The Causes of the British General Strike 1926.

The Causes of the British General Strike 1926

During the First World War, Lloyd George, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, talked of creating a country “fit for heroes to live in”. Also many politicians promised that conditions would improve for the working class, because they realised that it was possible that a lot of workingmen would be reluctant to fight.

After the First World War, soldiers realised that Britain was still a very unjust society. Politicians told them that they would have to be patient, because it would take time before they could carry out the reforms that they had promised. However as time went on, things got worse rather than better.

Coal mining had always been a very dangerous job. In the three years from 1922 to 1924, 597194 miners were injured. However this figure doesn’t take into account the miners that were affected by long term ill health due to working down in the dirty and uncomfortable mines. Although coal mining created huge profits, workers received very low wages, and the conditions were very bad. The miners felt they were being treated very unfairly.

A massive 40% of miners of military age had joined the armed forces during the war. Even before the First World War, miners had been campaigning for improvements in they’re working conditions and there pay, as they were so bad, so after the war, miners returned to the mines with high hopes for the future. Therefore they were particularly disappointed and upset that the politicians had not done the things they said they would. Miners who had carried on working in the mines during the First World War enjoyed many improvements in their work. This was mainly because; the government took over control of the mines. Wages were increased and standardized. Before the war wages depended on how cheap and easy there work was at each individual mine, therefore wages varied from mine to mine. Most miners hoped that all mines would remain nationalized after the war, however in 1921 Lloyd George allowed the mines to go back into private ownership. This was because the royal Commission couldn’t agree on a suitable solution to the problems in the coal-mining industry. Most members agreed that mines being nationalized would be the best idea however; to the Miners Commissions frustration Lloyd George refused to nationalize the mines.

The British mining industry suffered an economic crisis in 1925. This was largely caused by the fall in prices resulting from the import of free coal from as reparations in the . Mine owners therefore announced their intention to reduce the wages. The National Union of Railway men and the Transport and General Workers Union, announced that that would go on strike in support of the miners. But at the last minute these large and important Unions pulled out of the strike. This was known by the miners as ‘Black Friday.’

The miners decided to go ahead with the strike ...

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The miners decided to go ahead with the strike but they were unsuccessful and soon gave into having to have lower wages. However soon afterwards, workers in other industries were told that there wages would be lowered, therefore Trade Unionists began to talk about the need to join all the workers from different industries together in order to protect there living standards.

In 1925, the mine owners declared that they were going to lower the workers wages again the General Council and the Trade Union Congress had no other choice but to support the miners while they argued with there employers to try and regain a suitable and fair wage. The Government ended up supporting the miners and supplied money to bring the miners wages back to their previous level. This was seen as a victory for the working class, and soon became known as ‘Red Friday’.

The government soon said that the money they gave towards the miner’s wages, would only last nine months, so therefore the Government decided to set up another Royal Commission, which would help to resolve all the problems with the mining industry. The Commission was made up of Sir Herbert Samuel, General Sir Herbert Lawrence, Sir William Beveridge and Kenneth Lee.

In March 1926, the Samuel Commision stated that they recognised that the industry was unorganised and needed to be sorted out in a report. However, they opposed to the ideas of nationalization and recommended the Government should stop giving the industry money, for the miner’s wages. They also thought that the miner’s wages should still be reduced.

At the same time as this report was published, the mine owners also stated the new terms of employment. This included making the miners work longer days, district wage-agreements, and a reduction in all wages. The wages would be cut by 10% to 25%.

The Miners Federation and the mine owners, tried desperately to come to an agreement about what to do about the workers, but they could not come to an agreement. Soon the mine owners announced that all workers had to agree with the terms they had stated by the first day of May – otherwise they would be sacked.

The Trade Union were disgusted, and the executives met up on the 1st of May for a special Conference. They decided that a General Strike “in defence of miner’s wages and hour” was going to occur two days later.

It seemed that the leaders of the Trade Union Council and the Labour Party weren’t very happy about the idea of a General Strike happening. Therefore, during the next two days, they tried frantically to come to an agreement with the Government and the mine-owners. The trade Union Council decided to call a General Strike on the understanding that they would represent the miner’s in the negotiations and the main person involved in the negotiations was Jimmy Thomas of the National Union of Railwaymen. On the Sunday night, Thomas thought they were close to a sensible agreement, but just before they could agree Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister, stopped all of the negotiations, as the printers at the ‘Daily Mail’ newspaper had refused to print an article which was against the proposed General Strike.

The Trade Union Council tried to apologise for the newspapers actions, but Baldwin stopped the talks and the General Strike began the next day.

In conclusion I feel that the end of World War One was the most important cause leading up to the General Strike. I believe all of the causes were important, however I think that during World War One a lot of people had new jobs that they hadn’t had before, but when the war was over a lot of these jobs were not needed anymore and a lot of people lost jobs and lost money. I think that the main long term causes of the General Strike were the reduction of the miner’s wages and the Transport and General Workers Union being set up. Wage reductions probably reduced the total morale of all the workers and may have caused them to feel bitter towards the people they worked for. Transport and General Workers Union was a well-established union who were powerful enough to openly stand up against the government.