The Road Not Taken
Page 75
87. John Gilbert Murray, The General Strike of 1926 (1951), pp. 68–9.
88. Daily Herald (31 July 1925); Arthur Pugh, Men of Steel (1951), pp. 389–90.
89. G. A. Phillips, The General Strike: The Politics of Industrial Conflict (1976), p. 69.
90. Citrine, Men and Work, p. 142.
91. Phillips, General Strike, p. 67.
92. Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald, p. 424.
93. Bullock, Bevin, i, p. 274.
94. Renshaw, General Strike, pp. 128–9.
95. Taylor, English History, p. 241.
96. M. Kirby, The British Coalmining Industry, 1870–1946: A Political and Economic History (1977), p. 78.
97. More will be said about Baldwin later. The standard biography is Keith Middlemas and John Barnes, Baldwin (1969).
98. John Bowle, Viscount Samuel (1957), p. 240.
99. Quoted in Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes, p. 704.
100. Bernard Wasserstein, ‘Herbert Samuel and the Palestine Problem’, EHR, 91 (1976), pp. 753–75.
101. John Harris, William Beveridge: A Biography (Oxford, 1977), pp. 34–41.
102. Michael Hughes, Cartoons from the General Strike (1968), pp. 21–2.
103. Herbert Samuel, Memoirs (1945), p. 184.
104. Stephen A. Schuker, The End of French Predominance in Europe: The Financial Crisis of 1924 and the Adoption of the Dawes Plan (Chapel Hill, NC, 1976).
105. Herbert Wasserstein, Herbert Samuel: A Political Life (Oxford, 1992), pp. 276–8.
106. Samuel, Memoirs, p. 184.
107. Pugh, Men of Steel, pp. 397–9; Kirby, British Coalmining Industry, p. 76.
108. Robert Skidelsky, Politicians and the Slump: The Labour Government of 1929–1931 (1970), p. 24.
109. Supple, History of the British Coal Industry, p. 240.
110. Kirby, British Coalmining Industry, p. 86; Middlemas and Barnes, Baldwin, p. 397.
13 The General Strike and Its Enemies
1. The massive work by Keith Middlemas and John Barnes, Baldwin: A Biography (1969), is a sustained case for the defence. More sceptical views are found in Taylor, English History, and Mowat, Britain Between the Wars.
2. Philip Williamson, Stanley Baldwin: Conservative Leadership and National Values (Cambridge, 1999).
3. Robert Blake, The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858–1923 (1955), pp. 491–4.
4. Alfred F. Havighurst, Britain in Transition: The Twentieth Century (1985), p. 188.
5. For Baldwin in the abdication crisis see Middlemas and Barnes, Baldwin, pp. 979–1008. These authors defend Baldwin on the rearmament issue on the grounds that public opinion at the time was not ready for rearmament (ibid., p. 772).
6. Jones, Whitehall Diaries, passim; cf. also C. L. Mowat, ‘Baldwin Restored?’, Journal of Modern History, 27 (1955), pp. 169–74.
7. G. M. Young, Stanley Baldwin (1952), p. 99.
8. The Times (25 July 1925).
9. F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts, 1832–1987 (Aldershot, 1989).
10. Perkins, General Strike, p. 84.
11. Taylor, English History, pp. 240–1.
12. Skidelsky, Keynes, p. 232.
13. Middlemas and Barnes, Baldwin, pp. 168, 260.
14. Havighurst, Britain in Transition, pp. 188–9.
15. The 4th Marquess of Salisbury (1861–1947) was notable mainly for his longevity. As lord privy seal and leader of the House of Lords he was a valuable Baldwin ally, though his natural partner was Churchill, whom he supported especially over Indian Home Rule. Leo Amery was an altogether more substantial political figure. See L. S. Amery, My Political Life, 3 vols (1955); John Barnes and David Nicolson, eds, The Leo Amery Diaries, 1896–1929 (1980); Philip Williamson, National Crisis and National Government: British Politics, the Economy and Empire 1929–1932 (Cambridge, 1992); David Faber, Speaking for England; Leo, Julian and John Amery. The Tragedy of a Politial Family Tree (2005).
