by Frank McLynn
By the morning of Monday 10 May the General Council had reached the point of being desperate to call off the strike, if they could only find a way to do it without sacrificing their credibility, abandoning the miners and incurring the charge of having presided over another Red Friday. There were alarming rumours about government intentions: calling up army reservists, arresting the members of the General Council and the local strike committees, impounding and expropriating all union funds.54 It was known that Baldwin was under extreme pressure from the hawks, with Neville Chamberlain foremost. ‘The best and kindest thing,’ said Chamberlain, ‘is to strike hard and quickly.’55 The government did intend to move decisively against the TUC but via the law, through making all sympathetic strikes illegal. Most of 10 May was spent in detailed discussions about the precise wording of the bill to be rushed through Parliament, but by late afternoon there was a complete about-turn. Baldwin told his colleagues that the king had vetoed the proposal in the strongest possible terms, fearing it would fan the flames of revolution.56 Meanwhile on the General Council Thomas and John Bromley were pressing hard for the miners to be cut adrift. Bromley declared: ‘I am willing to fight right along with them [the miners] and to suffer as a consequence, but I am not going to be strangled by my friends.’ When he heard this, an exasperated Herbert Smith replied: ‘If he wants to get out of this fight, well, I am not going to stop him.’57 The defeatist triumvirate of Thomas, Bromley and Pugh continued to utter warnings of the dire consequences if a settlement was not reached soon, but Citrine comforted himself with the generally good humour induced by the weather, which had been bright and sunny except for a curious patch on the afternoon of 5 May when a thick brown fog enveloped London.58 Great hopes were set on Samuel, but his early reports were not encouraging. When Herbert Smith and A. J. Cook met him on 10 May, they found him spluttering with fury at the mine owners’ reaction to his intervention. Far from making concessions, they were demanding much steeper wage reductions than recommended by the Royal Commission, and this at a time when Samuel was seeking for further compromise. Once again the two Herberts (Smith and Samuel) engaged in a lot of friendly badinage, but Samuel made it clear that he thought Smith, not Cook, was the real obstacle to peace when he remarked: ‘When it is a case of Herbert versus Herbert, then there is bound to be a tug of war.’59 From these talks emerged the famous Samuel memorandum, later the subject of bitter disputation. It proposed a renewal of the subsidy pending further negotiations; a national wages board under an impartial chairman; and no revision of wages until the new board was satisfied that the government would ‘effectively adopt’ reorganisation in the mining industry. To humour Smith, Samuel added that it would be a fixed condition that the wages of the lowest-paid miners would not be lowered. The inevitable issue of wage cuts in general was fudged at this stage, as Samuel wanted the miners to sign up to the memorandum. With their agreement to the document he could put Baldwin on the spot. Smith agreed to consider the memorandum once he had called a delegate meeting of the MFGB.60
The irrepressible Thomas found all this too good an opportunity to miss and jumped the gun in spectacular fashion. Either with a mandate from the negotiating committee or on his own initiative (it is not entirely clear which) he used his entrée into government circles and held man-to-man talks with Baldwin. While conceding nothing, Baldwin was happy to have this unique insight into thinking on the General Council. Thomas surpassed himself in duplicity this time, playing both sides against the middle. He told Baldwin that the miners would accept wage cuts if the government in turn accepted the rest of the Samuel memorandum. He then told the General Council that Samuel was making proposals at the behest of the government, even though Samuel had already told Arthur Pugh that he was acting entirely on his own initiative. Both statements were flat lies. But Thomas was determined to brazen it out, hoping that he could somehow ‘bounce’ both sides into compromise and he could then don the halo of peacemaker. Under questioning by the General Council he stated categorically that the negotiating committee had secured withdrawal of the lockout notices and the resumption of work at the old wages.61 He and Bromley meanwhile started a campaign of disinformation to the effect that there had been a significant drift back to work by the strikers – another grotesque falsehood. His Machiavellianism was in vain. On 11 May the MFGB finally and categorically rejected the Samuel memorandum. Smith pointed out (correctly) that the issue of wage cuts had been fudged, that the memorandum did not contain clear and explicit guarantees on reorganisation and the withdrawal of lockout notices. He was scathing about Thomas’s secret meetings with Samuel and Baldwin: ‘I don’t understand what has been going on in these conversations. I don’t believe in these methods and I protest about the miners not being consulted. Why should a decision be taken tonight? Have you committed us to anything?’62 Thomas exhorted the miners to change their mind but they were adamant, and he was reduced to the somewhat piteous pleas with reference to Samuel: ‘You may not trust my word, but will you not accept the word of a British gentleman who has been Governor of Palestine?’63 Smith and Cook replied that a gentleman’s word was irrelevant; what mattered was binding guarantees that Baldwin would have to carry out. The miners’ inflexibility was understandable but was a tactical mistake. Their scepticism was warranted, as even the General Council was sceptical that Samuel could deliver the goods.64 But the miners’ refusal to countenance the Samuel memorandum once again let Baldwin off the hook. If they had accepted it, the prime minister would have been in an almost impossible position, faced with either risking the wrath of public opinion through