A Short History of the British Working Class Movement (1937)

Volume 2

G. D. H. Cole

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781136447761
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Historia
• Categoría: Historia del mundo

This is volume 2 of the set A Short History of the British Working Class Movement (1937). The volumes reprinted here provide a general narrative of the history of the working class movement in all its main aspects - Trade Unions, Socialism and Co-operatives. The historical focus is upon the latter part of the eighteenth century, set against a background of economic and social history.

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY

1. 1. THE SECOND PHASE
2. 2. THE "GOLDEN AGE"

I
THE SECOND PHASE

THE first volume of this study carried the record of the British Working-class Movement to the year 1848. This seemed a convenient stopping-place because the Chartist failure of that year marked a decisive change in the character of the movement. There was a deep significance in the fact that the "year of revolutions" in Europe produced in this country no more than a feeble and half-hearted demonstration on Kennington Common. Up to that point, the story of the British workers is one of successive waves of revolt against the rising capitalist order. Against the developing strength of the new employing class one wave after another was shattered in vain. The Corresponding Societies echoed the stirring cries of the French Revolution; the Luddites broke the hated new machines, only to be broken in their turn. The working-class Radicals threatened revolution as the alternative to Manhood Suffrage, and were put off with a Reform Act which seated their masters firmly in power. The great "Trades Union," under Owen's millennial guidance, vainly tried to strike its way to the Co-operative Commonwealth. And finally the Chartists, reviving the old cry of Manhood Suffrage as the slogan of a movement based on economic distress, found themselves beaten off the field of propaganda by the Anti-Corn Law League, and reduced to an impotent sect out of tune with the new spirit of the times.

Revolt failed. Vainly did the workers kick against the pricks of the new order, which was all the time steadily and swiftly growing in power. Again and again they tried to organise a separate movement of their own, and to enforce their will upon the country. There are two outstanding reasons for their failure, either sufficient in itself. In the first place, they could not know what they wanted, or at any rate how to set about the getting of what they wanted. Their movements were, for the most part, reactions of starvation and despair, rather than constructive attempts at economic reorganisation. A few leaders, like Owen, could see visions of the Socialist future; a few realists, like Place, tried to instal reformism and the Liberal-Labour alliance long before their time. But most even of the leaders were either, like O'Connor, devoid of any policy at all, or, like Cobbett, harking back to the old days before the coming of the monster, steam, with his insatiable call for human sacrifice.

After all these leaders the procession of misery followed blindly. The wretched slaves of steam caught a glimpse, no doubt, of Owen's vision; but they were far more deeply stirred when Cobbett, or even O'Connor, seemed to beckon them back to the land from which they had been driven. Helpless in the grip of the new industrialism which they hated the more because they did not understand it, they were ready to throw in their lot with any movement which was at least a movement of revolt. But, gradually, failure made them tired. A new generation arose, born amid the smoke and noise and fihh of the spreading factory towns, and accepting wage-labour at the machine as its appointed lot. The call of the fields had grown fainter; the clanking and puffing of the engines had deadened tht ir ears. They had grown only too prepared to accept the new order as inevitable, and to make the best of it.

It was, indeed, impossible for the working class of the early nineteenth century to devise a policy at once practical and constructive. They were too weak. The machine was steadily dispensing with the old craftsmen's skill, and enrolling women and children as machine-minders to beat down the wages of the men. The cheapness of goods which was the gift of the machines made a return to the old order impracticable; and in the new order children and mothers waged war perforce against fathers to beat down the standard of life. Cobbett and O'Connor were, in fact, radical reactionaries; and Owen, who saw the true remedy in the co-operative control of the new industrial forces, was compelled to be Utopian because he was calling on the workers to attempt a task far beyond their strength.

The second cause of failure is the other side of the same medal. Where the workers were too weak, Capitalism was far too strong. It was not, indeed, in the early part of the century a fully stabilised or established order; but it was gaining strength all the time. Its leaders were imbued with a tremendous consciousness of power. The machines, which were the workers' masters, were their servants, and the sense of power and achievement which the machines put into their minds gave them irresistible force and courage. They believed in their mission, and regarded the wealth which poured in upon them as the sign of their triumphant achievement. They had made ten bales of cotton grow where one grew before; they were covering sea and land with ships, railways, factories, mines and counting-houses—the tokens of the new plenty. It seemed a small thing to them that men, women and children laboured without rest for a pittance in order to create this wealth, or that the new factory towns were noisome dens of corruption and disease. Give them a free hand, and the stream of commodities would gush forth in yet greater abundance, until the whole land ran with wealth. Give them a free hand, and all things else would be added unto the people. They resented, as blind folly and wanton obstruction, the revolts of the workers against their misery; they demanded that Labour, in its own best interest, should be forcibly restrained from combination or independent political activity. The stream of production could be swelled to the full only if capital flowed freely into it. Saving was the cardinal virtue. But higher wages would dry up the flow of saving, and check the increase of wealth. Consumption must be kept down, in order that production might increase without limit.

