The Emergency Regulations in the Dock Dispute (1949)

From the August 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

By proclamation under the Emergency Powers Act, 1920, the Labour Government on 11th July issued Emergency Regulations dealing with the dock dispute. The 1920 Act authorising the use of emergency powers was parsed by the Lloyd George Coalition Government against the fierce opposition of the Labour Party and Trades Union Congress. Its repeal was demanded by the Labour Party Conference in 1921, the resolution being moved by a docker. The Act was used by the Tories against the General Strike in 1926 and the T.U.C. that year carried a resolution which held that at no time during the strike need the Act have been used.

Yet this is the Act now used by a Labour Government in a dispute that is of negligible proportions compared with the 1926 General Strike.

The sixteen Emergency regulations give the Government sweeping powers over the working of the docks and over any attempt to interfere with the carrying on of work. The Daily Herald (12/7/49) published a summary of all sixteen regulations from which the following are quoted:

“Regulation 3. This concerns acts of sabotage and declares:

” ‘No person shall do any act with intent to impair the efficiency or impede the working or movement of any vessel, aircraft, vehicle, machinery, apparatus or other thing used or intended to be used in the performance of essential services.’

“Regulation 4. Deals with trespassing and loitering on any premises taken over for the maintenance of essential services.

”Mere presence in or near such premises is sufficient for conviction, if it can be shown that the person’s character suggest a purpose prejudicial to public safety’

“Regulation 5. Covers acts of violence endangering, obstructing or interfering with troops, police and others engaged in essential services.

“Regulation 6. Makes it an offence to induce any troops or police to commit breaches of discipline. Possession or distribution of leaflets or other documents likely to cause disaffection comes under this heading.

“Regulation 7. Authorises the Home Secretary to employ police from outside the area for the maintenance of public order.

“Regulation 8. Gives powers for billeting of soldiers, sailors and airmen.

“Regulation 9. The Postmaster-General is authorised to hold up the delivery of packages and refuse the use of telephone and telegraph services as he thinks fit.

“Regulation 11. Gives police power to stop any vehicle if it is suspected that an offence is being committed against the Regulations. A constable may seize any incriminating evidence he finds.

“Regulation 12. Gives to any constable power of arrest of suspects without obtaining a warrant.

“Regulation 13. Makes it an offence to incite any person to commit offences against the Regulations.

“Regulation 14. Directors, general managers or secretaries of companies or corporations offending against the Regulations will be liable unless they can show that the offence was committed without their knowledge or connivance.

“Regulation 15. Provides that persons convicted shall be liable to three months jail or a fine of up to £100 or both.

“Taking part in, or peacefully persuading a person or persons to take part in a strike is not an offence.

“Regulation 16. Enables the authorities to seize any articles believed to provide evidence of an offence.”

The use of troops and of civilian workers brought into the docks from outside is governed by Regulation 2.

In spite of the long years of Labour Party denunciation of the Emergency Powers Act the Emergency Regulations received the sweeping support of Labour M.P’s. Not one Labour M.P. voted against.

Blogger's Note:

This issue of the Socialist Standard also carried two other pieces on the Dockers' dispute:

• Editorial: The attitude of the London Dockers
• The Dispute at the London Docks

Editorial: The Dock Strike and the Emergency Powers Act (1948)

Editorial from the August 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

After the unofficial strike of London dockers had lasted several weeks and sympathetic strikes were taking place at other docks the Labour Government on 28th June declared a state of emergency under the Emergency Powers Act, 1920. The Daily Herald the next day reported this as follows:

“Armed with full powers under the State of Emergency plroclamation signed by the King, the Cabinet last night prepared regulations to meet any possible crisis arising from the dock strikes.”

“The government, with its emergency powers, will, if necessary, requisition accommodation in and near the London docks for troops and other labour, and seize warehouses for storage. It is also expected to take powers for the control of all arrangements at ports, including the turn-round of ships, and for dealing with acts of sabotage or attempts to dissuade troops from carrying out their duties.” (Daily Herald, 29/6/48).

The Prime Minister swiftly followed up the proclamation with a broadcast appeal to the men on strike and the next day the strike was called off. Whether the strikers were more influenced by the appeal, or by the threat, is a matter of opinion, but there is no doubt what would have been the outcome had the strike continued. The prestige and continuance in office of the Labour Government were at stake and it would have been a fight to a finish.

Labour M.Ps. and supporters saw in the incident a personal triumph for the Prime Minister’s eloquence and sincerity. The Opposition had a double target to attack. They abused the Ministers, for dilatoriness and lack of courage, especially Mr. Isaacs. Minister of Labour, who, they gleefully pointed out, had not only flown off to America to attend an I.L.O. Conference but had actually done so in an American plane. They also laid the blame at the doors of the mammoth Transport and General Workers Union, which, they said, must be badly managed and quite incapable of serving its members properly since the latter repeatedly show their discontent by ignoring the Union and striking against its advice. Others saw in the whole affair a Moscow-inspired Communist plot to upset the Labour Government and sow dissension between workers and their anti-Communist officials.

Mr. Arthur Deakin, General Secretary of the Transport Workers Union, indignantly defended himself and his Executive against all the charges levelled at the Union. Writing in the Record (July) he made what is on paper a good case. Its fatal fault is that it is too good since it claims to demonstrate that the men had nothing to strike about. Thousands of men do not stop work, remain out for weeks on end without strike pay, bitterly denounce their officials and shout down speeches urging a return to work if, as Mr. Deakin writes, “there was no reason for the strike to start.” Mr. Deakin’s account is as follows : The dispute arose about the piece-work rate for unloading zinc oxide and on several occasions the men refused to complete the job. For this breach of discipline they were punished with suspension for one week and disentitlement to attendance money (i.e. their minimum guaranteed pay) for 13 weeks. They appealed but came out on strike before the appeal was heard. Subsequently after an appeal tribunal had failed to agree a new tribunal was set up under an independent chairman and reduced the disentitlement to two weeks. Mr. Deakin makes much of the fact that the bodies which imposed the penalty and heard the appeal are joint bodies on which the Union is represented, and also of the point that because the strike was a breach of agreements entered into by the Union “it had no alternative but to honour its obligations and order a return to work.” He maintains that the agreements had been “at every stage approved by constitutionally elected lay committees of rank and file members” and concludes therefore that “there was no reason for the strike to start, and every reason why work should have been resumed immediately the appeal tribunal gave its decision.”