16. Bridgeman was an ex-Home Secretary (1922–4) with a reputation for harshness. He was notable mainly for being a steadfast Baldwin supporter; see Venn, eds, Alumni Cantabrigienses, II, i, p. 376. Just as some politicians are obsessed with foreign affairs to the detriment of matters at home, Neville Chamberlain was always more interested in domestic affairs, and it may have been his lack of interest in foreign affairs that finally brought him to grief. David Dutton, Neville Chamberlain (2001); Robert Self, Neville Chamberlain. A Biography (2006).
17. Robert Rhodes James, Memoirs of a Conservative: J. C. C. Davidson’s Memoirs and Papers, 1910–1937 (1969), p. 255.
18. Jones, Whitehall Diaries, ii, p. 12.
19. The fullest study is by John Campbell, F. E. Smith: First Earl of Birkenhead (1983).
20. See Rodney Lowe and Richard Roberts, ‘Sir Horace Wilson, 1900–1935: The Making of a Mandarin’, Historical Journal, 30 (1987), pp. 641–62; Leonard Mosley, On Borrowed Time (1969); R. J. Câputi, Neville Chamberlain and Appeasement (2000). Cato (M. Foot, P. Howard, F. Owen), Guilty Men (1940), Martin Gilbert, ‘Horace Wilson, Man of Munich’, History Today, 32 (1982).
21. Sir Wyndham Childs, Episodes and Reflections (1930).
22. Manchester Guardian (26 October 1925).
23. Robert Benewick, The Fascist Movement in Britain (1972), p. 38.
24. Margaret Morris, The General Strike (1980), p. 381.
25. An uncritical biography of Joynson-Hicks is W. A. Taylor, Jix (1933). Much better is David Cesarini, ‘Joynson-Hicks and the Radical Right in England after the First World War’, in Tony Kusher and Kenneth Lunn, eds, Traditions of Intolerance: Historical Perspectives on Fascism and Race Discourse in Britain (Manchester, 1989), pp. 118–39. On the more complex question of Jix’s relationship to Nazism see W. D. Rubinstein, ‘Recent Anglo-Jewish Historiography and the Myth of Jix’s Anti-Semitism’, Australian Journal of Jewish Studies, 7 (1993), pp. 24–5. For the Red mania in the security services see Perkins, General Strike, pp. 63–6.
26. Perkins, General Strike, pp. 71–2.
27. Rhodes James, Memoirs, of a Conservative, pp. 169–70.
28. Phillips, General Strike, p. 98.
29. Ibid., p. 97.
30. The Times (5, 8 October 1925).
31. Asa Briggs, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom (1961), i, p. 367.
32. Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, The Long Weekend (1940), p. 148.
33. Quoted in Trotsky, Where is Britain Going?, p. 136.
34. Bullock, Bevin, pp. 78, 280.
35. See, for example Howell, MacDonald’s Party, pp. 59, 75; Herbert Morrison, Autobiography (1960), p. 111; Bernard O’Donoghue and G. W. Jones, Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician (1973), p. 79.
36. Trotsky, Where is Britain Going?, p. viii. For his devastatingly withering view of Ramsay MacDonald see ibid., pp. 53–70.
37. Mowat, Britain between the Wars, p. 300.
38. Citrine, Men and Work, p. 194.
39. Morris, General Strike, p. 259; Mike Hughes, Spies at Work (1994), Ch. 4.
40. Ibid.
41. Jones, Whitehall Diaries, pp. 12–13
42. Ibid.
43. Christopher Farman, General Strike (1972), p. 73; Perkins, General Strike, pp. 86–7.
44. Renshaw, General Strike, pp. 82, 87.
45. Cole, ed., Diaries of Beatrice Webb (under 10 September 1926).
46. For Smith and his sayings see Jack Lawson, The Man in the Cap (1941).
47. Citrine, Men and Work, pp. 133–4.
48. Howell, MacDonald’s Party, p. 134; Farman, General Strike, p. 257.
49. See J. Gwynfor Jones, ‘Reflections on the Religious Revival in Wales 1904–05’, Journal of the United Reformed Church History Society, 7 (2005), pp. 427–55.
