhaps the cleverest
Prime Minister England has ever had, was not a free agent. Labour responded to
the voluntary appeal for soldiers in a manner that did it credit, but when
conscription was introduced it naturally, as the real party in power, refused
to submit without question to that which it had not dictated. As has appeared
since, the South Wales miners proved themselves the irreconcilables. Bluntly
they refused to acknowledge conscription as applicable to them. And, since
their number was so large and the stress too immediate and serious to risk
coercion, Asquith could see nothing to it save submission. His political position
did not depend upon it—at least not immediately—for by that time the Government
was Coalition, but his impotence during the previous few years to fight Labour
had put muscle into Labour’s arm, and that muscle it was now exercising.
There was plausible ground for submission,
since skilled labour was even then recognized as a necessity at home.
Subsequent events have proven that the same principle should have been applied
in a score of industries that did not fight to remain out of khaki. But both
reason and subsequent events have more unquestionably proven that no body of
men should be exempted as a body. The success of the miners put the idea into
many other unions, and what had been granted to one could not be denied others
of as great, or even greater, importance to the country. By November, 1916, no
fewer than twenty-four unions had been exempted from conscription and Labour
was creeping more and more beyond the encompassing arms of the recruiting
officers. Only the substitution of Lloyd George for the weakening Asquith put
an end to a condition that was
growing more intolerable every day. And even the new Premier, as the latest
attempt at combing out reveals, is unduly the slave of Labour, since he
has agreed
that no member of indispensable unions should be forced into
the army save by the decision of a
tribunal composed half of Labour.
Of these agreements of exemption for entire unions
we have one sample. On September 28, 1916, Asquith had given out an undertaking
that “skilled men (by which I mean men who from natural ability or
training, or a combination of both, have special aptitude for particular and
indispensable kinds of national work here at home) ought
not to be recruited for general service”. A month later the Amalgamated Society
of Engineers demanded something specific for themselves, and Asquith granted
it. The terms of that agreement are interesting as an example of failure by a
war Prime Minister to reconcile union rights with the necessities of the nation.
The first clause granted that the engineers, whenever they ceased to be fully
employed should enroll—not as soldiers—as
War Munitions Volunteers, “in accordance with arrangements now in existence
under the new War Munitions Volunteer scheme”. That is, an engineer—and he was
but one of twenty-four unions similarly treated—should
never under any condition be exposed to the trenches, even when his work ceased
to be of a nature for which exemption was supposed to be granted. The second
clause limited the application to men who were journeymen or apprentices prior
to August 15, 1915, a year after the war started. Clause three stipulated that,
when enrolled as Munition Volunteers, they be given exemption cards which
prevented their removal without the consent of the War Office, “which will not
be given without reference to the Ministry of Munitions and the executive of
the man’s union”. In clause four it was inserted that statutory powers might be
used as a last resort if the unions failed to supply sufficient skilled men
for the Artificers’ Corps in the Army or as Munitions Volunteers. And clause
five assured the union that if it would furnish the names of its members now in
the Army they would he transferred out of danger to the mechanical units.
These details are essential to an understanding
of the powerful grip the unions have had on legislation. It was an unfortunate
result of this immunity from service that many of the unions openly solicited
membership on the ground that it carried with it such immunity. Scores of
every-day incidents in factory life today might be added to prove Labour’s
power, but they are unnecessary here.
With such a record of irresistible strength it
is no wonder that certain sections of Labour have shown instances of the seamy
side of some of their members, even while it has in the mass demonstrated its
loyalty. Strikes have been frequent, but fortunately of limited duration. Some
of them—most, indeed, when Asquith was Prime Minister—were
settled by the submission of the employers under pressure from the Government.
Since Lloyd George took the reins the experience has changed. And once again
Labour has shown its honesty by backing the new Premier as it never did the
old.
The record of strikes during wartime will
always stand to the discredit of Labour in England. Even Russia has been free
from them in the nation’s peril. But back of it all stands the spectre of
Capital’s treatment of it throughout the ages. For Capital in Great Britain has
exhibited to its most disastrous extent the ridiculous distinctions of class
that have done more than any other single thing to handicap England.
Just a word on this feature of English life.
There never has been sympathy between Capital and Labour in
England. The entire idea of the employer was to get all he could out of his workingmen at as little cost as possible.
The workingman was but a cog in a wheel that was supposed to turn out
dividends. As a human being he did not seem to count. No better proof of this
calamitous relationship can be given than by mentioning the one insuperable
obstacle to Labour contribution to the War Loan in hundreds of factories.