To all of this, as has already been indicated, the existence of bitter discontent in the minds of the men is a complete answer. They belong to and pay into the Union in order to be protected in disputes with the employer. They are entitled to get it even though their officials may think and tell them that the action they propose to take is unreasonable, unwise and unnecessary. They are, after all, likely to he the best judges of where the shoe pinches.

There is another and equally vital aspect of the dispute. The Labour Party does not believe that strikes are an inevitable outcome of the class-struggle which underlies the capitalist system. They have told us so often how a Labour Government would avoid strikes; by a policy of high wages and low prices, by arbitration and conciliation, by nationalisation which would “eliminate the profit motive,” by a wise and humane administration of industry including trade union representation on disciplinary bodies. These and other things were offered as an alternative to the Socialist remedy of abolishing capitalism and with it the wages system. Yet what happens in practice? Not high wages but “wage-freezing,” not lower prices but rising prices. Not the cessation of strikes, but over 600,000 workers involved in strikes (mostly unofficial) in 1947. Not industrial harmony but the invoking of the much-hated Emergency Powers Act. This is an Act that was passed under Lloyd George’s Tory-Liberal Coalition Government, in 1920. It was opposed at the time by the Trade Unions and the Labour Party. At the 1921 Labour Party Conference a resolution demading its repeal was carried. (It was moved by a delegate of the Dock Workers’ Union.) The Act was used by the Baldwin Tory Government against the General Strike in 1926. At the T.U.C. that year a resolution of condemnation was carried which held that at no time during the General Strike was it necessary to apply the Act.

Yet this is the Act invoked by a Labour Government in a relatively small dispute.

Of course they have their excuses ready: we live in critical times which necessitate wage-freezing; the people must be fed even if it means using troops and in effect smashing a strike; if you have capitalism and the wages system the Government cannot tolerate failure to keep agreements between workers and employers; and finally the Government administering capitalism must govern in such a way as to keep the system functioning. It is not worth while arguing about these various points. All they add up to is that the way to working class emancipation does not lie through Labour Government. No matter how much Labour Ministers may hope and strive through humane administration to “decapitalise” capitalism their actions are broadly determined by the necessities of that system. The road to crisis, class conflict and war is paved with the good intentions of Labour Governments.

Another Australian ghost town (1965)

From the May 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Geoffrey Blainey briefly traces out the history till 1959 of the lead, silver and copper mines of Mount Isa in his book, Mines of the Spinifex. These are located in the north west of tropical Queensland. Blainey outlines the incredible number and forms of hazards that had to be faced and subdued before the mines could be opened and operated. Among these were swarms of flies, red choking dust, persistent high temperatures, scurvy, malaria and thirst. Also, hostile Aborigines, apparently fearing for their own tribal future, never hesitated to spear or club to death all surveyors and prospectors they could. Isolation, and therefore transportation, was and still is a large factor in end costs. Westwards from Townsville, its nearest port, Mount Isa lies 600 miles across plains of red dust and prickly spinifex.

Yet so promising were the chances of fortunes to be made from mining in this savage, desolate waste land that investors Australian, English, Russian and now predominately American were persuaded to advance capital to develop the mines and reduce the environment to conditions of European habitation and modern industry. Dams were built large enough to impound tropical rains and supply the needs of both town and mines for years ahead. Even the dread of medical isolation was removed with the advent of the John Flynn Flying Doctor Service. 

Capital, superb as it is in solving these massive problems of nature, must always falter and fail when confronting social problems peculiarly of its own creation. Indeed, as wild nature is tamed, in like proportion there emerges the destructive force of the class war which is an impediment to wealth production just as much as wild nature. That wary London publication. The Economist of July 9th, 1927 (writes Blainey) “prophetically warned investors that (a) metal prices could easily fall and that (b) labour conditions in Australia were onerous and (c) that the cost of equipping the mine could far outstrip the estimates,” (Mount Isa paid outfits first net profits in 1936-37 — after 13 years of sporadic operations). “It admitted that Mount Isa might become great.” Mount Isa became the largest single industry in the State, employing over four thousand workers and each week paying out £100,000 wages and "earning” over one million pounds revenue.

Commodity prices, (rising or falling), and labour problems: how these two factors have repeatedly flawed and fractured the apparently smooth and polished surface of modern society everywhere.

The first Mount Isa strike was in protest over the high price of beer. The next, 1933, closed down the mine for months. Prophetically, the miners would not return to work unless two of their sacked mates were re-employed. The prophesy of the Economist re-appears and rapidly assumes a more substantial form from December, 1963 onwards.

It was then that, theoretically, the present Mount Isa dispute began, when the Australian Workers Union (A.W.U.) representing the Mount Isa miners lodged claims for £4 per week pay rise and improved conditions. In April 1964 these were refused on the legal quibble that the £4 per week was a bonus and not a wage claim. To the mineowners, either way, the claim clearly represented an encroachment on their profit. And this is something the investors seek to avoid, even if straining of legal subtleties and cynical evasions do insult the intelligence of the workers. After another four months of apparent deliberations, in August 1964 the miners decided to ban contract labour and to revert to day wages, and to stay this way until their claims were granted. This continued for four more months, during which time the weekly wage was less than half contract rates and mine production had fallen steeply.

This was a period of fermentation. The employers declared that the contract ban by miners was a strike. Branch unions defied parent bodies. Local labour leaders emerged, more representative and knowledgeable of local affairs and tempers. Then the combustible element of victimisation was cast into this tropical furnace of class war. The popular and able leader of the contract banning miners, Pat Mackie, was sacked by the company for attending union affairs during working hours Mackie’s objection to dismissal was legally over-ruled. A few days later he was expelled by the A.W.U. (This seems to be always the weakness of the One Big Union ideal—the parent body upon formation begins again to disintegrate into hostile local factions, at odds both among themselves and against the central union authority. At Mount Isa this became very much in evidence.)

