The Causes of the General Strike 1926.

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Laurian Wright UVF

Dr Shaw

History Course Work

The Causes of the General Strike 1926

On 4th May 1926 one million miners and two and a half million other workers were called out on strike by the Trade Union Congress. The strike lasted for an unprecedented eight days, until 12th May. There were three main causes to the General Strike: Britain's economic crisis during this period, the problems within the coal industry and the Government's policy towards the strike. The root cause of the General Strike, however, was the conflict within the coal industry.

For a brief period immediately following the first world war, Britain faced a boom. Workers were in a strong position and business was optimistic, believing that world demand for British goods would increase and trading would return to the success it had prior to the war.

However, in the spring of 1920, Britain experienced their worst economic slump in history. This was caused by a poor performance in foreign markets due to the lack of reinvestment and therefore modernisation in British industry, and increased competition abroad, especially from the USA and Germany. Britain's coal industry, for example, was trading less in 1925 than before the war.                      

In response to this slump, the Government tried to stabilise the British economy by reintroducing the Gold Standard in 1925. Unfortunately they overestimated the value of sterling by 10%, consequently increasing the problems of an already unstable British industry. However, the economic situation had not deteriorated to the extent to which a general strike was unavoidable. What was needed was a catalyst to ignite the problems. This catalyst came in the form of the coal industry, which was a prime example of a disappointing industrial performance.

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The loss of foreign markets, the fall of world commodity prices and the decline in the competitiveness of British coal in foreign markets due to the Gold Standard all exacerbated existing poor relations between mine owners and mine workers. When productivity fell in the mines due to lack of modernisation and reinvestment, mine owners responded by proposing a reduction in wages and an increase of  hours.

For miners, however the idea was neither conceivable or acceptable, they were already working in miserable conditions- two in every hundred miners were killed and twenty-five in every hundred were injured or crippled by ...

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