The topsy-turviness of this view, which strikes us forcibly today, could hardly be apparent to most of these early capitalists. The markets of the world were all before them; their cheap goods undercut every possible competitor. But, competing fiercely one against another, they were compelled one and all to be forever cheapening their goods yet more. A little on the wage, or a little off the working day, seemed to threaten each individual master with ruin. And, as cheapness was their god, and competition the key to cheapness, every cost must be kept down to the lowest point. The workers, in their own interest, must work long for little, in order that the goods they bought might get ever cheaper.

It is no wonder that men in this mood, and with the sense of achievement behind them, were strong and resolute in pushing the policy which seemed to meet their needs. It is no wonder they were callous about the sufferings of the poor. For their eyes were on the future; they saw the Golden Age of Capitalism coming, and believed they knew how to reach it by their own strength. They brushed opposition aside. The Reform Act had given them political power; and from 1832 onwards they used it in masterful fashion.

The early working-class movements failed, then, because they were too weak and because the rising force of Capitalism was too strong. But, if these early struggles seem vain and fruitless, the workers had really no alternative. Their attempts to organise Trade Unions for collective bargaining met with insuperable hostility from employers who denied them all rights of negotiation. Even after the repeal of the Combination Acts the law of conspiracy and of master and servant still exposed them to constant legal repression. Their attempt to join forces with the middleclass Radicals had produced the Reform Act of 1832, which left them voteless and placed political power firmly in the hands of their masters. Their agitations for factory reform met with the most uncompromising opposition from those very Radicals whose lead they were asked to follow. Every means of moderate advance seemed closed to them; there was nothing for it but a kicking against the pricks which had at least the merit of keeping hope alive in their hearts.

For some time before the middle of the century, this situation was slowly changing. The first sign of the change was the Anti-Corn Law agitation, which steadily drew the workers away from Chartism to the pursuit of a concrete and practicable reform. Here at last was something on which the interests of workers and employers appeared to be the same. The workers, oppressed by low wages, wanted cheap food and above all a steadying of corn prices which would check violent fluctuations in the standard of living. And the employers wanted free trade in corn, both as a means to the maintenance of low wages, and because corn was the easiest form of payment for British manufactured exports that the foreigner could make. The anti-capitalist agrarians, like Bronterre O'Brien, denounced the League as a plot for the reducing of wages; but cheap corn was an appealing cry. The Anti-Corn Law League successfully organised under middle-class leadership the main body of the workers. Chartism lost its hold; and in 1846 Peel gave way, and broke the Conservative Party. The League had made the way plain for a new working-class policy, under which the workers would rest content with picking up the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table.

Of course, for the capitalists there was far more at stake in ine Free Trade agitation than the mere repeal of the Corn Laws. They wanted just as much the free importation of the raw materials of industry, the unfettered carriage of goods overseas, the final removal of all restrictions on the course and organisation of trade. The repeal of the Navigation Acts in 1849 and 1854, the sweeping away of import duties in 1853 and 1860, the free development of capitalist organisation under the Companies Acts of 1855 and 1862, followed as the logical sequels of the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. But it suited the employers of labour best to wage their war first and foremost as a campaign against the Corn Laws; for on that issue alone could working-class support be ensured, and a great popular movement built up. The repeal of the Corn Laws was the sign, as List might have pointed out, of the capitalist coming-of-age; and among the gifts made to Capitalism on that auspicious occasion was the surrendered sword of the working-class movement.

This coming-of-age was, indeed, signalised by a change in the character of Capitalism itself. Capitalism had sown, or rather "saved," its wild oats; and it was, in the 'forties, settling down already to the administration of its inheritance. In the early days, even the successful employer was very often at his wit's end for money. He saw the chance of extending his business, he wanted a constant stream of fresh capital in order to instal the latest new machines. But, unless he could accumulate enough (at his workers' expense) out of the profits of his business, whence was the fresh capital to come? There was no great investing public ready to take up shares in his enterprise; for, though gasworks and other public utilities, and later railways, were teaching the middle and upper classes the lesson of joint stock investment, the joint stock form was hardly applied as yet to industry proper, and limited liability, the secret of its rapid extension, was still denied by the law. It was under these conditions that the "abstinence" of workers and capitalists alike presented itself as a sovereign duty; for only by putting every possible penny back into the business could its maintenance and extension be guaranteed.

Before the middle of the century, this situation was changing. The middle class had grown very greatly; for both the shop-keeping and the professional classes had been increasing by leaps and bounds. The landowning classes, though they still perhaps held their noses, were condescending to invest their money in industry, and to share in the high profits which accrued. It was easier to find money for economic development, and therefore less indispensable to practise " abstinence " to the extent of privation. The big employers had, of course, launched out early as country gentlemen with fine estates of their owr; the smaller employers began to follow this lead, to move into comfortable houses, to set up carriages, and in short to become gentlefolk of the solid Victorian kind.