On December 10th the Queensland Government declared the area to be under Emergency Regulations and moved in extra policemen. The Mount Isa miners were ordered to resume contract work and the penalties for refusing can be One Hundred Pounds fine or six months in jail or both; in addition daily penalties can be imposed. Thus, if refusal continues for 50 days, each miner who holds out could be jailed for 25 years, be fined five thousand pounds, or both.

All this, naturally, resulted in fanning the live coals of class war. There was a quickening of union activities. More meetings, more defiance and still more Emergency Regulations and conferences. Then on December 24th, the original legal quibble of April was suddenly set aside and a £3 increase was granted. By mid-January 1965, improved conditions and contract rates were also agreed upon.

Marx, in Capital Vol. 1, Chapter VI informs us that, as distinct from other commodities, “ . . . there enters into the determination of the value of labour power a historical and moral element." (See footnote) “Moral” considerations, so dear to the hearts of our masters, now proved to be the major hindrance to immediate settlement of the Mount Isa dispute when they revealed a leaning towards working class interests. The original dispute in the material and economic sense has ended. But others took its place. These were over the re-employment of Pat Mackie by the mining company and the company recognition of the Mount Isa T. & L. C. as a future negotiating body for Mount Isa employees. With both of these Union requests the company refused to comply. And so the dispute became a strike, on the issues of victimisation and union representation, with all their implications.

While these issues were still smouldering, the Queensland Government inflamed the entire Labour Movement of Australia by yet another Emergency Proclamation which transformed Queensland into a Police State. Meetings of protest were being organised all over Australia together with pledges of moral and financial support: indeed as noted by an Age leader:

The Queensland Government in its desperate effort to check the disastrous Mount Isa strike, seems to have injected more fuel into a highly inflammable situation, which now threatens to explode into a State-wide and perhaps a Nation-wide industrial upheaval.

Not entirely surprising was the news that all the Emergency Police powers had been suspended. Premier Nicklin contrary to his earlier declared purpose for invoking these powers (“gangsterism strong-arm tactics etc., among the miners") suddenly revoked them. However, these Regulations in practice and intent were still less savage than those put into operation by the Federal Labour Government during the 1949 strike which “ . . . included freezing of union funds to prevent sustenance payments to workers, the forbidding of credit to the strikers and the use of troops to mine coal and transport it." (Herald 10.2.65)

Through February the miners firmly continued the strike, while the mining company and Arbitration Commission issue orders and counter order on the closing or non-closing down of the mine. Meanwhile hundreds of miners and their families, each week, moved outwards from this strike-bound and blighted Central Queensland Township, seeking employment elsewhere. From the other side of the world came this clear comprehending and candid appraisal of Australian affairs:

The strike is more than a local labour dispute. It is contributing to a sharp rise in world copper prices which had been falling this month.

It is infecting the whole of the Australian labour relations. The elements of legal compulsion that once seemed to be such an admirable feature of the Australian arbitration system has not been able to cope with the refactory labour force in a low-wage area like Queensland at a time of generally full employment, (The Times 10.2.65.).

Finally, Prime Minister Menzies, returning from overseas, said “ . . . its terrible that the Mount Isa works could be snuffed out by a curious character, (Pat Mackie, who by the way volunteered to withdraw from Mount Isa once the Miners’ pay and other demands were settled), who is not even an Australian.” Just how irrelevant can a person be? As though the nationality of the victimisation issue is of importance, any more than is the issue as to whether these mines are owned and controlled by Australian or “Foreign’’ capital.

Mr. Calwell, leader of the Aus. L.P., on this point declares: “What is needed above all in this Mount Isa situation is compassion for the people of Mount Isa, compassion for the families of the miners and of the shop-keepers, compassion for the men (i.e. the international investigators), who have planned great schemes of expansion only to see them frustrated . . . The dignity of the Labour movement is expressed when it takes full responsibility for everything it does.” (Age 23.2.65.)

Yet only four days earlier he supported the use of Australian troops in Borneo, indicating thereby a direct denial of compassion for “ the people, the families of peasants and soldiers, shopkeepers etc.,” on both sides who suffer the horrors of S.E. Asia warfare. Both the open class war of Mount Isa and the war in the jungles of Asia are but two warring aspects with a common origin.

Where now is the dignity of the Australian Labour Movement?

Peter Furey.

Trade Unions and Socialism (1976)

From the May 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the addled thoughts of Communists and their allies and successors, the trade unions are potential and sometimes actual revolutionary organizations. Oddly enough, the people who agree with this idea are the sizeable reactionary fringe for whom Conservatism does not go far enough, and who see in every wage demand a plot to bring down civilization. Both are out of touch with reality and fail to see the advantages and limitations of trade unionism.

The Socialist Party recognizes the necessity for all workers to do all they can to maintain wages and working conditions. This is part of the class struggle in capitalism. The working class are the nine-tenths of the population who have to live by selling their only possession: labour-power. It is a commodity. Like all commodities its price reflects its value, i.e. the labour which has gone to make it, and like all commodities it is sold on a market where the interests of buyers and sellers are fundamentally opposed. The need for workers to organize and make use of the weapons available to them collectively is clear.

Organization draws attention to some limits and creates others. The trade unions’ early need was for legal recognition and protection, to allow them to function effectively without penalties and also to enable them to control their members. This protection was given by Acts of 1868, 1871 and 1875, and reinforced by the Trade Disputes Act of 1906; and it was dependent on the unions’ showing “responsibility” towards capitalism. The historian Halévy describes them as zealously cultivating respectability in 1868. The 1905 Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Great Britain said:

. . .With this legal protection, however, ideas that had been growing up since the breaking down of the Chartist movement, spread far and wide. Taught by the assiduous agents of the capitalist class that ‘“Capital” and “Labour” were brothers, the workers acted on the theory that between them and their masters were “common interests.”

