'GENTLEMEN;; SAID THE PM. 'ARE YOU READY TO TAKE OVER?'

I remember vividly Robert Smillie describing to me an interview the leaders of the Triple Alliance had with David Lloyd George in 1919. The strategy of the leaders was clear. The miners under Robert Smillie, the transport workers under Robert Williams, and the National Union of Railwaymen under Thomas, formed the most formidable combination of industrial workers in the history of Great Britain. They had agreed on the demands which were to be made on the employers, knowing well that the government would be bound to be involved at an early stage. And so it happened. A great deal of industry was still under gouernment war-time control and so the state was immediately implicated. Lloyd George sent for the This quotation from Aneurin Bevan's book In Place of Fear' has been reproduced in Workers Press several It expresses from the standpoint of centrism-the essence of the situation following the war, and has vital lessons for the working class today.

What was at stake in the struggles of 1919 was not wages or hours of work, but class power. The labour leaders were more terrified of this issue than the ruling class. It was the ability of the most far-sighted capitalist politicians to grasp these facts at that time that decided the course of the class struggle for half a The war had ended in revoluWith the victory of the Russian workers, the upsurge in the international workers' movement which 1914 had interrupted was resumed on a higher level. The British ruling class, whose vorld positior was already shaken by the war, watched nervously for signs of the Bolshevik infection in the factories and among the returning soldiers. The police had already won a strike in August 1918.

Early in 1919, mass demonstrations of soldiers and outright mutinies in the navy forced the War Office to negotiate with a Soldiers' and Sailors' Union. In Belfast and on the Clyde, engineering workers struck in January 1919 for the 40-hour week under militant unofficial leadership. Ireland was in ferment.

But nowhere in the working class was there anything like the clarity of the leaders of the ruling class. The official leaders outright agents.. of capital woolly-headed liberals. And the left-wing leaders who inspired by the Russian Revolution were almost bereft of theoretical understanding of the situation As Willy Gallacher, leader of the Clyde movement, said later— when it was too late, of course. 'We were carrying on strike when we should have been making a revolution.' One of the most delicate problems faced by the government was in the industries which had been put under state control during the war, especially the mines and the railways. In January 1919, both miners and railwaymen lodged demands for wage increases. The miners also demanded a six-hour working day and nationalization of the mines.

On February 12, the Mineworkers Federation of Great Britain executive decided to ballot their members on strike labour leaders, and they went, so Robert told me, 'truculently determined they would not be talked over by the seductive and eloquent Welshman'. At this Bob's eyes twinkled in his grave, strong face. 'He was quite frank with us from the outset, Bob went on. 'He said to us: "Gentlemen, you have fashioned, in the Triple Alliance of the unions represented by you, most powerful instrument. feel bound to tell you that in our opinion we are at your mercy. The army is disaffected and cannot be relied upon. Trouble has occurred already in a number of camps. We have just emerged from a great war and the people are eager for the reward of their sacrifices, and we are in no position to satisfy them. In the circumstances, if you carry out action. Coal stocks were extremely low. Allied with the railwaymen and transport workers, the miners were in a powerful position.

Lloyd George had to head off the unions and gain some time. He announced the calling of a National Industrial Conference on February 27, where unions and employers were going to discuss the way to avoid unemployment and improve working conditions. your threat and strike, then you will defeat us.

• "But if you do so," went on Mr Lloyd George, have you weighed the consequences? The strike will be in defiance of the government of this country and by its very success will precipitate a constitutional crisis of the first importance.

'"For, if a force arises in the state which is stronger than the state itself, then it must be ready to take on the functions of the state or withdraw and accept the authority of the state. Gentlemen", , asked the Prime Minister quietly, "have you considered, and if you have, are you readu?" From that moment on, said Robert Smillie, 'we were beaten and we knew we were.

'After this the General Strike of 1926 was really an anti-climax.' Office, show that he did his job well. 'Under any circumstances, he told the union chiefs, 'with body like yours, a strike would be the most serious thing that could be imagined. But a strike when the state itself is the employer is an entirely different thing .. What would happen supposing you won in a case of this kind? I for those splendid thing who wanted to upset the decision of these matters by constitutional means. If the other method had succeeded, then parliamentary, government would be impossible.

The tone of the discussion was polite and friendly, with Thomas, always, cringing before the Ministers, and assuring them of his loyalty. But the leaders were unaware of the discussion which had taken place in the same room two days earlier.

Then, Cabinet had sidered the draft of a Strikes (Exceptional Measures) Bill, whose first clause provided for the arrest of anyone calling a strike which could be declared a 'conspiracy against the state'. The second section enabled government to tie up all union funds.

Winston Churchill had given his opinion that 'words should be introduced which would allow government pick and choose who should arrested'. However, it is doubtful whether leaders taking in the amicable discussion on March 22 would have altered their views, even had they been aware of the measures prepared by their hosts. (In the event, the Bill was never needed.)

One very clear statement, least, was taken back by Smillie to his executive: Law made it quite plain that the government would accept the findings of the Sankev Commission 'in spirit and letter'. This was quite enough. The MFGB Conference which met on March 26 decided to further suspend the strike notices and ballot the members on the government's proposals, with clear recommendation for acceptance. (left to right): Robert Smil Ita, ratnars loadar, Anourin Bara d. H. Thomar er soppero svovela nos:

*22 59: 265.% 250/58 Ire, 1919 iN.