UNEMPLOYMENT MACDONALD BETRAYS

BY JACK GALE By August 1931, the Labour Crisis meet eneral deep Government of the TUC made it clear that it would refuse to accept any cuts of wages, dole or welfare services. The pressure of the working class made its way through the unions to the Cabinet. It caused a split there on the question of the proposed cuts.

On the other hand there was the Liberals and Tories.

They were now backed by the bankers who refused to cooperate unless the cuts were carried through.

An emergency Cabinet meeting was called on August 21 and . the decision was unanimous for a programme acceptable to the Tories.

The Cabinet agreed to ask the opposition parties if men would support government economies of £76m, including a 10 per cent cut in standard rates of 'unemployment benefit. The opposition leaders agreed but said the bankers must be consulted first.

The Cabinet then met again and agreed to ask the bankers if this scheme would be acceptable in New York.

In fact, the meeting adjourned and the members of the Labour Cabinet hung around awaiting the reply from the American banks. When it came, this reply stated that credits might be possible only if the Cabinet took decisions which would be approved by the Bank of England and the City of London.

MacDonald then urged the Cabinet to agree to 10 per cent cut in the dole, on the grounds that economies were government could not continue. being made all round and the unemployed could not be left in A conference had already been a 'privileged position'! arranged between MacDonald, Baldwin and Samuel.

The voting in the Cabinet was 12 votes to nine in favour of such a cut. Many of those extremely active in this affair, who later denounced MacDonald pressing upon MacDonald the in fact voted with him. One need for him to remain Prime such was Herbert Morrison. Minister in the interests of the However, the minority- —under British Empire. direct pressure from the trade unions- -were bound to resign. ferred a Labour government to MacDonald had already told the carry out the necessary economies and regarded a National government, with MacDonald as the head, as the next best thing. This was also the line being pushed in "The Times' by its politicallyactive editor, Geoffrey Dawson.

Labour Cabinet, MacDonald told them that he was to lead National government. Contrary to the myth that they then broke from him, he, in fact, made no offers to them.

The kept behind only those Ministers who had been agreed upon with the other party leaders.

These were Snowden, who continued as Chancellor of the Exchequer, J. H. Thomas and Lord Sankey (Morrison was invited to join later but refused after some hesitation).

ministers, MacDonald told them that he was not inviting them to join him because he did not vant to prejudice their career n the Labour Party MacDonald and the leaders of the other parties were anxious to leave a number of rightwingers and 'moderates' in the Labour Party in order to keep it safe for capitalism. It was necessary to ensure that the Labour Party, even at that stage, was guarded against the 'extremists'.

government was formed (with 31 Tory ministers, 13 Liberals and Browden and budget nine National Labour), loans were London, hunger strike of women, all trying for the same job.

King that if this happened the negotiated in Paris and New York totalling £80m.

On September 10, Snowden introduced his budget and cut the standard rate of unemployThe King - George V - was ment benefit for men from 17s La week to 15s 3d; for women from 15s to 13s 6d; and for adult dependents from 9s to 8s.

Neville Chamberlain recorded in his diary:

The Tories and Liberals pre- "Truly the Conservative Party is a wonderful embodiment of 800d sense, patriotism and honesty . . . agreeing to allow the man who has all his life actively opposed them, now have the credit of carrying , out their policy' Thus the lack of socialist policies to deal with the crisis At the final meeting of the of capitalism compelled the Labour government to submit all along the line to the demands of international finance and to carry out Tory policies of making the working class pay for After dismissing the Cabinet That this could have been fought, even after the MacDonald betrayal, was made clear by the Invergordon Mutiny on September 15, 1931. On that day the crews of battleships in harbour at Invergordon refused to sail until cuts in the pay of naval ratings had been revised.

At meeting of junior Sailing orders had to be cancelled and ships at sea recalled.

A tremor ran through the British Empire-even the glorious British Navy was in revolt!

But there was no leadership.

The real reason was that The new Labour leadership though it heaped invective on MacDonald's head—had no real alternative policies. One of them, Lees-Smith, actually accused the National government of 'breaking the treaty between rich and poor.