From the big manufacturers’ point of view the major unions provided a body to negotiate rationally with. Engels remarked in the 1892 preface to his Condition of the Working Class that squabbles over petty items had become a nuisance, and concessions enabled them “to crush all the quicker and all the safer their smaller competitors, who could not make both ends meet without such perquisites”.

The basis of trade-union organization is wages and conditions, without any political reference. Many trade unionists support the Labour Party; others are Communists, Conservatives, Liberals, etc., all of whom need equally to press to maintain or try to improve their living standards. This shows on one hand that everyone, conscious of it or not, is in the class struggle; and on the other, that the overwhelming majority of trade unionists are not Socialists and do not even think they are. To that extent, the unions have hardly needed persuading that workers and employers have “common interests”.

Political-minded militants believe that in a strike, or when otherwise under pressure from the capitalist class, a mass of trade unionists can be led into a general rebellion against the existing order. The same belief is held about the unemployed; and, as with the unemployed, the position is that (unless they are Socialists) they want nothing more than a solution to their immediate problem. When militants are elected to trade-union offices it is in view of their likely success as negotiators, not their political gospels. However, the implication on the part of the militants who profess to be aiming to overthrow capitalism is that they are seeking the support of non-Socialists. This was the position taken up by Keir Hardie and other early Labour leaders.

“Left-wing” doctrines in the trade unions have, universally, had undesirable results for the working class. The idea of “workers’ control” has provided a ready-made structure for totalitarian regimes, where the trade unions are virtually government departments to ensure industrial discipline. Of Communist militancy between the two world wars, Gerald Abrahams says in Trade Unions and the Law (1968):

Communism convinced its converts that Patriotism meant less to a citizen than his loyalty to an economic group. That theory, incidentally, has served well some of those industrial leaders whose function it became to lay down to government the terms on which the worker would co-operate in a war, and Parliaments, which seem to have favoured the conscript rather than the volunteer, appear to have accepted their instruction.

The records of legislation and government action do not show what is commonly believed, that Labour governments are more favourable than others to the trade unions. After the Trade Unions Act of 1871 (Liberal), the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875, which established the legitimacy of “trade disputes”, was passed by a Conservative government. The Trade Disputes Act of 1906 and the Trade Union Act 1913 were enacted under the Liberals. Following the General Strike, the Conservatives’ Trade Disputes and Trade Union Act 1927 declared certain strikes illegal; it was held as a grievance, and repealed by Labour in 1945. However, it made little change in practice, and in the opinion of some legal authorities did not alter the existing position over general strikes.

Since the war, Labour and Conservative governments have both pursued the idea of an “incomes policy”, meaning wage restraint, and have both offended the trade unions with legislation: the Prices and Incomes Act (Labour) and the Industrial Relations Act (Conservative). Labour applied the Emergency Powers Act in a docks strike in 1948 and the Seamen’s strike in 1966. No party has seriously opposed the functioning of the trade unions since the Acts of the eighteen-seventies; but they have all (including the Communists during the war) bared their capitalist teeth when the system they hold dear was under duress.

Something which would surprise the trade unionists of the past is the sight of union leaders today in open collaboration with governments to limit pay increases for their members. Up to recent times the accepted practice was for the unions to make bargains with governments without surrendering their basic right of bargaining with the employers (in 1966, shortly before the Prices and Incomes Act, it was held by a court that government policy was “not relevant” to a worker’s claim for a wage increase). In fact the trade unions alone have made government wage-restraint possible. Capitalism battles through its crises at the expense of the working class, but it is something new for it to be given active help on those lines by working-class organizations.

The Webbs described a trade union as “a continuous association of wage-earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their working lives”. Unions are economic organizations with an essential function. It is also a restricted one, and they operate properly by accepting the restriction: political action by them has been chronically damaging to working-class interests. While their success in gaining wage increases depends on the state of production more than anything else, they should always be ready to (as Marx advised them) test the situation and not accept the pleas of the capitalist class and governments.

The restriction means also that trade unions cannot change society. The next step for trade unionists is recognition of the position in which they stand, and the fact that the path to Socialism is separate political organization. With this consciousness they can end the action in support of capitalism which too often characterizes trade unions now, and turn from sectional aims to the interests of the working class as a whole. In a resolution he drafted for the International Workingmen’s Association in 1866, Marx wrote:

By considering themselves champions and representatives of the whole working class, and acting accordingly, the trade unions must succeed in rallying round themselves all workers still outside their ranks. They must carefully safeguard the interests of the workers in the poorest-paid trades, as, for example, the farm labourers, who due to especially unfavourable circumstances have been deprived of their power of resistance. They must convince the whole world that their efforts are far from narrow and egoistic, but on the contrary, are directed towards the emancipation of the downtrodden masses.

Obviously much trade-union action — for instance, that which centres on the idea of a “wages league” in which groups of workers demand as of right to be better paid than others — is divisive and unconcerned with the class issue. Trade unions have much to learn. At the present stage, Socialists observe and approve their efforts to get what they can. But the reservations have to be made: our demand is for workers in the unions to see that they are only half-participating in the class struggle. The question is not what Socialists do about trade unions, but what the trade unions are going to do about Socialism.

Robert Barltrop

Everything and Everybody (1940)

From the June 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

The new Emergency Powers Bill, which the Daily Herald (May 23rd) describes as a Bill which gives power to the State “to control everybody and everything” was passed in 2½ hours from first to last. The Bill was introduced without prior warning at 3.45 p.m. and taken through all its readings in Commons and Lords by 5.57 p.m. At 6.9 p.m. it received the Royal Assent. As the Daily Herald says, it shows “the speed at which Parliament can work in a crisis.” Against many Labour Party and other critics of Parliamentary Government who argue that Parliament is too slow, the S.P.G.B. maintained that Parliament can act just as speedily as it wants to act. It has taken a war to convince some people that this is so.