50. For this period in London’s career see Alex Kershaw, Jack London: A Life (1997), pp. 119–20.
51. Gwyn Evans and David Maddox, eds, The Tonypandy Riots, 1910–11 (Plymouth, 2010).
52. Citrine, Men and Work, p. 139.
54. Howell, MacDonald’s Party, p. 121.
55. W. H. Crook, The General Strike: A Study of Labor’s Tragic Weapon in Theory and Practice (NC, 1931), pp. 236–7.
56. Citrine, Men and Work, p. 139.
57. Howell, MacDonald’s Party, p. 120.
58. For favourable views of Cook see Paul Davies, A. J. Cook (Manchester, 1987), and Paul Foot, Agitator of the Worst Kind: A Portrait of Miners’ Leader A. J. Cook (1986).
59. David Kirkwood, My Life of Revolt (1935), p. 231.
60. Arthur Horner, Incorrigible Rebel (1961), p. 72; cf. also the testimony from Will Paynter, another famous Welsh miner (who led hunger strikes in the 1930s) in My Generation (1972).
61. Citrine Men and Work, p. 210.
62. Cole, ed., Diaries of Beatrice Webb, p. 116.
63. Kingsley Martin, Father Figures (1966), p. 162.
64. ‘Howell, MacDonald’s Party, pp. 120–1, 134.
65. Citrine, Men and Work, pp. 155, 209–10, 235–6.
66. For this trio see Alan Clinton, The Trade Union Rank and File: Trades Councils in Britain, 1900–1940 (1977), pp. 111–12; A. Hutt, The Postwar History of the Working Class (1937), p. 114; The Times (24 March 1926).
67. For the career of Ben Tillett (1860–1943) see Jonathan Schneer, Ben Tillett: Portrait of a Labour Leader (1982).
68. Peter Weiler, Ernest Bevin (Manchester, 1993), pp. 36–8; Bullock, Bevin, p. 236.
69. Bullock, Bevin, 1, p. 260; Howell, MacDonald’s Party, p. 187. ‘Bevin viewed many senior Labour politicians with a prickliness that degenerated into contempt and hatred.’ Ibid., p. 183.
70. Hugh Dalton, Call Back Yesterday (1953), pp. 273–4; Bullock, Bevin, p. 79.
71. Cole, ed., Diaries of Beatrice Webb, pp. 61, 178.
72. Citrine, Men and Work, pp. 189, 191.
73. Cole, ed., Diaries of Beatrice Webb, pp. 146–7.
74. Walter Citrine, Two Careers (1967), pp. 864–5.
75. Citrine, Men and Work, pp. 270, 293, 300; Cole, ed., Diaries of Beatrice Webb, p. 147.
76. John Lloyd, Light and Liberty: A History of the EEPTU (1990), pp. 146–53.
77. Citrine, Men and Work, pp. 314–15.
78. For the incessant globetrotting see Men and Work, pp. 95–128, 262–6, 274–8, 306–9, 329–44; Two Careers, pp. 35–40, 64–87, 97–115, 139–75, 181–91, 206–18, 223–8, 231–8, 318–28, 370.
79. Howell, MacDonald’s Party, p. 194 Citrine, Men and Work, pp. 238–40.
80. One wag pointed out that whereas most men were either bastards through an accident of birth or were self-made men, Thomas and MacDonald managed to be both.
81. Taylor, English History, p. 141. Arthur Henderson (1863–1935), ‘Uncle Arthur’ to the Labour movement, was a member of Lloyd George’s War Cabinet in 1916–17 and home secretary in MacDonald’s 1924 government.
