Unemployment and the state in Britain

The means test and protest in 1930s south Wales and north-east England

Stephanie Ward

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781526112323
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Indian & South Asian History
• Index: History

Explores the impact of the highly controversial means test in south Wales and north-east England

Part I

Overview

1

Unemployment and the depression in interwar Britain

The man or woman who is in a job to-day may be out of a job tomorrow; and, save at times of exceptional trade prosperity, the fear of the sack is never long absent altogether from the worker’s mind. It means for every worker a constant sense of insecurity, a knowledge that the continuance of the means of livelihood depends on powerful forces which are almost wholly outside his control. Nothing does so much to suppress the worker’s natural instincts of resentment, to check the growth of a spirit of independence, to breed a servile attitude of mind, as the ever-present fear of unemployment.¹

G. D. H. Cole, Out of Work: An Introduction to
the Study of Unemployment (London, 1923).

While the worst years of the depression came in the early 1930s, unemployment affected older industrial communities throughout the interwar period. Demobilised men and women experienced the first wave of post-war unemployment, and from the early years of the 1920s, the number of out of work steadily rose to become a serious social and political problem. From the later 1920s until the midyears of the 1930s, unemployment and the depression cast its shadow over large swathes of the British population. While affluence did increase for some sections of the working class, unemployment and poverty were a reality for many more. Whether through short-time work, long-term unemployment or living in a household with members experiencing either, ‘the slump’ affected millions. Movements of the unemployed, political parties, trade unions, academics, journalists and, not least, the government all struggled throughout the period to highlight the plight of the unemployed or find a remedy for the situation. Successive governments were plagued by the question of how to improve conditions within the labour market and maintain the unemployed amidst financial crisis, the rise of fascism on the continent and the mounting challenge of managing the vast British Empire.

In the debates that raged about unemployment, it was the ‘army of unemployed’ that were the focus of attention. This faceless characterisation which easily glossed over the harsh reality of interwar life has persisted. Whatever signs of progress and advancement, from the growth of consumerism to the participation in developing forms of leisure, in the depressed regions, unemployment and the depression provided a near-constant backdrop. The threat of losing work instilled a fear for the future in many working-class households across Britain as G. D. H. Cole surmised. It was not only the rhetoric or later literature of the Left that cemented the depression as the defining feature of the decade, it was the reality of life for many as Matt Perry has noted.² The living standards, health and welfare of unemployed homes and the belief of governmental failure to provide a viable solution combined to create an atmosphere that was at times explosive and in the end became embedded in popular memories of the period.

One of the most significant consequences of interwar unemployment was the development of a more sophisticated welfare system for maintaining and managing the out of work. Between 1920 and 1931, over twenty different unemployment acts were introduced.³ Legislation was not, however, only influenced by a desire to improve the benefit system and the lives of citizens. Throughout the interwar period, unemployment policy, across parties, was ultimately influenced by the need to appease social unrest and, simultaneously, to reduce public expenditure. The response of governments to mass unemployment and the reaction of the working class were affected and influenced by the personal and social costs of unemployment. In order to understand the dynamics of government measures and collective action, it is imperative that the image of the unemployed and place of the depression in British culture and politics is recognised. The relationship between citizens and the state was based upon this complex mixture of personal experience, wider economic theories, party ideology and cultural understandings of class, social policy and citizenship. The position of the working class in south Wales and the north-east of England within this wider British context is essential to an analysis of the protests of the 1930s. The 1920s in many ways set the pattern for popular attitudes towards the unemployed and their relationship with the government.

Unemployment by the later nineteenth century was a recognised feature of the capitalist system.⁴ William Beveridge calculated from trade union statistics on out-of-work donations that before 1914 ‘even in the years of greatest activity’ unemployment ‘never disappeared completely’ and ‘after 1874 it did not in any year fall below 2 per cent’.⁵ It was to take the unprecedented demands of the war effort along with conscription to see the virtual eradication of unemployment during the First World War. Indeed, in some areas, underemployment became an issue, and the ranks of the workforce swelled with women taking posts where men could not. While the large workforce was recognised as a necessity for a successful war effort, ministers were cautious about the transition to peacetime when demobilised men and women would flood the labour market. Works such as Keynes’s The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1920) helped stimulate debate and serve as a warning to what was an issue fraught with the complications of finance as well as public opinion.⁶ The Commission of Enquiry into Industrial Unrest highlighted how the desire for good industrial relations stimulated debate as much as economic reasoning.⁷

