'The success of the first two Labour Governments was out weighed by the failures'. Discuss

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‘The success of the first two Labour Governments was outweighed by the failures’. Discuss

The success of Labour’s governments during its two terms in power, in the 1920’s easily outweighed its failures and shortcomings, in Britain. This was a Labour government that introduced the idea of free mass secondary education, built over half a million houses, and through Labour established Britain as a major player in European and World politics. The Labour government were in power at the time of the Great Depression, and their failure to address the serious economic crisis bought about as a result of an economic downturn, following the short boom after the war, may be seen as a severe weakness in the second government. However, these flaws may be seen as a small aspect of the overall policy of the Labour government, and cannot out-way the long-term success of their social and political policy plans.

When Labour first came in to power in 1924 they introduced many new policies, which were definite achievements, one such example, would be ‘John Wheatley’s Housing Act’, which provided £9 million p.a. for local councils to build new homes. By 1933 well over 500,000 houses had been built, providing much needed shelter and accommodation for the poor and homeless. Some other imported achievement by the Labour government, were the rising of pensions and unemployment benefit. In addition the gap between the 2, 16-week periods of unemployment benefit was abolished. This meant that the unemployed could stay of work for up to 32 weeks consecutively in a single year, giving them a much needed income. However, many still felt that the number of 32 weeks should be increased, as there were still 20 weeks when no income would be coming in, leaving the vulnerable homeless, even more vulnerable.

In this first government, there were many educational reforms, such as the reintroduction of state scholarships for university students. Also, in 1926, the Education Minister C.P Trevalyan appointed commissions to review the education system. These commissions, known as the ‘Hadow Report’ introduced a separation in the schools’ structure. Children over the age of 11 were to study in the new ‘secondary’ school, and this established the principle of free secondary education for all, meaning that not only the wealthy had access to secondary education.

These policies were directed at improving the living conditions of the poor. The new government showed that Britain needed to leave its Victorian attitudes behind and work towards improving standards of living for the lowest social classes.

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The foreign policies of the Labour government achieved success, even though most of these ultimately proved unnecessary and irrelevant in the long term. The most successful policy for the first Labour government was the ‘Dawes Plan’ at the London Conference, which resolved the reparations dispute between France and Germany, and the USA agreed to lend money to Germany. This ultimately meant that France had to stop occupying the Ruhr valley, thus allowing Germany to continue to produce coal. However, in the long run this was a disaster for the UK as Britain’s coal’s exports to drop, as Germany’s coal was cheaper due to more efficient mining methods.

The Labour government also established the Geneva Protocol, which proposed to strengthen the League of Nations, but this was not ratified before the governments fall, and the next government, under Baldwin, later rejected this protocol.

The last major foreign achievement was the full diplomatic recognition of the Communist regime in Russia, along with a trade treaty, and negotiations about a loan with the Russians. This ‘friendship’ with Russia proved unpopular with many the British people, as they felt the Labour government was sympathetic with the Communists. However, many in the Labour government felt that MacDonald was not radical enough. Of the three major problems faced during their first term in power, the Labour Left wing may have proved to be the most difficult to stop. Many of the Labour Left Wing, felt betrayed by Ramsay MacDonald as he only had one Left Wing member in his Cabinet, Wheatley, who devised the housing act. Many of the Labour Left Wing, felt that MacDonald was not radical enough and was therefore betraying Socialism.

The belief that MacDonald was selling out Socialism was ironic, as it was his attitude to Socialism, which caused another big problem. This led to much British hysteria about communism taking over Great Britain, so causing a ‘Red Scare’. The treaties with Russia, led to fear amongst the Conservatives, which peaked with the Campbell case, when an editor of a Workers paper published an article for soldiers, not to shoot striking workers. This showed that many Communists felt that Communism would spread to Britain. Campbell was later tried but not convicted for the charge of Treason.

The third major problem for Labour was the government relations with the Trade Unions. Labour had been set up as a party for workers and trade Union members (proletarians), so the Labour government was annoyed, when as soon as they came in to power, the Dockers went on strike. The strike had no connection with Labour coming into power and was just bad timing for the new government, but did cause tension between MacDonald and the Trade Unions. Once this strike was resolved, the London Transport workers also went on strike and this led to MacDonald declaring a State of Emergency, and so once the strike was resolved it became very embarrassing for Labour. MacDonald felt betrayed by the union members, because they had caused so much trouble for the union party, but the Trade Unions felt that they had to strike, so as to improve working conditions and pay, and they said that it did not matter whom was in power.