The New Defence Regulations (1940)

From the June 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

On May 9th the Home Secretary, Sir John Anderson, announced in the House of Commons that the Defence Regulations affecting propaganda had been amended. The amendment had taken place after consultation with members of the opposition parties, but it was pointed out by Mr. Attlee for the Labour Party that the consultations “in no way implied that those members either approved or disapproved of the regulations, which were, necessarily; put forward on the sole responsibility of the Government.”

The relevant part of the Home Secretary’s speech is reproduced below : —

The Home Secretary’s Statement

“The second group of Regulations is concerned with the activities of individuals and organisations who, by spreading defeatist or anti-war propaganda, are seeking to undermine public morale and to weaken the resolution of the people to prosecute the war to a successful issue. As I said in my reply to Questions on 25th April, there is a risk that our traditional reluctance to limit the free expression of minority opinions may be exploited by persons whose real purpose is to hamper, for ulterior motives, the war effort of the nation. The Defence Regulations introduced on the outbreak of war included stringent provisions dealing with propaganda, under which it would have been an offence for any person to endeavour to influence public opinion in a manner likely to be prejudicial to the defence of the realm or the efficient prosecution of the war; but after the Debate on the Regulations which took place in this House on 31st October last there was a drastic curtailment of those provisions of the Regulations which had attracted special opposition on the ground that they were capable of being used for the suppression of minority opinions. The Government are anxious to avoid any unnecessary interference with our traditional liberties, but they feel that a distinction can and must now be drawn between the mere expression of honest opinion on the one hand and, on the other, the deliberate and systematic advocacy of defeatist or antiwar policies with intent to weaken the national resolution to prosecute the war to a successful conclusion.

Legal provisions on this subject must necessarily be cast in somewhat general terms if they are to cover all forms of propagandist activity which are prejudicial to the national interests; and the difficulty has always been to find a form of words which will suffice to check the really mischievous activities without at the same time penalising expressions of opinion, with which we should all desire to avoid interference, however much we may disagree with the opinion expressed. The consultations which I have held have led me to the conclusion that this point cannot be fully met except by giving, to a responsible Minister answerable to Parliament, an administrative discretion to determine in what cases individuals or organisations should be made liable to criminal proceedings for engaging in mischievous activities of this kind; and in the new Regulation which has now been made a novel procedure has been adopted in order to secure that the sanctions of the criminal law shall be applied only to persons acting with deliberate intent to prejudice the national interest. The Regulation provides for the issue of a warning to any person or organisation who appears to the Secretary of State to be concerned in the systematic publication of matter calculated to foment opposition to the prosecution of the war to a successful issue. The warning will draw attention to the matter objected to and will make it clear that if after the warning there is any future publication of matter calculated to foment such opposition the person or persons concerned will become liable to prosecution under the Regulation. Until a warning has been issued no person can be prosecuted for an offence under the Regulation; but if after receiving such a warning there is a continuance of mischievous activities those responsible then become liable to prosecution and, if convicted, to heavy penalties—namely, seven years’ penal servitude or a fine of £500, or both.

The Regulation provides ample safeguards against any misuse of the new powers which it confers. In the first place the Secretary of State must be satisfied, not by an isolated remark but by a consistent course of conduct, that there is systematic publication of matter which is calculated to foment opposition to the prosecution of the war to a successful issue, and further that the continuance of these activities may cause serious mischief. Then there must be a formal warning by a notice in writing of the consequences of persistence in this course of conduct. Then, if such conduct is persisted in, proceedings based on a specific contravention of the Regulation can be instituted only with the consent of the Attorney-General and can be taken only at Assizes or courts of corresponding jurisdiction; and the defendant cannot be convicted if he can show to the satisfaction of the court that he had no intent to foment opposition to the prosecution of the war to a successful issue and had no reasonable cause to believe that his activities were calculated to foment such opposition. I hope that what I have said will suffice to satisfy the House that this new Regulation is so drawn as to penalise only deliberate, organised and systematic efforts to undermine the national morale; and I need hardly add that it is the firm intention of the Government to apply the criminal sanctions provided by this Regulation only in cases of real gravity where the national interests may be seriously threatened.

A second Regulation in this group is designed to extend and strengthen the provisions of Defence Regulation 39A, under which it is already an offence to endeavour to seduce from their duty persons in His Majesty’s service or in the various services of Civil Defence. Experience has shown that it is not enough to restrict this provision to persons already embodied in the various services. The efforts of those who wish to undermine the efficiency of these services may be directed not to persons already serving but to those who are shortly to be called up for service; and the Regulation has therefore been amended so as to make it equally an offence to endeavour to incite persons liable to such service to evade their duties or to endeavour to incite persons to abstain from enrolling voluntarily in any of the defence services. Here again care has been taken to avoid penalising the mere expression of opinion. It will be no offence merely to state the statutory rights of men liable to military service to claim exemption on conscientious grounds, nor will the Regulation prevent the giving of guidance to a young man who is troubled in conscience and seeks advice from a priest or a friend. The Regulation is aimed at those who try to incite young men liable to military service to simulate conscientious objections for the purpose of evading their duties. I am satisfied that this limited provision is necessary and that it will command general support.

Finally, power has been taken to apply really effective sanctions against the use of printing presses for the production of publications which contravene either the new Regulation dealing with the corruption of public morale, or the expanded provisions of Regulation 39A regarding attempts to cause disaffection or Regulation 39B dealing generally with the publication of false statements prejudical to the national interests. Under this new Regulation the Secretary of State may, if he is satisfied that any printing press has been used for the production of any document in respect of which any person has been convicted of an offence under any of these three Regulations, direct that the press shall not be used for any purpose until the leave of the High Court has been obtained for its further use. The High Court may grant such leave if satisfied that the use of the printing press for the production of the offending document was due to a mistake, or even though not so satisfied may grant leave for its future use subject to conditions, or may if it thinks fit order that the printing press shall be destroyed. In many cases documents constituting an offence under these Regulations will have been printed, by persons other than those convicted of distributing or publishing them; and in serious cases it is desirable that there should be power to bring it home to the printer that his plant cannot be used with impunity for the production of mischievous documents of this character which contravene the law. A power to seal up the printer’s plant is likely to operate as a more effective deterrent than criminal proceedings leading to a fine; and this new power should materially reduce the extent to which printing presses will be made available for the production of documents of this type.”