intransigence or precipitating a cabinet revolt in which Birkenhead, Churchill, Chamberlain, Salisbury, Joynson-Hicks and Steel-Maitland would all have taken part. Acceptance of the memorandum would certainly have secured the MFGB better terms than it eventually gained.65 And it handed the propaganda advantage to the other side, enabling both the government and the TUC to say that the miners’ obstinacy was the only real obstacle to peace. As Harold Laski wrote to the eminent American jurist Felix Frankfurter about the ‘impossibility’ of the miners: ‘They never budged an inch throughout. They have no plans, and if they had their way, the TUC would be out until Domesday. Even now they have nothing to say except that they won’t budge. I have certainly never seen more hopeless (though more courageous) leadership than theirs.’66 Blaming the miners also allowed Thomas to indulge in more of his eccentric behaviour – sometimes so bizarre that Citrine seriously thought he was cracking up. Thomas and Bromley said openly that the miners were selfish and solipsistic, with no regard for the wider union movement. Histrionically he declared that he had had enough and that he was going back to ‘his own people’ (the railwaymen).67 Bromley cried out that he and Thomas intended to take their men back to work unilaterally if the strike was not called off. ‘Take them back,’ shouted Herbert Smith defiantly. Bevin made a futile final intervention with what some considered an attempt to bully Smith, but the burly West Countryman met his match in the burly Yorkshireman.68
The General Council originally wanted to call off the strike on the evening of 11 May, partly to forestall the emergence of the second wave which Bevin had instituted; now that the TUC was determined to cut its losses and accept whatever terms it could secure, escalation of the dispute was the last thing they needed. But the miners insisted there had to be further talks between the MFGB and the General Council, even though it was difficult to see what the two sides had to talk about any longer.69 Bevin and Thomas were both vehement that their members had suffered grievous losses on the miners’ behalf, that the miners were ingrates who seemed to think they had a divine right to be supported through thick and thin, and that enough was enough. In both the NUR and the TGWU the issue of superannuation rights had suddenly come to the fore, as the strikers realised that their actions might have serious pension implications.70 The General Council was now determined to use the Samuel memorandum as the fig-leaf with which to clothe their humiliation. If they could go to Baldwin and get h
is agreement to proceed on the basis of the memorandum, they hoped they could still the increasingly vociferous taunts from the miners that they were being sold out.71 The General Council held a plenary session at 6 p.m. on Tuesday 11 May to decide the details of their approach to Baldwin, but were forced to postpone an actual visit to Downing Street when Smith and the miners requested yet another meeting, which was held at 8 p.m. At the meeting Smith waved a copy of the Samuel memorandum in the air and said his executive would retire to make its final decision on it.72 But before leaving, he fired this Parthian shot: ‘Do you people realise the serious position you are putting yourselves in? Are you going back without any consideration for the men who are going to be victimised in this movement? Are you not going to consider that at all?’73 While they were gone, Bevin began to express doubts about the direction in which Thomas was nudging the General Council. Suppose the miners returned to say they accepted the memorandum, but Baldwin then refused to accept it? What guarantees were there from the government? And if the strike was called off, who would guarantee that there would be no workplace victimisation? Even Citrine began to be convinced for, as he put it: ‘I do not feel that we should hand ourselves over body and soul to Baldwin.’74 All this seemed somewhat academic when Smith and the miners returned just before midnight to give their final veto. Smith said they could not accept the document as it stood, and if the General Council wanted to do so, they must accept full responsibility and state this in writing. Citrine recorded that this made ‘a nasty impression’, but it was quite clear that the MFGB wanted to cast all the blame onto the TUC so that they would not face censure from their own delegates.75 Amazingly, Bevin proposed yet another meeting with the miners next morning, claiming that an eleventh-hour breakthrough was still not impossible. As the talk went on, with the clock creeping up to 1 a.m., a phone message came through from 10 Downing Street. The prime minister’s secretary spoke to Citrine and said that Baldwin had been sitting up long past his usual bedtime, hoping for some tidings from the TUC. Did the General Council have any news for him?76 The reality was that Thomas had primed Baldwin about the TUC’s imminent abject surrender, but not about the postponement, so the prime minister was mystified that the expected white flag had not appeared. Citrine rang off, went upstairs to the council room at Eccleston Square, consulted with his colleagues, then rang Number 10 back with word that the General Council would go to see the prime minister at noon the next day. This was accepted as a firm commitment by both sides. As Citrine went to bed at 2 a.m., he reflected that his phone call effectively signalled the end of the General Strike.77
