‘A strike is a strike against employers to compel employers to do something, but a General Strike is a strike against the general public’
some, including the Prime Minister went further than this to call the general strike an ‘attack’. Baldwin’s speech has the tone of someone who is preparing for a war. He took a very melodramatic approach to addressing the nation about the General Strike saying such things as; ‘Constitutional government is being attacked’ not only that, but he went on to try to convince the people that it was an attack on all of the citizens within the country ‘whose livelihood and labour have thus been put in peril’. In what was no more than scare mongering and a rallying cry of support from the people, Baldwin attempted to exaggerate the impact of the strikers’ actions, and hence tarnish the image of the TUC in the public eye. The British Gazette, whose editor was Winston Churchill, shared the government view, in a very opinionated article, The Gazette attempted to demean the TUC, in saying that in calling the General Strike they were short-sighted and did not realise ‘that they were threatening the basis of ordered government’. This was the view shared by most in government. who suggest that the General Strike was not an industrial dispute, rather it was a political one.
It was mainly the strikers and members of the TUC who were trying to make the General Strike not seem as if it was a political dispute. Far from the ‘anarchy and ruin’ a report from a labour orientated paper ‘The Daily Herald’ quoted the General Council of the TUC in telling strikers that ‘violence and disorder must be avoided’. They insisted that the ‘trade unions were only fighting in defence of the mine-workers’; meaning that their quarrel was at an industrial level, and that the ‘national crisis’ was of the government’s making. Statements attempting to deflect Baldwin’s speech in the British Worker wee simple and direct; ‘The General Council…. Does not challenge the Constitution.’ It tried to reiterate that the TUC had issued orders that meant the strike was continuing ‘strictly on the basis of an industrial dispute’.
The main differences between the sources are that those from government viewpoint try to portray the TUC as on the attack. Whereas, those sources that promote the TUC’s perspective try to accentuate their orders of peacefulness and try to emphasise that they are only acting in self-defence. It is the diary of the neutral who gives an excellent perspective, in challenging the methods of the TUC she highlights, like Sir John Simon, that despite good intentions, the nature of a General Strike means that it is a challenge to the nation as a whole because it affects more than just the mine owners. Evidence taken from sources who could be seen to be partial to one of sides involved means that their reliability could be questioned. Therefore, it is the factual evidence within the sources and the neutral source that goes to show that despite the General Council’s best intentions, and even if the strikers’ conduct was excellent then the General Strike could not be executed at only an industrial dispute level. However, its consequences were always going to be quite a way from Baldwin’s and the Gazette’s apocalyptic visions.