All of the ex-Ministers had acquiesced in MacDonald's overtures for Tory support, all had agreed to economy measures Immediately after the National which would hit the working class. Some had even voted for the full proposals-including the dole cut.

onanb Their proposals for an emergency budget were practically indistinguishable from the one actually introduced by Snowden. Under pressure from the unions they had been compelled to stop short of going all the way with MacDonald, but they were totally unable to appeal to the working class with a socialist policy for the overthrow of capitalism.

The result was that when an election was held on October 27 these 'lefts' and 'moderates' had no programme on which to fight. Snowden, in an election broadcast, was able to expose mercilessly their own role in agreeing to cuts in the dole and to approaches being made to the Tories. Henderson and his colleagues could only plead that their agreement had only been 'provisional' and not binding.

This lack of a socialist alternative resulted in a big swing to the right in the election, which resulted in 556 seats for the National government (471 of them Tories, compared with 263 in the previous parliament). The official Labour Party got only 46 seats.

Significantly, the Labour Party lost seats in Labour strongholds such as Jarrow, St Helens and Whitechapel. They lost 17 out of 19 seats in County Durham.

The President of the Miners' Federation lost his seat in a mining constituency. where he had a majority of 16,000.

In the areas of highest unemployment, workers voted against the Labour Party. This was the reward for political bankruptcy, the impotence of the fake left and the treachery of the trade union leaders.

For it was not the desertion of Ramsay MacDonald which led to the defeat of 1931.

MacDonald could have been defeated. But the union leaders and the 'lefts' confused and nicent general Saker mit demoralized the working class.

magnincent General ( Strike, leaders who feared the strength of the working class and preferred abject surrender.

The leaders of union after union allowed their members to be sacked and victimized.

Employer after employer was enabled to establish an open shop, or—as in the case of the 'Manchester Guardian'— a company union.

The Tories were able to Introduce the Trades Dispute Act which, among other things, made sympathy strikes illegal, laid pickets open to prosecution and made it offence for any workers to refuse an offer of employment during an illegal strike.

Following the betrayal of 1926, these trade union leaders gave full support to Ramsay MacDonald's policies when the minority Labour government was elected in 1929.

This support meant that the union leaders prepared in advance leave the working-class leaderless when the crisis came. Like the Labour "lefts'. they put forward no programme nationalization to deal with the power of the monopolies and the banks.

Even after MacDonald's betrayal, the TUC put forward a programme (the 'Joint Labour Manifesto') which called for taxation of fixed interest-bearing securities, suspension of the sinking fund, a reduction of the burden of the war debt, and *a priority to mobilizing the country's foreign investments'. The TUC sought a solution to the crisis within the framework of capitalist property relations.

Thus, although the union leaders broke with MacDonald, their policies were not fundamentally different from his. Their principled split, prepared and break with him was not fought for on socialist policies. In the absence of such a prepared, programmatic break with MacDonald the split was bound to come on the right-wing's terms in conditions which could only Even were Ma Monkid formed the National government, the TUC and the 'lefts' messed about and left the initiative with him. He was not expelled from the Labour Party until over a month after the National government was formed.

When I. H. Thomas Neville Chamberlain: "Truly the Conservative Party is a wonderful embodiment of good sense, patriotism and honesty!

message to railwaymen supporting the formation of the National government, the NUR leaders allowed_ this to be published in the 'Railway Review'.

The great myth of Ramsay MacDonald's treachery being the only cause for the defeat of 1931 has been deliberately written into the history of the British working class in order to cover up the complicity of the rest of the Labour and trade union leadership, and to enable their political heirs to stay at the head of the movement today.

CONTINUED TOMORROW

Workere Proza, Saturday Fabruary 12, 1972 PAGE 5 On November 6 last year a the easier it will be for big business to clean up in Europe. With his organization split and without leadership the worker will be back to touching his forelonk and aarnina vact. fortunes with the Tories on the Common Market is especially important because without these stooges in the Labour Party and the trade union leadership the Tories wouldn't last one more day. certed attack on our hard-won democratic rights. Are we going to sustain the illegal regime that's doing this?

History has proved that the Democracy, as far as I'm cODcerned, means government for the people by the people n hich Heath, and the Labourites support him, have betrayed. Let