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How coherent was the National government’s response to mass unemployment after 1931 in Britain?

Posted on August 30, 2016 by admin

Even when faced by high unemployment levels, the government response ranged from indifferent to outright antagonistic.  When the unemployed tried to organize under NUWM (National Unemployed Workers’ Movement), it was ignored by the TUC (Trade Union Congress) as well as the Labour Party.  With financial resources drying up, the NUWM had no choice but to take the help of the Communist Party of Great Britain. As a consequence it suffered harassment by the government.  The atmosphere of distrust reached such an extent that even the union’s National Council was penetrated by police espionage.  But all these hardships endured by NUWM did fetch some rewards.  First, the demonstrations and hunger marches brought public attention to the difficulties faced by the unemployed.  Second, it brought the bureaucracy under pressure to make its procedures more efficient and expedient. Third, the NUWM was able to

“represent the unemployed in tribunals and Courts of Referees in order to obtain their legal rights under the highly complicated benefit systems. Although its influence on raising benefit levels is debatable, it did have some success in fighting off cuts in the thirties, while its hundreds of local branches provided social and recreational facilities giving mental and often material support to the unemployed and their families.” (Burnett, 1994, p. 256)

The National Government’s response to hunger marches and public protests were bordered on the contemptuous.  For example, following the tradition of local marches across Liverpool, Belfast, Birkenhead, etc, in 1932, more than two thousand marchers protested against the ‘means test’ and the 10% reduction in worker benefits.  Though the protestors were by and large peaceful, the threat of police retaliation loomed on them all the time. The nightmare did come true when the marchers were given baton charges upon reaching Hyde Park.  In this backdrop it is fairly clear that “the national government after 1931 consistently refused to meet deputations of the marchers on the ground that extra-Parliamentary pressure should not be encouraged…” (Burnett, 1994, p. 256)

The Communist Party, with its radical rhetoric and worker-centric ethos, was particularly targeted by the government. Based on first hand records left by Communist Party (CP) leaders, we learn that they were frequently imprisoned upon allegations of ‘incitement and riot’.  It is instructive to note that many of the unemployed young men of the 1930s were sympathetic to the manifesto of the CP although they did not openly claim membership to the party.  Caught into the whirl of desperate poverty, unemployed men were dreaming of radical social change. The unemployed men of the period were not apathetic to politics.  Instead, they seemed to have grown disillusioned with the failures of the Labour Party.  They felt alienated even from the trade union movement, for it catered to only those still having jobs. The coalminers, cotton mill workers and heavy industry workers who lost their jobs experienced an increase in their political awareness. But it would take one more decade for them to express this awareness through political participation. If unemployment “produced an apathetic resignation in some, it burnt into the souls of the many who found no acceptable remedy for their discontent until 1945.” (Clavin, 2000, p. 30)

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