British Politics and the Labour Question, 1868–1990

187 Pages·1992·16.534 MB·English

by  David Powell (auth.)

BRITISH POLITICS AND
THE LABOUR QUESTION,
1868-1990
BRITISH POLITICS AND
THE LABOUR QUESTION,
1868-1990
DAVID POWELL
Macmillan Education
ISBN 978-0-333-54850-9 ISBN 978-1-349-22464-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-22464-7
© David PoweJl1992
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1992
All rights reserved. For infonnation, write:
Scholarly and Reference Division,
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue,
NewYork, N.Y. 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1992
ISBN 978-0-312-08374-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
PoweJl, David.
British politics and the labour question 1868--1990/ David PoweJl.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-08374-8
1. Labor movement-Great Britain-History. 2. Labor policy-Great
Britain-History. 3. Industrial relations--Great Britain-History.
4. Great Britain-Politics and government-19th century. 5. Great
Britain-Politics and government-20th century. I. Tide.
HD8390 . P79 1992
322' . 2' 0941-dc20 92-18697
CIP
CONTENTS
Preface VI
Introduction: Politics and the Labour Question 1
1 The Emergence of the Labour Question,
1868-1906 6
2 The Liberal Ministries and Labour, 1906-15 33
3 The Labour Question in War and Peace,
1915-26 58
4 Depression and Integration, 1926-45 87
5 British Politics and the Labour Question
since 1945 115
Conclusion 147
Appendix 1: Chronology 153
Appendix 2: Trade Union Membership and the Labour Vote 156
Notes 157
Further &ading 170
Index 175
v
PREFACE
Twice in the 1970s - in February 1974 and May 1979 - British
governments sufIered electoral defeat in part at least because
of their failure to maintain good relations with the trade unions
and to prevent the spread of industrial unrest. Mrs Thatcher's
government took office in 1979 pledged to curb the power of
the unions onc e and for all. The erosion of union strength
was to be one of the main legacies of the Thatcher years.
Yet the events of the 1980s can properly be assessed only
in a longer perspective. The 'Labour question' with which
recent governments have had to deal was not the product
of the 1970s, nor even of the period since 1945. It had its
roots in the previous century and has been a constant factor
in the calculations of governments from the days of Gladstone
onwards. The purpose of this book is therefore to trace the
emergence and analyse the nature of the Labour question
as it has developed since the mid-nineteenth century and to
assess its impact on British politics in that time. What follows
is not intended either as a narrative history of the Labour
party or an institutional study of trade unionism. The focus is
rather on the relationship between the Labour movement and
wider processes of political change, in particular the efIect of
Labour's rise on the structure of the party system, the conduct
of industrial relations and the attitudes of government to
questions of industrial reform and trade union law. In this
way it is hoped to complement rather than duplicate the many
excellent surveys of Labour politics which have already been
written and to provide abrief yet coherent account of what is
VI
Preface
undoubtedly one of the most important strands in the political
history of modern Britain.
In writing a study of this kind I have naturally had to draw on
the or~ginal work of numerous other historians, and I can only
express my thanks to those scholars whose ideas and research
I have so shamelessly plundered. I am grateful to the editor of
the series,]eremy Black, and to the publishers for showing faith
in the project at an early stage. My deepest debt of gratitude is
to my wife, Pyrrha, for putting up with so much for so long.
Vll
INTRODUCTION
POLITICS AND THE
LABOUR QUESTION
In the first half of the nineteenth century labour questions
impinged only intermittently and indirectly on political life.
Parliament retreated from the more active policy of interven
tion over wages and conditions which it had sometimes adopted
before 1800. The various Factory and Mines Acts of the 1830s
and 1840s did set limits to the terms of labour of women and
children, and the Poor Law reform of 1834 was concerned, at
one level, with the operation of the labour market, but for the
most part the evolving philosophyof laissezjaireprevailed. Politi
cians were slow to respond constructively to the growth of trade
unionism. The Combination Laws were repealed in 1824-5
after a successful campaign organised by Francis Place, but the
unions obtained only a very ambiguous quasi-legal status. Trade
unionism was seen by political economists and politicians alike
as self-defeating and, in the words of the Whig Lord Melbourne,
'contradictory to the laws of nature'.l Labour protest was viewed
as part of the more general problem of public order rather
than as a political question in its own right. This attitude was