Text of the Regulation regarding publications

The following is taken from the Manchester Guardian, May 31st, 1940.

“Power to suppress a newspaper is provided by a new Emergency Powers (Defence) Regulation, issued yesterday, which reads: 

1. If the Secretary of State is satisfied that there is, in any newspaper, a systematic publication of matter which is, in his opinion, calculated to foment opposition to the prosecution to a successful issue of any war in which his Majesty is engaged, he may by order apply the provisions of this regulation to that newspaper.

2. No person shall print, publish, or distribute or be in anyway concerned in the printing, publication, or distribution of any newspaper to which this regulation applies.

3. An order of the Secretary of State under this regulation specifying a newspaper by name shall have effect not only with respect to any newspaper published under that name but with respect to any newspaper published under any other name if the publication thereof is in any respect in continuation of, or in substitution for, the publication of the news¬ paper named in the order.”

Another regulation empowers the Secretary of State to seize printing presses used in the production of a newspaper it he is satisfied that the newspaper is one in which there has been a systematic publication of matter which is, in his opinion, calculated to foment opposition to the prosecution to a successful issue of any war in which his Majesty is engaged.

Editorial: The strike on the Underground. (1924)

Editorial from the July 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Representations had been made by the shopmen to the N.U.R. over a period of two years for action to be taken on their behalf.

The Strike Committee Statement,

Daily Herald, June 9th.

The strike of 7,000 men on the Underground Railways was “unofficial.” And the reason is given in the above quotation. Reduction of wages since the war caused the men to strike against the London Traffic Trust. The Press, the employers, and the National Union of Railwaymen united in denunciation of the men. Mr. Cramp, the Secretary of the N.U.R., says it was “mob law,” and advised the railway owners not to negotiate with the strikers. The union leaders were paraded by the Press as safe and sane, and commended for their strong stand. Continual orders were issued by the N.U.R., telling the men to return to work at once. Without strike pay, and with the employers, the Labour Government, and the Union arrayed against them, the men returned to work.

The Labour Government played its usual part of promising protection to those at work during the strike and to maintain the services if the strike spread. Here is the pledge given by the Labour Minister (Mr. Tom Shaw) in the House of Commons :

  “My answer is, ‘Yes, undoubtedly the fullest protection will be given to the men who work.’ The noble lord further wanted to know whether in the event of the dispute spreading and certain public utilities being threatened, the Government will maintain these public utilities. Again I answer quite as frankly that the Government will do all it possibly can to maintain the public utilities. When I say that I am speaking of food, lighting, water and power, the Government will do all it possibly can and will take every step possible to maintain all these essential services. There will be no question about the fullest possible authority being given to every department of Government to take the steps that I have said the Government are prepared to take, and I hope that the noble lord will admit that my answer has been as frank as he desired it to be.”—Official Parliamentary Debates, June 6th, page 1695.

Thus the strikers were awed into submission. The Secretary of the Strike Committee stated in the Daily Herald (June 9th) that he had received information that naval ratings would probably be introduced in the power stations. The capitalist Daily Mail also stated that, had the strike spread and the tube stations been forced to close, naval ratings would be used.

The electricians in some of the stations struck with the consent of their union, and the last night of the strike they had arranged to meet to consider withdrawing all men from the power stations. Instead of striking, they decided to remain at work. The reason given by the Secretary of the Electricians’ Union in the Daily Herald (June 13th) was that misapprehension existed in the public mind that the Craft Unions’ dispute was connected with the unofficial strike of the members of the N.U.R.

This is a very unconvincing reason, and after the Daily Herald’s announcement of the certainty of the power house stoppage it caused a good deal of surprise. But the Evening Standard (June 13th) representative has the following comment:

  “What influenced the Electrical Trades Union meeting as much as anything, I understand, was the hint which some of their leaders had received that the Government might take very firm measures, even to the length of using, naval ratings in the power houses. No actual decision to take this course had been made by the committee of Ministers, but there can be little doubt that it was expected last night by those present at the conference should the sub-station men be withdrawn.”

The companies issued a forty-eight hour ultimatum to the men to return to work or face dismissal, and threatened them with legal proceedings for breach of contract. The men returned to work within the time given.

The Strike Secretary stated after the strike :

  “Our masters have changed. We have been beaten not so much by the companies as by the National Union of Railwaymen.” Daily Herald, June 13th.

The length to which the Railway Union officials went in order to defeat the men is stated by one of the striking N.U.R. men :

  “The Central Strike Committee had their headquarters at the Labour College, Penywern Road. After being in there for some time, without trying to hide the fact, a letter was sent to the Governors of the College, from Unity House, asking them to throw the Strike Committee out, or else H.O. would withhold the Students’ fee, and the usual grant to the College.”—Workers’ Weekly, June 20th.

He states that the Labour College gave them a month’s notice. This throws a lurid light on the strike-smashing efforts of modern Labour leaders, and it also shows how much the vaunted independence of the labour colleges is worth.

The fact that the strike was largely unofficial has been used to excuse the Labour Government’s promise to protect those at work during the strike. This is sheer hypocrisy. During the recent official bus and tram strike the Labour Government prepared to use the Emergency Powers Act (see MacDonald’s statement, Parliamentary Debates, March 26th). They then had the Proclamation of a State of Emergency signed ready for publication.

The fact that during that strike they were prepared to carry on emergency services was admitted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Philip Snowden, who wrote :

  “Industrial troubles are causing the Labour Government a good deal of embarrassment. The strike of the London ’bus and tramway men threatened to develop into a stoppage of all the services on which the vast population of London have to depend for transport. Faced by such a possibility, as this the Government had no option but to take immediate steps either to bring the strike to an end, if that were possible, or to organise some kind of emergency service. It was a disagreeable situation for a Labour Government, but one which had to be faced. The Government had to avoid even the appearance of strike-breaking, but they had an obligation to maintain essential services on which the livelihood of the community depends.—Quoted in Parliamentary Debates, June 6th, 1924, page 1679.

