"Government mishandling was the most important reason why the General Strike broke out in 1926" How far do you agree?

by asdfghjkl_ali (student)

There are many factors that contributed to the outbreak of the General Strike on May 4th 1926. However, the Government may not have been completely to blame for all of these. There are many background causes including the underlying problems in the coal industry and the impact of World War I that may have influenced the events that occurred. Furthermore, there are many groups such as the mine owners, the mine leaders and the TUC that also potentially contributed to the General Strike. How much these groups' decisions were controlled by the Government's actions equates to how much the Government's mishandling was the most important reason for the outbreak of the General Strike.

The majority of the actions of the mine owners did not benefit the welfare of their workers and the owners seemed to 'provoke' the miners. The mine owners continued to exploit the miners and profits overruled the health and safety of the workers. If the miners could not afford to buy a Davy lamp then they would make them pay for the hire of one each week. Furthermore, all profits made were spent on industry finances and this meant that safety improvements were neglected. One miner was killed every 6 hours and one was severely injured every 2 hours. The ...

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However, the Government was approached by Alfred Mond and asked to force a settlement onto the owners in which Baldwin simply refused. If this settlement was considered, it may have prevented the strike. Also, due to the brief return of the Gold Standard (a decision made by the Government) the prices of goods produced by the Staple Industries became uncompetitive and less sales were being made; this led to less money being made by mine owners and consequently large pay cuts for workers in the mines.

The mine leaders' best interests were always the welfare of their workers, although their bad negotiation skills sometimes meant that they ended up in a worse situation. The mine leaders were always devoted to the miners' cause and tried to improve the working standards for their men, however this was restricted by the mine owners who left little money after profits were put into industrial finances. Furthermore, Smith and Cook were bad negotiators and did not offer enough flexibility when asking for the complete stop of wage cuts. They should have tried to minimise them instead of stop them altogether.

Although the mine leaders visited the Prime Minister at his home they were unsuccessful in seeing him. Cook tried to tell Baldwin that they must have a national minimum but Baldwin did nothing. A national minimum may have instated some control into the dispute over wage cuts and therefore prevented a strike.

The TUC left miners feeling betrayed and may have added fuel to the fire that was the General Strike. The TUC offered sympathetic support