reinforced by the nature of the electoral and representative
system. Despite the radical campaigns of Chartism, working
men did not have the right to vote (except in a very few
cases) and were unable to seeure election as MPs. They had
some sympathisers and supporters in the House of Commons,
yet, unless specific .r;neasures of reform were under discussion,
labour questions remained distant from the central concerns
1
Introduction
of an aristocratic elite whose primary desire was to preselVe the
substance of their authority against encroachment from below.
To the extent that 'Labour' partidpated in this struggle - as
during the campaign for the repeal of the Corn Laws - it was
as the junior partner in an alliance of the industrious classes
against aristocratic privilege.2
Between the 1860s and the 1920s - or, roughly, between the
founding of the Trades Union Congress in 1868 and the
formation of the first Labour government in 1924 - substantial
changes took place. A system of aristocratic politics, in which
domestic political debate centred largely on issues of a religious
and constitutional nature, was replaced by a system of industrial
politics, in which economic and sodal policy steadily assumed a
more prominent role. The emergence of the Labour question
was an integral part of the industrialisation of politics in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Govemments became
more closely involved in industrial affairs - in the regulation of
conditions and hours oflabour, the management ofthe labour
market and the relief of unemployment, the provision of sodal
welfa re for industrial workers and even the monitoring and
settlement of industrial disputes. The First World War gave a
boost to state intelVention in the broader aspects ofthe running
of industry as weIl. At the same time, the growing strength of
organised Labour meant that politidans had to find ways of
relating the power of the trade unions to the other institutions
of the industrial-political system and of defining the status and
rights of the unions in such a way as to preselVe a balance
between the interests of the Labour movement and those of the
community as a whole. The extension of the franchise and the
eventual formation of aseparate Labour party added a further,
electoral, dimension to the Labour question as far as members
of the Liberal and Conservative parties were concemed. Mter
1924, with Labour established as one of the two major parties
of govemment, the industrialisation of politics seemed to be
complete, although the Labour question was as much of a
problem for the administrations of MacDonald, Attlee, Wilson
and Callaghan as it had been for the Liberals before 1914,
for Lloyd George between 1916 and 1922 or as it was for
2
Introduction
Conservative governments from those of Baldwin in the 1920s
to those of Heath and Thatcher in the 1970s and 1980s.
It is with this general process of industrialisation and with
its spedfic political consequences that the present study is
concerned. Within the overall framework of a chronological
survey, three main underlying themes are examined. First an
attempt is made to explore the changing role of government
in the field of industrial reform, charting a course from the
tentative interventionism of the late nineteenth century to
the debates over nationalisation and privatisation of ~ore
recent times. Here, obviously, wider questions of economic
policy and the sodal responsibilities of government are also
relevant, so that the discussion of industrial policy provides a
case study of the extension (and contraction?) of the functions
of the state in modern Britain. A second theme is the rise of
trade unionism and the institutional and political responses
which that has elicited. Attention is focused particularly on
the political dimension of industrial conflict, on controversies
over the reform of trade union law and on the developing
tripartite relationship between government, employers and
unions which, according to some writers, has produced an
increasingly 'corporatist' system of industrial relations. Finally
there is the question of the impact of the Labour party on
the pattern of British politics and of the extent to which the
apparent institutionalisation of industrial conflict within the
two-party system has affected the conduct of labour policy and
exacerbated or accelerated Britain's economic and industrial
decline.
In treating these themes, a study of the Labour question
touches closely on at least two thriving areas of historical
debate. The first of these is the controversy surrounding the
decline of the Liberal party and its replacement by Labour
as one of the two governing parties in the state. Among the
questions to which consideration has to be given are the
reasons for the emergence of aseparate Labour party before
1914, the adequacy of the 'New Liberalism' of the Edwardian
period as a long-term basis for progressive politics and the
durability of Labour's post-1918 expansion when set against
3