British Politics
| Date | 01 December 1977 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1977.tb00472.x |
| Published date | 01 December 1977 |
| Subject Matter | Books |
BOOKS
BRITISH
POLITICS
John Lovell,
British
Trade
Utiions,
1875-1933.
Macmillan, London,
1977, 75
pp.,
f1.50
The Macmillan series in Economic and Social History provides in part a brief survey of recent
literature on a specific theme or period (including an annotated bibliography), in part a critical
review
of
the state
of
historiographical debate. Lovell’s study follows the contribution by
Musson
to
the same series, which covered the years
1800-75,
and embraces the same ‘revisionist’
approach: in a mere
fifty
pages of text he seeks
to
demolish most
of
the traditional explanations
of some of the most turbulent phases of British trade union development.
Thus Lovell denies that trade unionism suffered a massive decline in the late
1870s
and 1880s:
the craft unions at least held up well during a ‘great depression’ the significance
of
which
is
conventionally exaggerated. In the
1890s
the influence of socialists was less than commonly
assumed, and there is
little
evidence
of
a systematic ‘capitalist offensive’. The formation of the
Labour Party reflected little change in trade union orientations, while pre-war syndicalism
was of limited impact. Opposition
to
the war itself was relatively circumscribed, many workers
actually benefitting from wartime changes. The General Strike of
1926,
and the political crisis
of
1931,
were dramatic but irrelevant in terms
of
the dominant trend towards the consolidation
of
British unionism as a respectable and respected institution.
The confident generalizations
of
the Webbs, and of subsequent left-wing labour historians,
have been increasingly regarded in recent years as in need
of
qualification and refinement. Thus
each of Lovell’s points ofcriticism can be backed by substantial recent research.
But
his elabora-
tion
of
what may be termed the ‘industrial relations’ view
of
labour history-like Musson’s
companion volume-is notable
for
the absence
of
interpretative generalizations to replace those
under attack.
It
also engenders a somewhat selective vision: the industrial crisis
of
1919-20
is
ignored, the changes in the Labour Party in 1918 and the changing relationship between Party
and unions receive scant mention. The role
of
ideology in shaping trade union objectives
is
simply dismissed. Those who see trade unions, at least potentially, as something more than
narrow and sectional bargaining agencies will find this study less than satisfying.
paperback.
RICHARD
HYMAN
Asa
Briggs
and
John Saville (eds.),
Essays
in
Labour History
1918-1939,
Vol.
3.
Croon1
The third volume in this series, covering the inter-war years, is briefer and mercifully cheaper
than
its
immediate predecessor. Yet
in
some ways
it
is
a bit disappointing. There
is
virtually
nothing on social history or current controversies among historians about this period-an
omission
all
the more surprising in view
of
Asa Briggs’s own interests. His co-editor’s conclud-
ing essay on May Day 1937 skirts round some of these, but for the most part his romantic
approach reveals the dangers historians court when dealing with events they have experienced
at first hand.
Elsewhere there is more
to
cheer about. John Lovell’s account of the
T.U.C.’s
Special
Industrial Committee, which met between January and April
1926
to
evolve policy towards
the impending General Strike,
is
every historian’s dream-a one-source article which fills a
crucial gap in our knowledge
of
a major event. Alan Deacon is perceptive on the Labour Party’s
ambivalent attitude towards the dole,
A. R.
and
C.
P. Griffin share their unequalled knowledge
of
the Spencer Union, while Patrick Seyd charts the course
of
the Socialist League in the
1930s
deftly and sympathetically.
Helm,
London,
1977, 292
pp.,
f7.95.
602
BOOKS
There are more unusual things too. Frank Wilkinson’s piece
on
steel
unions
is
interesting
but odd-ostensibly about the 192Os, at least half of it deals with pre-1914. Margaret Cole’s
edited version of
G.
D. H. Cole’s celebrated satirical operetta
The
Striker Stricken,
written
just after the failure of 1926,
is
funny in an end-of-term-revue sort of way, but is
it
worth 35
pages? For
a
change of pace
F.
M. Leventhal’s defence of
H.
N.
Brailsford’s attitude
to
Germany
is
more welcome. But does either contribution really advance our understanding of
labour
history
?
PATRICK
RENSHAW
David
Marquand,
Ramsay
MacDonald.
Jonathan
Cape,
London,
1977,
xvi
+903
pp.,
Given a tendency
to
puncture the reputations of prominent figures,
it
is
easy to forget that
revisionism can work two ways. Ramsay MacDonald’s reputation was shattered among
Labour sympathisers by the events of 1931 and more generally by his involvement in the
unheroic 1930s. The time has long been ripe for a re-assessment of this complex and com-
plicated man, the dominant personality in the first half of the Labour Party’s history and a key
figure in the inter-War years. Apart from an insightful essay by
C.
L. Mowat and a sympathetic
study by Lord Elton, MacDonald has invariably been the subject of caricature, retrospective
wisdom and polemics. Marquand’s long awaited biography has many strengths.
It
is particularly
good in unravelling the strands of the Labour Movement and is extremely perceptive of
MacDonald’s and Labour Party politics before 1914. Interestingly, the more public and better
documented MacDonald after 1931 is
a
more shadowy figure in the book. Marquand throws
new light
on
MacDonald’s relationship with Henderson, the circumstances leading to the
Labour Government’s downfall in 1924 and the events of 1931. It is also
a
revealing and
sympathetic portrait of MacDonald, his style of operating, his political thought and his
personality, in which the self-pity became more evident after his wife’s death in 191
I.
