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From International Press Correspondence, Vol. 2 No. 61, 25 July 1922, p. 461.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2020). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
The annual conference of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain was opened at Blackpool on Tuesday, July 18th. This Federation represents all the miners working in and about the coal mines of Great Britain. The coal industry finds employment for some 1,094,000 workers. Of that number, 834,400 were represented at the conference by 162 delegates, officials and members of the Executive. The principal districts represented and their memberships were as follows: Yorkshire, 142,500 members, Durham, 126,240, South Wales 117,500, Lancashire and Cheshire 90,000, the Midlands 64,000, Northumberland 41,500, Derbyshire and Nottingham, 35,000 each.
The conference was opened with an address by the President Herbert Smith, who attempted to defend the present agreement which the miners have with the coal capitalists. It was an unusually weak and reactionary address; it failed entirely m give a lead to the conference, and the essence of it was expressed in his belief that the miners will have “better times within a year”. This was exactly what the coal operators had said a years ago, when the miners’ leaders signed the wage agreement after the lockout, also in the belief that the miners would have “better times within a year” ...
This has been the cry of the English capitalists ever since the trade depression commenced. The present wage agreement about which such controversy has developed, is based upon a profit sharing scheme, which obviously can only be of benefit to the miners during periods of prosperity. It also contains a clause called the Minimum Wage Clause, which stipulates that the miners’ wages shall not be less than 20 per cent above what they were in July 1914. The official figures of the Board of Trade show that the cost of living is still 80% higher than it was in July 1914.
The Miners’ Federation is made up of 13 districts, 12 of which are working for wages that represent the minimum. This means that in July 1922 the great majority of the miners are working for wages that are 60% less in real value that they were in 1914. And in the face of these fads, the miners’ President puts up such a weak defense of this agreement, that even a capitalist newspaper like the Manchester Guardian in its leading article of July 19th, is compelled to criticize Mr. Smith’s speech. Foreign readers of the Inprecorr can only imagine such a situation as this taking place in England. In the course of the article the Manchester Guardian says:
“A minimum wage which does not provide the minimum standard of comfort is not worth much. The minimum wages of a railwayman are about double his pre-war earnings; those of a miner are only 20% higher. With the cost of living at about 80, the difference means that while the railwaymen must in any case be a little better off than they were before the war, the miners are so much worse off that many of them would do as well to accept poor relief.”
We can only suggest after reading this passage, that the editor of The Guardian is more fitted to be the miners’ President than Herbert Smith. In short, the failure of the Triple Alliance to act on Black Friday, and the bad leadership of the miners has brought such poverty upon the miners that Frank Hodges, the General Secretary of the Federation, has described the coal areas as the “famine area of England”.
Mr. Smith then proceeded in the fashion of all our trade union leaders at the moment, by asking the conference to look to Parliamentary action. He said:— “The Miners’ Federation will be responsible for about 60 of the Labor Party candidates. Politics would form an important part of the Federations’ activity dining the next four years.” If the inference of this statement is that the miners’ conditions will be improved by the return of these 60 members to Parliament, then we believe the miners are doomed to disappointment.
The immense development of oil fuel, and the American competition means that under no circumstances can the English coal capitalists. absorb the miners’ unemployed, nor can they keep these miners working, at pre-war capacity? Mr. Smith never attempted to show the effects of the Versailles Treaty on the English coal industry and consequently upon the miners, and the English Labor Party, though pledged to a modification of the Treaty, does not stand for its repudiation. The Treaty must be scrapped if the miners are to climb out of the pit
Therefore it is an indication of the hope there is for the miners, when their President is utterly unable to lay before the conference any clear lead for the organization as a result of its bitter experiences during the last 12 mouths.
There was a resolution on the agenda calling upon the Miners’ Federation to affiliate to the R.T.U.I. The debate on this question was opened by A.C. Cook, one of the miners’ leaders of South Wales, who spoke in favor of affiliation to the Red International. He stated that the experience of the South Wales since the last lockout has been such as to convince them that only by a revolution could the miners improve their conditions; and he knew that the Red International stood for the overthrow of capitalism, and not for the compromising tactics of Amsterdam.
Mr. Frank Hodges, the miners’ General Secretary, opposed the resolution in a speech full of bitterness and inaccurate statements. Among other things, he said;
“What is the Red International? Where does it come from? Whom does it represent? There is not a national organization in Europe affiliated to it. If you want to save British trade unions you will wash your hands of anything of this description. I have lived too near to the Red International not to see the day-by-day movements of its destructive forces.”
We are glad that Mr. Hodges asked these three questions: “What is the Red International? Where does it come from? Whom does it represent?” for whilst the resolution to affiliate to the R.T.U.I. was defeated by 883,000 against 118,000, that proves at any rate that 118,000 miners have already found the correct answer to those questions; and now when the delegates report back to their various districts, this resolution will be discussed at the conference and then in the lodges and will lead thousands of other miners to discuss the Red international, and also to find an answer to Mr. Hodges’ questions, which within 12 months will produce a result that will not be satisfactory to Mr. Hodges and his friends at the next conference of the Miners’ Federation. I consider the voting very satisfactory. The English trade unionists are the most insular in the world, and the fact that the Red International is even discussed at a National Conference 12 months from its inception, augurs well for the future. Many of Mr. Hodges’ arguments will be answered very fully in the English press. I only wish to note one of Mr. Hodges’ comments, and that was: “In the meantime we have nothing to do but to stand by the Amsterdam International.”
Well, it may be so; it is most certainly true that the Amsterdam International has never stood by the English miners. We all know that last year when the miners were engaged in their bitter struggle against the coal bosses, millions of tons of coal were imported into England from America and Germany. The unions whose members produced and transported the coal were members of the Amsterdam International At present, there is a life and death struggle going on between the miners and the coal owners in America. Already many miners have been shot by the armed thugs of the capitalists, but the American miners are holding out. In June, the London Star reported that 250,000 tons of coal had been sent to America from England, and now we find the following announcement in The Chicago Tribune:
“It is learned that the government is considering a comprehensive program for importing coal chiefly from England. It is known that coal dealers here are already negotiating with British companies for the immediate delivery of large amounts of coal.”
Yesterday it was the English miners who were defeated by international blacklegging; today it is the American miners who are being defeated by international blacklegging. If, as Mr. Hodges says, “the Red International represents nobody”, then it means the Amsterdam International represents all the unions. Well, why not stop this blacklegging? Where is the International Miners’ Federation? Where is the Amsterdam International? These are three questions that we ask not only Mr. Hodges, but the miners’ leaders everywhere. If you must boast about your strength and our weakness, then prove it in action and call an international miners’ conference immediately, to stop this blacklegging of the American miners, to demand the revision of the Versailles Treaty, and to frame ways and means of uniting the miners everywhere in order to stop the present capitalist offensive.
In the meantime the English comrades will intensify their propaganda within the Miners’ Federation, and we believe that the miners will be the first English National Union to become affiliated to the R.T.U.I.
Last updated on 5 May 2020