Next morning, after another predictably futile meeting between Bevin, plus a six-man TUC delegation, and the miners, when they adamantly refused to change their stance, the members of the negotiating committee made their way to Downing Street. Bevin was slightly late for the colloquy with Baldwin and had to make a fast cab journey from the MFGB headquarters at Russell Square to Number 10. He caught up with his colleagues (Ben Turner, Pugh, Swales, Citrine and Thomas) in an ante-room, where it became apparent that Baldwin was determined on his pound of flesh. Sir Horace Wilson told the deputation that they would not be admitted to the prime minister’s presence unless they gave a cast-iron guarantee that the only reason for their presence was to call off the strike. Bevin was angry at this contemptuous treatment and exclaimed: ‘For Christ’s sake let’s call it on again if this is the position.’78 Jimmy Thomas replied emolliently that the committee had come to call the strike off and should not be diverted from their objective by rudeness from Wilson and or Baldwin. The hapless delegation was then ushered into Baldwin’s presence to announce the surrender. With Baldwin were most of the hard liners – Birkenhead, Neville Chamberlain, Steel-Maitland, Bridgeman, Worthington-Evans – determined to squeeze the last drop of pleasure from the humiliation of their humbled foe.79 As Birkenhead later noted: ‘It was so humiliating that some instinctive breeding made one unwilling even to look at them. I thought of the burghers of Calais approaching their interview with Edward III, haltered on the neck.’80 Arthur Pugh then made a long, rambling statement which wound up with the following: ‘We are here today, sir, to say that this general strike is to be terminated forthwith in order that negotiations may proceed, and we can only hope may proceed in a manner which will bring about a satisfactory settlement.’ Baldwin replied with a statement that in the light of his subsequent actions cannot be regarded as other than the purest humbug: ‘All I would say in answer to this is that I thank God for your decision … I shall lose no time in using every endeavour to get the two contending parties together and do all I can to ensure a just and lasting settlement.’81 Thomas said he needed the prime minister’s help to prevent what he called ‘guerrilla warfare’ – his abiding fear that the strikers would ignore the TUC’s treachery and carry on regardless. It was clear that he was desperate to end the strike on almost any terms and to that end was willing to waive all talk about the Samuel memorandum, lockout notices, miners’ pay and protection against victimisation of workers returning to their jobs. It is often said that in the face of a terrible emergency, a plane crash, say, only 10 per cent of those involved can react with anything other than panic. The atmosphere that day was like that, with all the members of the negotiating committee except Bevin seemingly paralysed by the enormity of the situation they now found themselves in.82 The only person on the TUC side who kept his head and pressed Baldwin for some genuine guarantees on his intentions was Bevin. Sharply he posed the question of positive reassurances on reinstatement for the strikers and resumption of negotiations with the miners. Baldwin brushed this aside with bromides and, when Bevin persisted, bridled and replied pompously: ‘You know my record. I think it may be that whatever decision I come to, the House of Commons may be the best place in which to say it.’83
Almost before they could recover their wits, the members of the negotiating committee were out in the corridor. For the first time Bevin realised the extent of Thomas’s knavery. The negotiating committee had agreed a threefold programme: call off the strike, negotiate on the Samuel memorandum, and resume work in an orderly manner with no victimisation. To his stupefaction it now transpired that the other members of the committee had lamely allowed Baldwin to cherrypick the single issue of the ending of the strike without the other matters which were supposed to be its corollary.84 It seemed to Bevin that without a guarantee on victimisation the TUC had effectively committed suicide. He told his colleagues before leaving: ‘Thousands of men will be victimised as a result of this day’s work.’ Later that day, as he realised how deeply the General Council had been duped by Thomas’s oft-repeated assertion that Samuel was acting as the government’s unofficial agent, he told all who would listen that he had been ‘sold a bill of goods’ and had voted to end the strike on the basis of wholly false information.85 The naivety of the other members of the negotiating committee and their inability to see through Jimmy Thomas were evinced by the correspondence published in the British Worker next day – including the full text of the Samuel memorandum and the letters exchanged between Samuel and Pugh on the subject – which concluded with the following ingenuous declaration: ‘They (the General Council) assume that during the resumed negotiations the subsidy will be renewed and the lockout notices to the miners will be immediatedly withdrawn.’ Incredible as it may sound, all the committee but Bevin still trusted Baldwin.86 How treacherous Baldwin was became clear late that afternoon when he issued the following communiqué: ‘His Majesty’s Government have no power to compel employers to take back every man who has been on strike, nor have they entered any obligation of any kind on this matter.’87 Few members of the public would have read this obscure pronouncement but millions heard the bogus avuncular Baldwin on the radio when he announced: ‘Our business is not to triumph over those who failed in a mistaken attempt.’ The public was also reassured when the king appealed for an end to all bitterness on 13 May.88 Baldwin craftily left it until 14 May before expressly repudiating
the Samuel memorandum – the first clear indication of the direction he really meant to take. Meanwhile in his circle triumphalism was the order of the day – and, sadly, that circle included the reformist trio of the Labour Party, Thomas, Snowden and Ramsay MacDonald. Thomas openly praised the ‘settlement’ (he refrained from calling it unconditional surrender), and MacDonald noted in his diary: ‘Thomas rang me and spoke through tears. He has been photographed with the railway managers and feels that the old happy world has returned.’89 Birkenhead, Thomas’s trans-class chum, was especially delighted about the turn of events. He declared that the failure of the strike proved once again that ‘old England’ could always defeat all enemies: it had seen off the pope in the sixteenth century, the Jacobites in the eighteenth, Napoleon in the nineteenth and now revolutionary socialism in the twentieth.90