82. Campbell, F. E. Smith, pp. 258, 769–70.
83. Gregory Blaxland, J. H. Thomas: A Life for Unity (1964), p. 211.
84. Ibid., p. 212.
85. Howell, MacDonald’s Party, pp. 9–10.
86. Jones, Whitehall Diaries, i, pp. 133–6.
87. Citrine, Men and Work, p. 216.
88. Ian Kershaw, Making Friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry and the British Road to War (2004), pp. 17–19, 65–6, 108, 128.
89. For Channon see Robert Rhodes James, The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon (1967).
90. J. H. Thomas, My Story (1937), p. 63; New York Times (9 August 1925); The Times (10 May 1926); Manchester Guardian (10 May 1926); Citrine, Men and Work, pp. 139–40.
91. Trotsky, Where is Britain Going?, pp. viii, 6–7, 39, 143.
92. For the miners’ detestation of Thomas and his reputation as a Judas see Citrine, Men and Work, pp. 102–3, 130, 153. For the personal dislike see Thomas, My Story, p. 111.
93. Julian Symons, The General Strike: A Historical Portrait (1959), p. 64.
94. Thomas, My Story, pp. 105–6.
95. Blaxland, J. H. Thomas, p. 184; cf. Farman, General Strike, p. 49. In view of Cook’s emergence as the victor in every single recorded debate with Thomas, it seems bizarre to read this comment in an otherwise sound account of the General Strike: ‘the contrasting dialectical skills of Bevin, Thomas and Citrine far excelled those of Smithy and Cook’ (Phillips, General Strike, p. 270). If, however, one means by ‘dialectical skills’ evasion, prevarication, suggestio falsi, suppressio veri, deliberate obfuscation and general double-talk, the statement may be allowed to stand.
96. Blaxland, Thomas, pp. 152, 161; Trotsky, Where is Britain Going?, pp. 152–3. Lord Derby was Edward George Villiers (1865–1948), 17th Earl of Derby, former secretary of state for war and ambassador to France. Lord Astor was Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor – see R. Q. J. Adams, ‘Astor, Waldorf’, ODNB (Oxford, 2004), 2, p. 801.
97. For the accusation of insanity, made by Thomas to a disbelieving Citrine, see Howell, MacDonald’s Party, p. 134. Similarly, Huey Long in Louisiana was ‘mad’, as were Tony Benn and Arthur Scargill in the 1980s. It is curious how the West, which prided itself on its manifest superiority to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, should have adopted the selfsame stance made notorious by the USSR: dissident = insane.
98. Renshaw, General Strike, p. 134.
99. Keith Laybourne, The General Strike: Day by Day (1996), p. 30.
100. A. J. Cook, The Nine Days (1926), pp. 18–24.
101. John Lovell, ‘The TUC Special Industrial Committee: January–April 1926’, in Asa Briggs and John Savile, eds, Essays in Labour History, 1918–1939 (1977), pp. 36–56.
102. Ibid., p. 138.
103. Allen Hutt, The Postwar History of the British Working Class (1937), p. 153.
104. W. H. Crook, The General Strike; A Study of Labour’s Tragic Weapon in Theory and Practice (1931), pp. 120–44.
105. Ibid., pp. 67–102.
106. Herbert Morrison, Autobiography (1960), p. 111; B. Donoghue and G. W. Jones, Herbert Morrison, Portrait of a Politician (1973), p. 79.
107. For Briand’s machinations see Jean-Marie Mayeur and J. R. Foster, The Third Republic from its Origins to the Great War 1871–1914 (Cambridge, 1984).
