The Trade Union Debate
TO anyone who wants peace in industry and believes that we are now choosing the road which will either lead us to peace or take us further away from it, the debate in the House of Commons on Monday was extremely disappointing. The Opposition had made up its mind to be angry and uncompromising before it even knew what the Government are proposing to put into the Bill dealing with trade disputes. There could scarcely be a more discouraging indication that Labour places hatred above friendship either because it has traded so long in the language of menace that it now does not know how to use any other language, or because the leaders dare not go furthei towards conciliation than would be approved by the wild men of the party.
Nor do we think that the Government have been blameless in this matter. It is obvious that any settle- ment will not really be a settlement if it is imposed by the weight of the Government's majority on sullen and resisting trade unions. After the fiasco of the general strike it became so evident that Labour as a whole had fallen out of love with its favourite device, and that there was a growing movement within the trade unions to end the policy of confusing political and industrial causes, that there was a very good chance of agreeing upon common ground for reform. The Government could then have invited the trade unions to take part in an inquiry. We wish that that had been done.
Nevertheless, what the Government offer now, though different in form, is not different in essence from what might have been done_ many months ago. The Govern- ment, speaking through Mr. Churchill and Sir Douglas Hogg, have said in effect, " We have not yet decided what to put into our Bill, but we shall table the Bill before we consult you. Directly the Bill is tabled, we shall be very glad to talk the whole matter over before the regular debates begin."
We hope we may be mistaken, but so far as we can gather from the spirit of the debate of Monday, Labour is in the mind blankly to reject this overture. If the refusal is maintained we shall have to ask plainly whether when the Labour Party talks about peace all over the world it really ignores the fact that peace, like charity, begins at home. It is easy . to imagine the invective which would be used by the Labour Party if in any controversy with foreign countries—China, for instance —the Government stood on a punctilio, and refused peace on a phrase, on a mere formality. Yet that is what Labour is threatening to do now.
In the absence of any details of the forthcoming Bill the debate turned on broad principles. Much the most important principle implicitly at issue was whether the trade unions intend to abide by the rules of a Constitutional democracy. Mr. Clynes, who was the first speaker on the Labour side, presented his case in such a way as to suggest that he was quite unable to appreciate the highly significant problems covered by a general strike. He laid it down that millions of men have just as much right simultaneously to withhold their labour as employers have to lock out as many men as they please. Yet, the legal and moral difference between what Labour did and what the employers did last May should have been obvious to a child. The colliery-owners gave due notice that they were unable to continue to pay the existing wages. The miners ten decided to refuse to return to work and were .h locked out or " went on strike "—according to the Point of view of the. person selecting the phrase. We are not saying now whether the owners were right or wrong. Whether they were wise or foolish, what they did was perfectly legal, The answer of Labour was to call the general strike, which violated all the contracts into which the strikers had entered. Nor was that all. The strike was designed not to compel the owners to produce higher wages out of their pockets, but to force the Government to renew the subsidy. The strike was not only illegal because it broke contracts ; it was also anti-Constitutional inasmuch as it tried to bring the Government to sub- mission by extra-Parliamentary means. If the Govern- ment had been beaten there would have been only one body left in the country with any authority—the Trades Union Congress. The struggle was not between the trade unions and the employers at all, but between the trade unions and the Government. Mr. Clynes solemnly compared the two different methods as though they were on, all fours.
As Sir John Simon suggested, what the moderates of Labour ought to have done after the general strike was formally to forswear the use of the general strike for the future. We feel with him that if that had been done we should have heard very much less about the need for reforming the trade unions.
Now everyone is left in doubt as to whether Labour keeps a general strike up its sleeve. Sir John Simon, in his memorable speech last May, showed precisely why in his opinion a general strike was illegal. Sir Henry Slesser disagreed with him then and he disagreed with him again in the debate on Monday. Surely when two such eminent lawyers disagree there is need for an elucidation of the law. Such an elucidation could not be called class legislation by any fair-minded man.
Labour is always in danger of forgetting that these broad Constitutional and legal questions are apt to be as sharp a thorn in the side of a Labour Government as in that of any other Government. When it conies to a definition of the rights of any body of men who are banded together for industrial purposes the restric- tions, if restrictions are required, by no means necessarily apply to one side only. Employers also have their combinations, and Sir Douglas Hogg reminded the Opposition that there was no need to suppose that what he called " employers' trade unions " would be left to do as they liked.
It is generally believed that the Government will not , deal either with the Political Levy or with the question of a secret ballot before strikes. On the other hand, they are almost certain to try to check the abuses of picketing. Mass picketing and house-to-house visits for the purpose of intimidating a man's family are extremely cruel in their. effects. What answer does Labour give to the charge of inhumanity ? It protests that the law is quite strong enough already and that if the Government do not avail themselves of the law it is their own fault. The Government, however, have been furiously blamed by Labour for acting upon the law even so far as they have and for making arrests for illegal intimidation. Labour cannot have it both ways ; it cannot reasonably blame the Government for . being at once too severe and too apathetic. The truth is that if respectable trade unionists complain (as they frequently do) that they arc arrested merely for doing what their trade union officials tell them to do, the law clearly needs to be made so plain that every- body can understand it. The --prohibition of pickets over a certain numerical strength and of house-to-house visits would, we imagine, be a relief to all trade unionists except the hopelessly red-minded.
For our part we shall not give any kind of countenance to legislation that could rationally be described as an attack on the trade unions. We ask for , no more than many Labour leaders, including Mr. Ramsay MacDonald himself, have implied might he necessary.
The choice has to be made between peace and war. Differences upon highly technical details matter very much less than the temper in which both sides approach this vastly important question of the legal conditions under which British industry is to be conducted.
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