“No,” objected the workingman, “I won’t contribute to the Loan, because I do
not want the boss to know I’m saving money. He’ll cut my wages if he does.” I
do not speak from hearsay; I personally faced such a refusal many a time.
So that it was no wonder Labour, feeling its
power in the individual as well as in the organization, went to excess in
spots.
The first menacing strike occurred most
fortunately within the sphere of Lloyd George, although he was not then Prime
Minister. In March, 1916, a serious strike was declared on the Clyde among the
shipbuilders. It was the more serious in that it was engineered by the men
themselves, directly against the leaders’ wishes. Some half dozen shop
stewards, who have since been declared to be in German pay, roused the men
against the dilution of labour, and, catching them at an hysterical moment and
after months of unbroken and unusual strain, combined them in a walk-out. As it
happened, the Department immediately concerned was Lloyd George’s. With a firm
hand he promptly deported the six leaders and the strike broke up. It is
interesting to follow the incident through. In January, 1917, one of the
deportees appeared unexpectedly at the Labour Congress at Manchester—unexpected
to the rank and file but not to the leaders, for the Government had given its
consent that he should attend—and, wild-eyed and fervent, declared his
intention of returning to Glasgow. The Congress cheered him, although the
leaders tried to turn the tide. Kirkwood, the deportee, was as good as his
word, although the Government, now under Lloyd George, immediately announced
that he would be arrested. The Government, too, was as good as its word. And
Kirkwood, finding the Government not now to be trifled with and his friends
few, signed an undertaking to keep quiet. As that was all the Government had
ever demanded of the deportees its victory was complete. Also the Labour
Party, by staunchly refusing to support Kirkwood, proved its virtues.
Another threatened strike that would have
disorganized the conduct of the war throughout the Allied countries was
proposed by the South Wales Miners. This was their second interference with the
course of the war. Both sides seem to have been to blame, the employers for the
low level to which they had always ground the men, and the men for their
unpatriotic demonstration at a moment when Italy and France, as well as
England, were absolutely dependent upon English coal. The story is too long to
tell here, but the South Wales miner, already having obtained various advances
in wages since the beginning of the war, amounting to seventy per cent., was
still unsatisfied. And the employers, although making higher dividends than
ever before, thought they saw an opportunity of increasing them. While the
miners demanded a fifteen per cent, increase, the owners asked for a ten per
cent, decrease. Where the miners secured public sympathy was in agreeing to
submit their case to an audit of the owners’ books, which the owners refused.
The crisis crowded eloser and
closer, and at last the Government stepped
in and took over the mines, immediately granting the miners their higher wage.
This, too, was in Asquith’s time.
There have been other strikes and threatened
strikes by the dozen, but none of equal seriousness, largely because nipped in
the bud. The different attitude adopted by Lloyd George has had its effect.
Since he came into power strikes
have been of short duration because the Government was not minded to parley to
the nation’s menace. The new Premier’s metal was tried on the very day Asquith
resigned. The boilermakers of Liverpool took advantage of administrative
chaos to declare a strike. But Lloyd George took the Labour Party into his
Cabinet by means of some of its strongest and most patriotic leaders, and
thereafter he could not be accused of lack of sympathy. Hodge, the new Labor
Minister, a Labor man himself, simply wired the boilermakers that no consideration
whatever would be given their case unless they returned immediately to work. It
was a new system, and it worked. The boilermakers returned. They realized what
subsequent strikers are finding out, that the nation will not stand for strikes
until the war is over. The Tyne engineers declared a strike towards the end of
March, 1917, led by the shop stewards and opposed by the leaders. Once more the
strikers were informed that their demands would not be listened to while they
were idle, but this time they thought to make a real test and voted to remain
out. When, however, a wire reached them from the Government warning them that
if they did not return to work immediately drastic measures would be taken,
they knew their stand was hopeless and took up their tools.
But the two great obstacles to the production
necessary to victory came from the threatened breach of union rules demanded by
conditions. One was the dilution of labor. The Clyde strike arose from the
workingman’s opposition to the introduction of women into domains that had
always been his; and a hundred smaller strikes and a thousand disagreements
have had their origin in the same cause. The Government could not but insist,
however strong the opposition. Without women the war would never be won, for
there are not enough men to do the fighting and the work. But even yet daily
opposition arises from individual unions or branches of them. Labour has, however,
sized the necessity as a body and has yielded to it.
The other handicap was the recognized scale of
output by the English workman. It is almost incredible that any man would
openly support the deliberate limitation of his output as a system vital to his
well-being. The idea has sometimes been secretly preached in America. But in
England it was a recognized union principle to “ca’ canny”. In that, too, the
employers were largely to blame, for the wages they persisted in paying were
unbelievably small. No workman could do good work on them; no workman could
maintain his self-respect on such inadequate and miserly pay.