This statement of Snowden’s was used by Conservatives in the House of Commons as a basis upon which action should be taken during the Underground strike.

The action of the union leaders should be a lesson for the men. But mere attacks on union leaders count for little. The rank and file have supported these leaders continually because they do not understand the class struggle in which they are engaged. “Loyalty to the leaders” has been a favourite rallying-cry of these highly paid officials, when loyalty to the interests of the working class should be the men’s watchword. No real advance will come in union activity until the workers know enough about their real interests and no longer, therefore, need to be led, until they insist on their officials carrying out their instructions. How futile it is merely to change leaders, is shown by the Communist who laments in the Workers’ Weekly (June 20th, 1924) that some years ago a minority agreed to work for Mr. Cramp to get him into the position of Industrial Secretary in order that the power and influence of Mr. J. H. Thomas “could be smashed.” As if the power of Thomas could be broken by electing a different official to act with Thomas ! The power of these leaders can only be broken when the rank and file themselves know enough to expose and oppose their betrayers. They thought Cramp was a revolutionary because he said, “I do not believe Parliament can do anything for the workers” (quoted same paper).

The limitation of strike action to win lasting advances is shown by all these recent strikes. The supremacy of the employing class, their financial strength, and the slender means of the workers all contribute to the defeat of the worker. The use of political machinery against them should show how necessary is its control, by a revolutionary working class. The support given by the railwaymen to the same Labour Party which works against them during strikes is another example of their lack of class-consciousness. And the bitter denunciation of the Labour Government and Labour leaders by the Communist Party during strikes is a ludicrous “joke,” Considering that the Communist Party tells the workers to vote this Government and these Labour leaders into power.

The fact that the workers have continually to struggle for the most miserable advances in wages, and even then seldom obtain them, should be a lesson to the workers not to establish a Labour Government carrying on Capitalism, but to abolish Capitalism and the wages system it involves.

Ten Days that Shook Suburbia. (1924)

From the May 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

On April 1st the strike of tramwaymen came to an end. London heaved a sigh of relief, and returned with gladness to the daily dodging of sudden death, when her ’buses and trams were restored to her. Rather congestion than absolute famine seemed the general feeling, and the average citizen turned to the morning paper to learn what he was required to think about it all. All the following extracts are from leading articles of the periodicals named, on April 1st. Thus the Daily News :—

  “No attempt is now made to blink the fact that the railway, dock and tram strikes are the forerunners of a succession of critical wage disputes with which the present year is threatened. They are an inevitable sequel to the fierce and successful attacks which were made on wages when industry was in the lowest depths of depression. The same reactions follow each other in recurring cycles, with the same disastrous injury to the trade of the country. The popular suggestion at the moment is for “an exhaustive scientific inquiry” into the question of wages in all industries, and particularly into the relation between the wages of skilled and unskilled workers. Such an inquiry might have valuable results if it were accompanied by an inquiry also into the question of profits. But a scientific solution cannot of itself avail much. The course of industry will continue to be disturbed by these volcanic eruptions until employers and employed revolutionise their attitude to each other and agree to submit their differences as a matter of course, when they occur, to the judgment of a competent and impartial tribunal. From that ideal we are unhappily still very far distant.”

Note the gloom in the last sentence. Perhaps they secretly realise that an “impartial” tribunal under Capitalism is about as likely as a “fair trial” in a political case.

The Daily Express, usually the vehicle of hollow skulled hysteria, was singularly mild. It confined itself to commenting upon the good-tempered manner in which the dispute had been conducted, and hoped “Mr. MacDonald’s Government” (lése majestie !) “will now lose no time in pushing through the Traffic Bill.” Advocacy from such a quarter is sufficient in itself to damn anything. One sentence from their leading article is worth embalming :— “Ten days have been lost, to say nothing of the enormous sums that have been wasted in this futile strike.” So that a strike that results in 17,000 men getting a rise of either 4s. or 6s. per week is futile ! What will they call it when, in the next industrial depression, the masters knock it off again?

The Daily Mail—well, you know what the Mail would say, don’t you ! Not that it was futile. Oh ! no. “Mr. MacDonald has by his feebleness presented Mr. Bevin with a great success . . . .” The Mail has a tiresome, senile habit of referring to movements in terms prominent individuals. In the present instance it obscures the fact that Bevin took the lead because the men compelled him. Curiously enough the “great success” was given the heading “A Bad Settlement” and follows :—

  “Mr. Bevin, by the merciless use of force, has obtained an immediate increase in wages of 6s. a week for skilled and 4s. for unskilled employees, though it was admitted that the industry cannot afford such a wage rate. The settlement is therefore a bad one in itself. It has a further grave disadvantage of offering direct encouragement to the methods which Mr. Bevin has employed in demanding money whether it is there or not.”

It is said that immediately prior to the strike Lord Rothermere was travelling by his usual tram, when the conductor had the temerity to ask him for his fare. His proffered twopence was refused until by a merciless use of force he was compelled to pay threepence, although it was admitted he could not afford it. The conductor admitted that his employers expected him to demand the money whether it was there or not. It is a sad world.

Further search through the leading article mentioned reveals another relatively lucid interval. Remember the Daily Mail is a Tory paper:—

  “The Government’s duty was to recognise that a transport strike differs fundamentally from other industrial disputes. A transport strike is not like an ordinary strike, because it aims its blows at the whole body politic and because it attacks the public rather than any body of employers. It is a political movement, not an economic struggle, and it ought to be dealt with accordingly by the authority which represents the public and the nation.”

We seem to recall the same criticism in connection with a coal strike, a dock strike, and any strike that is big enough to give Capital a severe jolt, and then whilst that is still fresh, read the Manchester Guardian’s leader, particularly the following extract, remembering that the Guardian is a Liberal paper:

  “The men had a legitimate object, but the method is one which no community will tolerate for long. Traffic strikes are not industrial disputes between employers and employed, but attacks upon the public, and especially on the working-class public, who are forced to travel to their work and have not the means to command private conveyances. There ought to be full and proper machinery for the just settlement of all working conditions, but the method of securing justice by holding up the public ought to be ruled out. It can only be described as the tyrannical exercise of monopoly power, and if persisted in it will meet the fate of all monopolies. Step by step the public will organise itself against such emergencies. Struggles might ensue of a kind which we do not care to contemplate, and eventually the public would win.”

