Labour in Glasgow, 1896-1936

Socialism, Suffrage, Sectarianism

J.J. Smyth

• Publisher: John Donald
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9781788853989
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Partis politiques

This book provides the first single overview of Labour's electoral progress in Glasgow from its hesitant steps in the shadow of Liberalism to the moment it became the dominant party in the city in parliamentary and municipal politics. The unfolding narrative is not one of uninterrupted progress but a more complex story of partial breakthroughs and setbacks. Labour's electoral challenge is detailed over forty years and focuses on local elections more than parliamentary. This allows a broader and fuller picture to be presented rather than the narrower emphasis on the 'Red Clydeside' period of the Great War and immediately after. The Great War was the critical turning point. After 1918 Labour emerged from being a permanent minority to a position where it could genuinely seek to present itself as the major political voice in Glasgow. The nature of this transformation is identified as both the radicalising effect of the war itself and the attendant changes this provoked in Labour's attitude to its actual and potential constituency. Unlike other studies of the franchise system, the view expressed here is that the franchise was biased against the working class and this operated against Labour. However, Labour was effectively handicapped by its own ambivalence towards complete democracy, fuelled by fear of the poor and belief in the reactionary tendencies of the existing female local electorate. While the war resolved the franchise issue for Labour, in Glasgow the Party's own mobilisation over housing provided the means to appeal to the new female electorate.

CHAPTER ONE

From the Forces of Democracy to Labour Party, 1896–1914

It was not until the last decade of the nineteenth century that an organised, independent labour presence became a feature of the political landscape. All previous efforts at building a labour party, independent of the two major parties, had foundered completely or ended up in accommodation with the Liberals. But the successful return of three Labour men to parliament in the general election of 1892 and the formation of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) the following year suggested that a radical new development was at hand. However, the hopes of pioneers such as Keir Hardie that a new party of labour would displace the Liberals proved illusory.¹ In the general election of 1895 the ILP stood twenty-eight candidates and lost in every single contest, including Hardie’s constituency of West Ham. Nevertheless, this defeat did not result in the collapse of the ILP and the cause it represented. Rather, the party found the strength within certain localities to sustain itself and even make some real, if limited, progress.²

Of the areas where independent labour emerged, one might have expected Scotland, and particularly Glasgow, to be among the more successful. Keir Hardie had first raised the banner of independent labour at the Mid-Lanark by election of 1888 and, even prior to this, the general election of 1885 had seen the Scottish Land Restoration League (SLRL) stand five candidates against Liberals in and around Glasgow. Hardie’s famous campaign, though heavily defeated, gave birth to the Scottish Labour Party (SLP) which was based largely in Glasgow and contested the 1892 election before becoming one of the foundation stones of the ILP in 1893. This activity, however, realised little in terms of a sizeable labour vote and nothing in terms of actual electoral victories. In both the number of candidates put forward and share of the vote secured labour in Scotland performed less well than it in England.³

In the 1892 election seven labour candidates stood – four put forward by the SLP and three by the short-lived Scottish United Trades Councils Labour Party (SUTCLP) – and all were heavily defeated. Disappointing as the results were, some consolation could still be taken from them. Speaking at the SLP conference the following January, Hardie made the point that this was the first time ‘the Labour Party was … in evidence as an organised movement’ and went on to claim that the 14% of the poll their candidates had secured in these contests, ‘would hold good all over the country, a fact which proves the strength of the labour vote and its power for good if properly directed.’⁴ The basis of Hardie’s optimism (apart from his own triumph in West Ham) realistically could only have been based upon hoping to force concessions from the Liberals, since in two Glasgow constituencies (Tradeston and Camlachie) the SLP intervention had been sufficient to deprive the Liberals of victory.