But this
defence of MacDonald as a person
is
less successful as a defence
of
his political strategy. The
important issue is whether MacDonald’s Labourist strategy was comparable with his pro-
claimed political goals. This subject lacks a sustained discussion. But the biography is an
indispensable counter
to
Skidelsky’s
Politicians and
thc
Slim/>.
E12.50.
DENNIS
KAVANAGH
Nevil Johnson,
In
Search
of
the Constitution: Reflections
on
State
atid
Society
in
Britain.
This
book
is based on the collected letters
of
Nevil Johnson, not to
The
Tirnc.s
but,
to
a
West
German academic, bemoaning the degeneration of Britain and urging the adoption
of
German
constitutional and political arrangements.
It
is a traditional kind of radical critique, expressing commonplaces of the last
80
years. It
complains of the expansion of government, dictatorship of parties, erosion of the House
of
Commons, and the decline of argument about constitutional principles.
It
advocatgs the
reformers’ usual package-a constitution, bill of rights, electoral reform, parliamentary
committees, coalitions and devolution. Most interesting are the critical discussions of parlia-
mentary sovereignty and ministerial responsibility, and the suggestion of
a
permanent Con-
stitutional Commission
to
bring in by stages a set of organic laws and re-educate the British
to
think constitutionally.
The book
is
polemic, not political science, although in places the analysis is sharpened by
Mr. Johnson’s keen political intelligence. Two sentences of Mr. Johnson are appropriate
to
be used against his own book. Commenting on the view that Oppositions do not win elections,
instead Governments lose them, he writes: ‘The exact status of such an assertion
is
obscure, but
British experience provides some examples which seem
to
support
it’:
and later
‘Too
many
people have allowed their beliefs about how they would like the world
to
be
to
overrule their
capacity
to
understand the world as
it
is.’
Pergamon
Press,
Oxford,
1977,
ix
+
239
pp.,
E6.40.
BOOKS
603
It
is
to
be hoped that having worked his indignation
out
of his system, and resisting the
temptation
to
be Sir Keith Joseph's constitutional guru, he will concentrate
on
what he does
so
well, analysing institutions and the ideas underlying them.
Ci.
W.
JONES
Martin Minogue (ed.),
Documents
on
Conternporary British Government, Vol.
I:
British
Government and Constitutional Change,
xii $413 pp.,
Vol.
2:
Local Government in
Britain.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1977, xii t-470 pp..
El
1.00
boards,
f3.95 paperback.
These two volumes will be enormously useful to all undergraduate students
of
politics, and
to
Sixth Formers seeking
to
acquaint themselves at first hand with the reports and documents
which have shaped contemporary British government. The editor has included selections
illustrating changing relationships between executive and legislature, the control of the executive
and the relationship between the individual and the state in Britain. Britain, for his purposes,
includes Northern Ireland, and both volumes contain excerpts from documents dealing with
recent changes in that unhappy province. Mr. Minogue rightly says in his preface that
'if
students become accustomed to familiarity with the primary documents, they will not only
learn
to
make their own judgments about source material, but will derive from their studies an
enhanced enjoyment and enthusiasm for further enquiry.' He provides contextual material
linking the selections together, and a useful introduction discussing the competing claims
of
democracy and efficiency, and concluding,
'It
is less important that the train should be
on
time
than that
we
should
be
free
to
travel.'
VERNON
HOGDANOR
William
A.
Robson,
Welfare State and Welfare Society, Illusion and Rcolity.
Allen
&
William Robson has contributed a short but allusive addition
to
the debate over the welfare
state and the social services.
In
this leisurely and reflective essay he argues that the welfare state
is
a
particular kind of political arrangement, combining civic freedom with a public concern for
everything that adds
to
the quality and fullness
of
life. It
is
thus more than
a
simple provision
of
social services both because
it
is not just the necessary defences against need that are being
provided, and because
it
can never be a matter
of
mere provision by the state for the people.
A
welfare state requires
a
welfare society, and sexual equality, for instance, needs not just
legislation but
a
change in the way in which trade unions promote the interests
of
workers.
Robson writes in the Fabian, and more than Fabian moral tradition
of
English socialism in
insisting that citizens have duties as well as rights; except the people be righteous, the nation
shall perish.
Unwin, London, 1976, 184 pp.,
f5.50
boards, f2.95 paperback.
RODNEY
HARKER
Wyn Grant
and
David Marsh,
The CBJ.
Hodder
&
Stoughton, London,
226
pp., 1977,
In the light of more
or
less
a
decade
of
'tripartism' in the management of Britain's economic
affairs it is not surprising that the C.B.I. should become the object
of
a full length study.
Messrs. Grant and Marsh provide a sound survey
of
the development
of
this curious organiza-
tion-symbol of monopoly capitalism for some, paper tiger for others-from its emergence as
an expanded successor
to
the F.B.I. in
1965
down
to
the present. After dealing rather sketchily
with the establishment of the C.B.I. they offer a competent account
of
its range
of
membership,
and in a chapter on the system
of
industrial representation in Britain underline some
of
the
constraints which have made
it
difficult for the C.B.I.
to
claim to speak authoritatively for the
whole
of
British business. There are obvious conflicts of interest between large and small firms.
to a lesser extent between large private firms and public sector enterprises, and between manu-
facturing industry and the retail sector (which in the shape of the Retail Consortium remains
f6.50
boards, f3.95 paperback.
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