With all these problems, and Herbert Asquith, leader of the Liberals, calling for an inquiry in to the Campbell case, MacDonald had had enough, and felt that this inquiry was meant as a vote of no confidence, so he resigned as Prime Minister, shortly after this and without their influential leader, and the emergence of a Communist letter talking about a revolution in England, Labour lost the next election to the Conservatives. Nonetheless they still gained more votes than they had previously had, and were now the main opposition and increasing their number of MP’s over the Liberal party, who were now struggling to mount a serious challenge to the government, with less than 1/8 of the MP’s in Parliament.

In 1929, Labour was re-elected, just 5 years after MacDonald had resigned causing the first Labour government to collapse. This time, however, they had a the most seats, with 28 more MP’s than the Conservatives. The main reason Labour came into power, was because of the mass unemployment being suffered by many, even before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which caused the world financial markets to plummet. Labour came in to power as they fought on a platform of economic stability. They challenged the economic problems faced due to the decline of the coal trade and a large balance of payments deficit as well as other factors. With the Conservatives being disliked due to the economic crisis occurring during their time in power and Lloyd George being distrusted by the public, Labour got in to power as a minority government.

This Labour government, which was also run by MacDonald, had fewer domestic successes, and many problems. Although The Arthur Greenwood Housing Act in 1930, which re-introduced subsidies for council houses and slum clearance, proved to be popular in this time of recession, it was unusual in its success. The only other notable domestic achievement of the second Labour government was the Coal Mines Act (1930), which reduced the miner’s working day from 8 hours to 7 and half hours. This won MacDonald the support of the Unions again.

The Liberals and Conservatives in the House of Commons, and later the House of Lords blocked other reforms that Labour tried to introduce. The main three were the repeal of the 1927 Trades Disputes Act, raising the leaving age for school children to 15 and reforming the electoral system. Ironically, the Liberals later tried to support the reformation of the electoral system after Labour were in power, but have not been successful in achieving these aims.

The second Labour government did however gain many foreign achievements. The most notable, was the Young Plan of 1929, which lowered the German reparation bill to £2.2 billion, which was to be paid back over 59 years. The Foreign Secretary, Arthur Anderson, bringing about an allied withdrawal from the Rhineland, 5 years early, shortly followed this. This improved relations with Germany but was subsequently undermined by the death of Stresemann and the Wall Street Crash.

Britain re-opened trade with Russia, and improved relations with America after a successful visit. Henderson became a respected statesman and was chosen to be President of the World Disarmament Conference, which was due to meet in 1932. However, this was never to work as Germany walked out of the League of Nations.

However, despite the foreign, the economic crisis grew with the Wall Street Crash in Oct 1929. By 1930 at the height of the depression, Britain had 2.5 million people unemployed. This was where MacDonald made some of his worst judgements.

Many people were appealing for the public work schemes, proposed by Lloyd George. Also, Sir Oswald Mosley, with the help of the World famous Economist, Keynes, produced a memorandum, stating that Britain should put restrictions on imports so British products would be bought. He also said that the government should take control of banks, pension age should be changed to 60, and the school leaving age should be raised to 15. Al these policies were rejected by MacDonald and the Chancellor, Philip Snowden. MacDonald and Snowden preferred to stay with orthodox policies on dealing with the crisis, causing Mosley to create his own party called the ‘New Party’.

The Economic crisis however got worse, with both unemployment and the budget deficit growing. MacDonald set up a committee under Sir George May, which published a report in May. However, the May report made things worse, with investors fearing that Britain was going to go Bankrupt, they sold pounds, and with Britain on the Gold standard, the government had to sell gold and buy up pounds with foreign currency.

With the TUC advising Britain to leave the gold standard, and MacDonald and Snowden ignoring them due to fear of inflation, the May report was implemented by the Bank of England to restore investor confidence. Ultimately this led to a split in the cabinet, and caused MacDonald to make a coalition government, which did eventually drop the gold standard.

The labour governments cannot be singled out as either successful or unsuccessful as they came in to power in less than favourable circumstance. Both times they were a minority government, subject to the disagreement of the Liberals and the Tory party. The second term in power, was unduly hard due to the Wall Street Crash, happening in an already crumbling economy. It is therefore necessary to look at the achievements introduced by the Labour government, the way in which they affected Britain. The government improved working conditions, and education for the poorer people of Britain, and it implemented many housing laws, which housed near to a million families, therefore I believe that for the era, with an unchanging Conservative party who were happy with things being left as it was, and a disputing Liberal Party, Labour were as good a choice as any other party, and probably did more for the poorer echelons of British society than the other parties would have, at a time when the poor were particularly vulnerable.

Adam Harris Page