However, no arrangements were made with the Liberals and the general election of 1895 saw the ILP’s ambitions shattered. Eight candidates were put forward in Scotland, five of whom stood in Glasgow constituencies and one in neighbouring Govan.⁵ The average poll in these Clydeside constituencies was under 500 votes or just over 7%; only the miners’ leader Bob Smillie in Camlachie managed to get over 10% of the vote. No progress had been made since 1892 and the extent of the failure can be gauged by the fact that Shaw Maxwell, the candidate in Blackfriars and Hutchesontown, managed only half the share of the vote he had secured ten years previously when he had stood for the SLRL in the same constituency. No positive spin could be put on these results and even the Labour Leader had to admit the Glasgow polls were ‘disgracefully small’.⁶ After this debacle Labour’s parliamentary ambitions in Glasgow became much more circumspect; only after the Great War would a similar number of seats be contested. And yet it was in that same year, 1895, that labour secured its first significant electoral success in the city when two ILP candidates were returned to the town council.⁷

The background to this achievement was the extension of the city boundaries which had taken place in 1891.⁸ Under this it had been stipulated that the municipal wards for the whole city would have to be re-organised in 1896 and in that year all municipal seats (not just the usual third) would have to be contested. So, while the attention of most individuals and organisations were focused on the forthcoming municipal ‘general’ election (those who won seats in 1895 would only sit for one year instead of the usual three), the ILP took the opportunity of securing at least some sitting councillors.

The ‘Stalwarts’

However, Labour forces were being organised on a much wider scale than just the ILP with the trades council planning a substantial intervention in the ‘general’ poll in 1896. As we will see later, while the ILP could sustain an electoral presence on its own, success at the polls relied upon the involvement of the Trades Council. While both remained distinct and separate organisations, the relationship between them was close with ILP delegates always keen to encourage the council to undertake direct political activity. At the beginning of 1893 an SLP delegate to the annual conference could claim of Glasgow Trades Council that, ‘[it] was theirs and they would keep it’.⁹ During 1895, encouraged by the forthcoming ‘re-arrangement of the Wards’ the trades council appointed a Standing Committee, ‘to keep in touch with the Ward Committees and other bodies of workers, so as to be able to increase the numbers and thus strengthen the position of the Labour members of the Town Council’.¹⁰

This led to the creation of an effective alliance to contest the municipal election, comprising delegates from the trades council, individual union branches, the ILP, the Glasgow Federation of Co-operative Societies and the Irish National League (INL). This body became known as the Workers’ Election Committee (WEC) and the councillors returned under its auspices were dubbed the ‘Stalwarts’. The WEC ran eleven official candidates in eight wards and saw five returned in what was regarded as a great success.¹¹ The contrast with the abject failure of the ILP’s candidates at the parliamentary polls the previous year is pronounced and indicates that national and local politics had their own agendas and distinct trajectories. A number of factors were operating in Glasgow in 1896 which allowed this strategic alliance to be pursued to some advantage.

There already existed a labour presence or party in the Town council which comprised John Battersby and A.J. Hunter, both trade unionists and closely involved with the trades council; Battersby had been a past President and a member of the Parliamentary Committee, while Hunter was the Secretary of the trades council, a position he held until 1902.¹² These men represented an older Lib-Lab tradition, which had never been very strong and was in the process of being superseded by the younger socialists who were now making the running on the trades council; both Battersby and Hunter became regarded as Stalwarts although they had not run as WEC candidates in 1896.¹³

A much more dynamic role was played by John Ferguson, the de facto leader of Irish nationalist opinion within Glasgow. While remaining both an Irish nationalist and a Liberal, Ferguson had always a close sympathy to the cause of labour. In 1885, against Parnell’s injunction that the Irish should vote Conservative, Ferguson, along with Michael Davitt, gave his support to Shaw Maxwell the SLRL candidate in Blackfriars & Hutchesontown.¹⁴ In 1888 Ferguson was one of Keir Hardie’s more prominent (though pessimistic) supporters at Mid Lanark and was an honorary vice president of the SLP until expelled for supporting Liberal candidates in seats the SLP was contesting at the general election of 1892.¹⁵ Ferguson stood for a political alliance between the working class and the middle class and his strategy was oudined in a letter to Hardie shortly after the Mid Lanark contest when it was clear that the intention was to establish the SLP as a permanent body:

I’m delighted to know the Labour Party is for action. My opinion is still it shd [sic] enter the Liberal Association and work through it. There is certainly an element of danger in two political organisations holding the same principles coming into collision. … If you cannot induce the Labourers to join the Liberal Association and push their claims through it by all means organise Labour by itself. Better that than nothing. I’ll try all I can in the Liberal Association to support Labour claims …¹⁶

This was hardly a ringing endorsement of independent labour, non...