Why did the General Strike of 1926 take Place?

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Why did the General Strike of 1926 take Place?

This is historically important because it was the first and only General Strike, the strike took place between May 4th – 12th. The coal industry was in the middle of the dispute about workers pay, the workers had lower pay and longer hours other industries were in sympathy of this, like railway workers road transport, iron, steel, coal and gas all supported the miners. It was unions supporting workers against the government supporting employers, which led to the General Strike. There were many different causes of the General Strike, Historical, Economical, Industrial, and Political, psychological and social, which also involved a flashpoint. These different causes differ from short term to long-term causes.

One of the first long term causes of the General Strike was Government Subsidy 1914 – 1918. Mine owners wanted government control, the miners and railway workers both got this, but after the war both miners and railway workers demanded nationalisation which they saw as a solution to their industries problems. The Sankey commission of 1919 was a Royal commission in which owners and miners were equally represented under the chairman of Sir John Sankey. The government promised to meet the demands of the Sankey Commission, but a report came out in favour of nationalisation, when the Government found out about this it refused to accept this on the excuse that that the commission was not unanimous in the recommendations. After this the government decided to give the miners back to private ownership in 1921. The miners were disappointed about this because it meant that they had no hope of nationalisation. The miners were in a bad way after this point because of old un-mechanised pits, which went back to the days of the industrial revolution; this meant high wage cuts for the workers because they were selling little coal due to the bad pits. If the mine owners had government ownership the miners would have been in better conditions and the mine owners would have sold more coal to other countries.

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A short-term cause of the General Strike would have been the French invasion of the Ruhr Coal Fields in Germany; these fields were the biggest areas of German coal exports. German exports came to halt because of French occupation of the Ruhr. This meant the British coal exports hit a giant boom because Germany was buying coal off Britain to try and maintain coal export reputation without the Ruhr, this did not work because Britain was able to sell German coal exports from the Ruhr to other countries. This links into the point the British pits did not meet up ...

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