In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

218 ARRAYS
the commission regards wage cuts as inevitable and does not acknowledge
the need for a nationally unified tariff agreement. Since neither of
the opposing parties is willing to move toward an agreement within the
range of these options, and since the report also persuades the government
to cancel subsidies as of May 1, the workers end up being shut out
and therefore begin their strike. Representing the coal miners, the Trade
Union Congress now takes up the negotiations with the governmentthreatening
to join with all its various subsections in a general strike. On
May 3 the government cancels the negotiations: some workers at the
Daily Mail have refused to print an article containing remarks critical of
the unions, and British officials interpret this as the beginning of a
general strike. Only hours later, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin declares
in a parliamentary speech that, since the Glorious Revolution, England
has never been closer to civil war (Chronik, 90; Parker, 121ff.).
Despite such solemnly threatening words, none of the three parties
involved seems to believe that the latest dramatization of their conflict
will yield any new results. For several months the government has been
accumulating reserves of food and coal. As Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Winston Churchill has prepared a detailed emergency plan which includes
the formation of a strike-breaking committee, the maintenance of
most transportation services, and the production and nationwide distribution
by airplane of a news circular entitled the British Gazette (Gilbert,
474f£.). The tone of the British Gazette is so conciliatory and its
reports on the workers' inclination to return to the negotiating table are
so optimistic, that public opinion soon begins to shift from the government
to the miners. On May 12 the Trade Union Congress calls off the
general strike. This, however, only complicates the situation: "Today,
after the breakdown of the general strike, the difficulties are probably
even greater than on the day the strike broke out. The owners, or at least
certain circles of owners, have turned the failure of the general strike into
a counterattack. They take the position that the general strike is a
violation of the law, since the workers have broken their wage contracts.
Now the industrialists claim to have the law on their side, when it comes
to making new wage contracts and locking out whomever they want
to ... This tactic has created a state of tremendous agitation among the
workers" (Berliner Volks-Zeitung, May 14).
The struggle between miners and owners continues for another six
months; and from September on, both parties reject any mediation by