Peacetime arrangements for the labour market were an incredibly politically sensitive area. Figures such as Christopher Addison, the Minister for Reconstruction, argued it was essential that the government provided some form of temporary limited out-of-work donation for all unemployed people including women. Addison felt that given an estimated 10 million people remained excluded from the national insurance scheme, even after the extension of 1916, it was pivotal that cover be given for men, women and dependent children as unemployment may be caused by a ‘temporary shortage of raw materials, dislocation and defective organisation, &c’.⁸ Support was found within the government for such a scheme, and from the announcement of armistice, an out-of-work donation could be claimed for a period of six months. The following year, reflective of the optimism of the government, the national insurance scheme was extended to cover practically all workers, entitling some 12 million to unemployment benefit.⁹ Married men were given preference in the new scheme which, Marjorie Levine-Clark has argued, was placed within ‘a cultural framework which reasserted a breadwinner model of masculinity as a means to return to “normal”, to distance British society from the public and private traumas of war’.¹⁰

In the initial months after the end of war, many staple industries witnessed a boom period. While production and output levels may not have surpassed the pre-war pinnacle, the demand for raw materials was high enough to see the absorption of many workers back into the labour market. As an indication of the initial boom, in south Wales and the northeast of England, the number of employed coal miners reached its zenith in 1921.¹¹ Of course, this picture of prosperity was uneven. The jubilation of the end of the war did little to ease the bitter reality of a life dependent upon the state and the care of others for injured men. Women who had desired continued employment found the gentle nudge and then angry push back into the home a difficult prospect. In the early months of 1919, it was clear that the promise of work for all was not being fulfilled. Demobilised men felt angry that wartime rhetoric of a better future was left unrealised as industries struggled to readjust. The years immediately after the war are viewed by historians as representing ‘the high tide of working-class unrest’.¹² The wave of race rioting in the first half of 1919 was an ugly demonstration of the tensions which existed within British society. A common spark in the riots in many of Britain’s seaports was competition for work from demobilised men.¹³ While local relations with immigrant and ethnic minority populations need careful consideration, the patterns of rioting revealed the areas most affected by post-war economic problems.¹⁴

The economic dislocation of the immediate post-war years was reflected in the outburst of social and industrial action. A series of smaller stoppages took place throughout 1919 including the strike of 3,000 men in the Rhondda Valleys on New Year’s Day over unemployment thought to have been caused by rapid demobilisation.¹⁵ Industrial relations in the mining industry were eased by the temporary boom and the findings of the Sankey Commission; the recommendation of the nationalisation of the coal mining industry was much favoured by the workforce. More serious strike action occurred within the shipbuilding industries, and iron, steel and engineering trades most affected after armistice. In the autumn, a strike amongst 50,000 moulders within the iron industry lasted over three months and affected trade and employment within engineering also.¹⁶ To add to the picture of unrest, strikes also broke out amongst cotton and railway workers as well as the police; industrial relations were particularly bitter in Clydeside and Belfast.¹⁷

The developing unrest was indicative of the upheaval in industry and the tension between employers trying to reduce costs and workers fearful for unemployment and a lowering of living standards. For those unable to find employment, frustration at the lack of opportunities after returning from war led men and women to take to the streets. Just a month after the armistice was announced, a demonstration of an estimated 30,000 against unemployment was organised by twenty-six trade union branches along the Tyne. Richard Croucher sees this action as reflecting ‘a widespread feeling among both industrial workers and servicemen that a “land fit for heroes” was precisely what was required after the enormous sacrifice of war’.¹⁸ From 1919, the level of unemployment began to be described as a ‘grave’ problem: from 1920, economists began to point towards a ‘crisis’ which threatened both economic recovery as well as political stability. The year 1920 was pinpointed as the beginning of the post-war depression which, temporary improvements through cyclical fluctuations aside, lasted until 1938. Unemployment was viewed as an unprecedented situation without parallel in pre-war depressions. To many, it was one of the most pressing concerns of the government. The American economist Herbert Feis warned in 1921 that in Britain ‘unemployment has risen to the dimensions of a calamity’ and felt that ‘English [sic] labor will fight before it will accept a reduction of its standard of living to the pre-war standard’. Feis concluded that ‘since the question of wage reduction is such a thorny one, and the question of unemployment is so acute, the present government will find its march back to the gold st...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Map of south Wales
• Map of north-east England
• Introduction
• Part I Overview
• Part II 1931–34
• Part III 1935–41
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index