Under these new conditions, there was even the less need to come quite so sharply down on any attempt by the workers to improve their position. Peel's Factory Act was passed in 1844, and the Ten Hours Act in 1847: the worst excesses of overwork at the expense of the women and children in the textile factories were over. Wages began slowly to rise, and the intensity of the employers' opposition to working-class combinations gradually diminished. And, so far from being ruined by these changes, the owners of industry found themselves getting richer than ever— trade and production advancing by leaps and bounds, and the profits derived from them growing larger at an unprecedented rate.

There were thus strong inducements on both sides to a change of policy and tactics. The employers could afford to ease off a little the intensity of the exploitation of labour, and to deal less savagely with attempts at working-class combination. And the workers, to whom hitherto Capitalism had seemed to offer nothing but an endless prospect of undiminished misery, began to see gleams of hope in the future. They had long been told that if they would only work with the grain of capitalism instead of working against it, they would get their share of the good things it had to offer. They began at length to believe, and, instead of fighting against capitalism, to accept it as an accomplished fact, and to make the best of their lot within it. The New Co-operation of 1844, the New Unionism of 1850, the new Friendly Society Movement recognised and encouraged by the Acts of 1846 and 1855, were all signs of this changed spirit—all attempts to work with and within the capitalist order instead of attempting its overthrow. The lamb had been shorn; it remained for Capitalism to temper the wind.

The change, of course, did not come all at once. Radicals like Bright and Cobden, who successfully led a mixed movement of the working and middle classes to the conquest of Free Trade, remained blind to the need for factory reform, and hostile industrially to the Trade Unions whose political backing they were eager to secure. When the skilled workers, from 1850 onwards, began to organise stable Trade Unions based on a moderate and conciliatory programme, the mass of employers were still unwilling to meet them or to recognise the need for collective bargaining. The old spirit died hard; but it was dying. The conception of the common interest of employers and employed was slowly coming into its own.

This, as we shall see, does not mean that the workers surrendered the right to strike, or to carry on either industrial or political agitation on their own behalf. But the agitations of the 'fifties, 'sixties and 'seventies were unlike those of earlier times in that, with the solitary exception of the "First International," they were all designed to promote limited and specific reforms, and had behind them no general programme or policy hostile to the capitalist order. During these decades the workers fought many hard battles; they made great new movements, and built them up on solid foundations of collective loyalty. But they neither created nor inspired any new philosophy or body of social ideas. The philosophy of these leaders was not a capitalist philosophy; but it postulated the acceptance of Capitalism and did not seek to overpass the limits which that acceptance implied.

This inevitably makes the working-class movements of this second stage of development far harder to describe than those which were outlined in the first volume of this study. For those earlier movements were complete in themselves, and represented complete and independent stages in the development of working-class policy and opinion. These newer movements, on the other hand, are incomplete because they are complementary. They represent the reverse of the cloth of which the capitalist side shows the pattern. They have meaning and purpose only in relation to the stage which capitalist development had reached. And, as we shall see later on, they changed their form and colour as soon as Capitalism, under stress of a fresh stage in economic development, was woven into a new pattern of Imperialist design.

So far, however, we have to do only with that capitalist golden age which stretches from about the middle of the nineteenth century to the late 'seventies—the period of Free Trade triumphant, of swiftly expanding markets at home and abroad, of complacent contemplation of a national prosperity which seemed to be boundless and inexhaustible. This was the true Victorian Age, aptly symbolised in the handsomely upholstered comfort of the Victorian middle-class home, with the dark, decent, expressive ugliness of its mahogany, with its crowded drawing-rooms and its sentimental ballads, its port wine and its tea—all these the products of a civilisation built on the proud assurance of a middle class that felt itself the maker of all these good things, and not least the maker of its own successful virtue.

To this time belongs too the emergence of the artisan from the sheer squalor of Industrial Revolution days. If the employer had his plush and mahogany, the skilled artisan began to ape him with his tiny parlour, a symbol too sacred for common use. If the employer had his investments, the skilled artisan was beginning to have his few pounds in the "Co-op." or the penny bank, and his stake in the funds of his Friendly Society or his Trade Union. His virtues were those of his employer, on a smaller scale; he too felt himself a self-made man, and shared in the complacency of the times. He too hoped that, every day and in every way, he and his country would get richer and richer and richer.

Yet he was far from rich—a mere shade above the line of absolute poverty. And below him there was still a mass of unskilled or unorganised labour too poor to raise its head. The skilled artisans, however, had too much to do in making the best of things for themselves to be very solicitous about the welter beneath their feet. There was a chance for them; but unless they strained every nerve to take it the chance would be lost, and perhaps they would be thrust back among the failures—a sore disgrace as well as a dreadful privation. So that, whereas in earlier times the skilled workers, subjected to the common exploitation, put themselves at the head of the entire working class in the struggle for better things, this rising class of skilled workers was mainly concerned to look after its own narrower interest. Its chari...