108. Citrine, Men and Work, p. 138.
109. Lovell, ‘TUC Special Industrial Committee’, pp. 38–9.
110. Farman, General Strike, p. 50.
111. Lovell, ‘TUC Special Industrial Committee’, p. 39.
112. Ibid, p. 42.
113. Ibid., p. 43.
114. Robert Taylor, The TUC from the General Strike to the New Unionism (2000), p. 34.
115. Citrine, Men and Work, pp. 178, 235.
116. Martin, Father Figures, p. 162; Jones, Whitehall Diaries, ii, pp. 2–3.
117. William Beveridge, Power and Influence (1953), p. 220.
118. For the memoranda see Citrine, Men and Work, pp. 143–53.
119. Ibid., p. 191.
120. Bullock, Bevin, p. 300.
121. Hansard (2 February 1926).
122. Jones, Whitehall Diaries, ii, p. 5.
123. Lovell, ‘TUC Special Industrial Committee’, pp. 46–9.
124. Ibid., p. 45; The Times (13 March 1926).
125. Lovell, ‘TUC Special Industrial Committee’, pp. 45–6.
126. Ibid., p. 50.
127. Samuel, Memoirs, pp. 185–6.
128, Farman, General Strike, p. 63.
129. Samuel, Memoirs, p. 189.
130. Briggs, History of Broadcasting, i, p. 374.
131. Samuel, Memoirs, p. 186.
132. Jones, Whitehall Diaries, ii, p. 19.
133. Taylor, English History, p. 236.
134. Citrine, Men and Work, p. 195.
135. Lovell, ‘TUC Special Industrial Committee’, p. 53.
136. Ibid., pp. 37–8.
137. Farman, General Strike, p. 73.
138. Rhodes James, Memoirs of a Conservative, pp. 105–7.
139. Ibid., p. 193.
140. Blaxland, J. H.
Thomas, p. 186.
141. Farman, General Strike, p. 246.
142. Geoffrey McDonald, ‘The Defeat of the General Strike’, in Gillian Peale and Chris Cook, eds, The Politics of Reappraisal, 1918–1939 (1975), pp. 64–87.
143. Lovell, ‘TUC Special Industrial Committee’, pp. 52–3.
144. Citrine, Men and Work, p. 165
145. Ibid.
146. Middlemas and Barnes, Baldwin, p. 387.
147. Citrine, Men and Work, p. 157.
148. Keith Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain (1946), p. 157.
149. Bullock, Ernest Bevin, p. 302.
14 Towards the Abyss
1. Citrine, Men and Work, p. 156.
2. Ibid., p. 157.
3. Ibid., p. 158.
4. Hamilton Fyfe, Behind the Scenes of the General Strike (1926), pp. 12–13.
5. Pugh, Men of Steel, p. 399.
6. Citrine, Men and Work, p. 159; Thomas, My Story, pp. 114–120.
7. The Times (1 May 1926). Circular 699, giving effect to Circular 636 of 20 November 1925, is reproduced virtually in its entirety in George Glasgow, General Strikes and Road Transport (1926), pp. 112, 137–8.
8. Citrine, Men and Work, p. 160
9. W. H. Crook, The General Strike: A Study of Labor’s Tragic Weapons in Theory and Practice (North Carolina, 1931), pp. 370–2; R. Page Arnot, General Strike (1926), pp. 110–32; see also R. Page Arnot, The Miners: A History of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain (1953), pp. 408–16.
10. Crook, General Strike, pp. 349–51; W. Milne-Bailey, Trade Unions and the State (1934), p. 63; W. Milne-Bailey, Trade Union Documents (1929), pp. 342–4.
11. Citrine, Men and Work, pp. 165–6; Crook, General Strike, pp. 361–2.
12. Jones, Whitehall Diaries, ii, p. 27.
13. Pugh, Men of Steel, pp. 399–400.
14. Citrine, Men and Work, pp. 166–7.
15. Mowat, Britain Between the Wars, p. 306.
16. Citrine, Men and Work, p. 167.
17. Rhodes James, Memoirs of a Conservative, p. 231.
18. Fyfe, Behind the Scenes, p. 23.
19. Blaxland, J. H. Thomas, p. 192.
20. Jones, Whitehall Diaries, ii, pp. 32–3.
21. Farman, General Strike, p. 107.