Notice the great gulf that yawns between Tory and Liberal ! The article is singular in that it incorporates a very, fair statement of the ordinary workers side of the case: —

   “On the one side, let us do justice to the men and their leaders. The men had a case, and the Court of Inquiry pronounced it a good case. To underpaid workpeople when they complain, it is not an adequate reply to urge the necessity of their work in the public service. Their very natural rejoinder is that, while it is very gratifying to find themselves so much needed, the more the reason for recognising their necessities as well. If work is particularly useful, why not pay the workers enough? If some departments of it are not earning the wherewithal to pay so much, that, in the view of the worker, is a reason for re organisation, conceivably in extreme cases for the closing down of unprofitable services—services which by the test of figures the public do not, after all, need to the extent of being willing to pay for them adequately. In short, the worker makes a fair remuneration the test of public as of private industrial service. For this he cannot be blamed as long as his views of “fair” remuneration are reasonable, as in this case they have been held to be.”

Then lower down follows the piece first quoted, where the Manchester Guardian prophesies that the “public” will win. You are naturally curious as to who the “public” really is. The Guardian anticipates this question :—

  “When we say the public, we do not mean, as is so often meant, the middle classes. We mean all the people except the particular section of the workers interested.”

This is refreshing candour, to say the least of it. One might hastily assume that the best course of action before the workers would be for them all to go on strike together, when, of course, the “public” would have ceased to exist. If the “public” is this shifting entity; if, for instance, when the Lots Road electricians go on strike, the tube railwaymen are part of the public, and when vice-versa, a strike on the Tubes makes the electricians part of the public, how is the public going to “step by step . . . . organise itself against such emergencies?” It is somewhat bewildering.

But the Manchester Guardian has a remedy :—

  “What will have to come in the public services is something on the analogy of a Wages Board, in which the workers will themselves take a responsible part, and which will be instructed to have regard not merely to paying capacity, but to movements in the cost of living and to rates prevailing in other occupations comparable in respect of the skill and the efforts demanded of the worker. What has gone awry in our industrial system since the war is the disturbance of the balance between one occupation and another. Where the workers have a pull on the public they have maintained the relatively high standards to which the war brought them. Where they have had no such pull they have fallen, and we have the spectacle of skilled engineers, the very pride of English industry, working for less than unskilled labourers. If we ask for the workers respect for order we must show them our respect for justice.”

This is a tremendous advance. This, surely, is the first rosy flush of the dawn of Utopia—Liberty variety. Wages in future are to be determined not merely by “paying capacity,” but also by the cost of living, and by what “the others” are getting. Now, of course, as is well known, wages are determined by the state of the tides, the average rainfall, and the height of Ben Nevis :—

  “What has gone wrong with our industrial system, since the war is the disturbance of the balance between one occupation and another?”

Oh that war. What a happy, happy world did it terminate. “Before the war,” has become a phrase signifying bliss unimaginable. Who does not remember that golden period before August, 1914. No unemployed ; high wages; short hours; cheap food; everyone lived in his own house; sickness unknown and no one ever died. Even the weather was better then. The coal strikes, rail strikes, engineering strikes, building lock-out, unemployment crisis, etc., recorded in the newspapers of the pre-war period—pah ! we have forgotten them, therefore they do not exist. There was the uniformity with which workers in all trades approximated to the poverty line. So obvious, so uniform was it, that Campbell Bannerman served up the refreshing statement that thirteen millions of the nation were constantly on the verge of starvation. That unfortunate war, which only killed a million or so of them, has upset the balance. How annoying. We must have “something on the analogy of a Wages Board,” to get us all back to that delightful pre-war balance arrangement.

The Daily Graphic, that odd Victorian survival, badly grafted with a latter-day bud, felt the situation called for a leader from them. Peppered with the muddled cliches of rotund surburbia : “Irritation,” “disgust,” “disgrace to trade unionism,” “intimidation,” “bludgeoning,” it is nevertheless, not without humour. Compare “The same, or very nearly the same, result would have been achieved had the men, instead of striking, merely threatened to strike . . . . ” with this :—

  “It is possibly true that he (Mr. Bevin) has extorted a shilling or so more than the men would have accepted if the strike had not been in operation. That may be a “triumph” for him, but it is a triumph for force, and force will not always triumph.”

Dear ! Dear ! ! Thoroughly naughty boys these strikers are, to be sure.

And now for the Daily Herald. This paper did not deem the strike worthy of a leading article that day, but contented itself with comments in the news columns. Nothing is specially worth preserving except the following :—

  “The strike has also been remarkable in that the Government felt compelled to prepare to invoke the powers of the Emergency Powers Act.

  Had the underground railways been stopped, a Royal Proclamation was ready to have been issued on Saturday last, declaring it “state of emergency.”

  The Prime Minister and other members of the Government took an active part in arranging the negotiations which made that step unnecessary.”

Need we remind you that the Emergency Powers Act was the legitimate offspring of Dora, the ruthless measure by means or which all criticism or independence was bludgeoned into submission during the war for freedom? No Act was so plaintively reviled by the Herald and the sentimental pacifists, than Dora. As the war receded and conditions approached “normal,” its place was taken by the Emergency Powers Act, a measure which provides for practically dictatorial government, on the declaration of an “emergency.” We hope the workers will not allow themselves to forget that it was a Labour Government that enjoyed the signal honour of being the first to invoke the Emergency Powers Act. You will be wondering what different action a “Capitalist” Government would have taken. Wonder no longer. Simply reflect that a Capitalist Government could do nothing worse. There is nothing worse. It is Capitalism’s trump card. Labour played it—nearly. Do not forget that.

W. T. Hopley