And along with the limitation of output came the
attendant evils that assisted its development. Absenteeism was a habit. In
part it was due to liquor, but there was nothing in his life to make a
workingman desirous of limiting his potations to reasonable quantities. Every
holiday—and the English year is full of them—was
followed by two for recovery from the effects of the day’s sport. In a few
words, England was producing much less than half her capacity and had grown
accustomed to it. That was why she was losing her grip on the world’s markets.
But half-production did not gibe with war necessities, and an alteration was
demanded. To a great and surprising extent it has come about. Many a labourer
has seen the necessity as well as the Government and has buckled down. To some
extent liquor was put beyond his reach, by shortened hours of sale, by the
closing of the more dangerous saloons, by an increase in prices, and by the
anti-treating law. But some effect also was wielded by the hearty way in which
the women assumed their share of production. They were not broken to limiting
production as a principle, and factories have boomed for no other reason than that the men see
that their very living after the war depends upon a demonstration of their
capacity. Pride does the rest.
There are, of course, certain sections of the
Labour Party which as a whole have opposed the war. The Socialists are divided,
one group expressing its unalterable fidelity to the national cause, the other
exhibiting only the worst side of Socialism. The Independent Labour Party is
frankly for peace as a body, although a few of its leaders cannot agree to
peace at any price. But these two disloyal sections count very little in the
numerical strength of Labour and less in influence, despite the publicity
given the peace meetings that are usually broken up by fellow unionists or soldiers.
It is in Labour’s vote that it shows its soul.
The Congress of 1916 supported Asquith’s war policy by something less than
four votes to one. In the Congress of 1917 the support for Lloyd George was
more than five to one. When Lloyd George proposed to comb out the unskilled
from the South Wales miners for the Army, thus daring much in the teeth of the
most troublesome union, the union at first voted against the proposition and
then rallied and supported it by three to two. And whenever a complete vote
has been taken there is unmistakable evidence of the patriotism of Labour.
In its leaders Labour has been favourably
represented. There is no hesitation there, no willingness to sacrifice the
nation to union principles that held in peace time. With very few exceptions
the chiefs of the organization are patriots. Much of their active co-operation
has been induced by their incorporation into Government offices where they not
only see the need of the times more clearly but are on their honour to cater to
it. From the beginning, however, they have aided the authorities in bringing
home to their fellows the demands of the fighting front. “Whatever is needed
to win the war will be given,” says the secretary of the General Federation of
Trade Unions. J. H. Thomas, M.P., general secretary of the Railwaymen, one of
the strongest unions, while watching the Government closely, is a staunch
supporter of any measures that promise to win the war. The heads of the British
Workers’ National League condemn all labour disputes in war time. The British
Socialist Party has repudiated enemy Socialists. Will Thorne, M.P., is a
tireless advocate of aggressive war measures. Bent Tillett, whose influence
over Labour has been frequently proved, visited the front early in the war and
returned one of the best recruiting agents the country has had.
The effect of the war on Labour no man can
foresee with accuracy. The longer the struggle continues the better the
results for England and the workingman, so far as the establishment of
desirable principles and methods are concerned. Much depends upon the attitude
of the returned soldier—and where he will stand even he himself does not know.
Should he settle down with the idea that he has completed his life’s work and
that hereafter the country should keep him, there will be years of unsettlement
and disorganization. Should he resume his tools under the spur of years of
military discipline, of widened outlook, of gratitude for peace, English
Labour will carve a new groove for itself. There is talk in some unofficial
corners of a great strike to come with peace, intended, it is said, to revive immediately
the old methods and laxness. But against that will stand determinedly a nation
.and many Labour leaders who see that only in grim hard work will England be
able to hold her own in the world’s reconstruction. Did Labour stop to think it
would realize that anything it does to interfere with that great end will react
upon itself.
The strike among the engineers engaged on munitions was not a Union affair.
Indeed, it was strongly condemned by the leaders. It was organized entirely
by the shop stewards, who had a secret union of their own, and was the result
of the fear of youthful shirkers in control of the local unions that they would
be taken from their jobs for service at the Front. Other strikes had to some
extent the support of their immediate leaders, but there were conditions that
mitigated the treason of downing tools when the Empire was at stake, although
nothing could justify such an act. Thoughtful union leaders tremble lest Trade
Unionism has dug its own grave, for, after all, it is the rank and file that
make up the Union.
One thing is certain, that Capital and Labour
will work on new levels, new understandings, new agreements.
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