A MOST striking feature of the General Strike is the number of trivial prosecutions in the face of the manifest quietness of the workers. The police authorities were evidently instructed to jump at the Communists wherever the slightest opportunity offered, with a view to crippling the work of the Communist Party, and to so report the cases that the Home Secretary would be able to accuse the Communists of “incitement” and doing nothing in the strike—doing all the shouting and taking none of the risks. The workers will know how to value such innuendoes.
I will cite a few cases to show how both the magistrates and the police were, shall I say, “Class Conscious.” The police conducted a raid on the homes of Communist Party members in the Rhondda Valley, South Wales. They found a lot of literature, some “Workers’ Weeklies” (pre-strike date), old “Communist Reviews,” and in the case of the Secretary of the Party Local, Frank Bright, some strike bulletins. Three others besides Bright were arrested; one named Llewellyn and the others Lewis. Bright was sentenced to two months on account of the bulletin. But in the case of the three others, all that could be found was a document issued by the Young Communist League in 1925. This suggested that its followers should urge the children not to sing the National anthem on Empire Day, and to refuse to salute the Union Jack. The magistrate thought in any case this was very wicked and asked them to undertake “not to engage in any propaganda work, or circulate literature of this type for the next twelve months, or they must go to prison for two months, and one month respectively.” One of the Lewis’s was bound over. All of them refused to comply with the conditions.
At Shipley the police raided a Communist dance, found a lot of old literature, and took everybody in the room who was known to be a member of the Communist Party or the Young Communist League. Eight persons were arrested. Again the strike bulletins were used as the pretext to break the Party organisation. They were held responsible for attempting to incite the troops although there were no troops within a number of miles. So they received sentences ranging from two months hard labour to two weeks. Two more in London were sentenced to two months and six weeks respectively for having in their possession a leaflet containing the phrases, “Youth in Action: Troops Act.” In another sheet it was stated that the “West Ham Council of Action is going strong and has the local movement well in hand. Mounted soldiers have been seen riding in the streets.” (“Times” Report.)
The secretary of the International Class War Prisoners’ Aid writes in the “Sunday Worker” of May 30th, 1925, “In South Wales numerous raids were carried out on workers’ houses. In the case of Owen, Goldberg, and Wilde of Aberamam, the only evidence submitted by the police was that copies of the “Workers’ Weekly” and the “Communist Review” and other pre-strike publications had been found in their possession. The police agreed that no attempt was made to distribute them. Two months’ hard labour!”
But not only Communists canoe in for this kind of treatment. The class consciousness of the magistrates was tuned up beyond the point of hating only the Communists. At the Marylebone Police Court on May 27th occurred the following dialogue between the magistrate and Arthur Hindle, a railwayman summoned for the non-payment of £8 to his wife under a maintenance order. He pleaded that he was out of work.
“Did you strike?” asked the Magistrate (Mr. Halket). “Yes, sir.”
Magistrate: “Well, it serves you right. I suppose you went off without notice and broke your contract. Have the railway company proceeded against you for a week’s wages?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, they could have done. If you treat your employers like that you cannot expect to be treated very gently yourself. You voluntarily threw up your work, repudiated your contract with the railway company and now you tell this injured woman [his wife] you cannot pay her.”
The defendant replied that he was called out by his recognised trade union, the N.U.R.
“You need not have obeyed an order that was obviously illegal.”
“We were called out. What could we do?”
“If they asked you to commit a crime you would not do it. Why should you commit this wrong?”
The defendant did not answer the question, but pointed out that he would return to work on Monday at a wage of 31s., which was a reduction of 12s. per week. The order was for thirty shillings per week.
Mr. Halket made an order for the payment of £8 within 21 days, or 26 days imprisonment in default, adding that the defendant might raise the money from the union officials who ordered him to go on strike. The magistrate also requested the Court missionary to assist the defendant’s wife from the Poor Box, as she was destitute.”—“Times” report June 4th, 1926.
How these Christians “love their enemies!”
In fact they distribute the “love” cheerfully. For example:
About the same date “On the application of the police, three summonses against J. A. Young, G. M. Gotto and C. H. Jones, were withdrawn at the same court. They were charged with exceeding the motor speed limit. ‘The Commissioner desires,’ said Police-sergeant Jones, ‘that the Magistrate will look upon these cases with favour, as the defendants had been working—one as a volunteer omnibus driver during the strike, and the other two as special constables during the emergency.”
Magistrate (Mr. Canceller): “Do you want to withdraw them? Very well: withdrawn.”
Of course we have the consolation that the law is “unbiassed.”
But what a joy ride the police had with the pickets. It is estimated that about a thousand cases have passed through the courts in England and Scotland. Glasgow alone sate over two hundred arrests, and sentences on the average of about three months for “impeding traffic.” At Gateshead, near Newcastle, fifty men, mostly miners were each sent to prison for one month on account of “acts of intimidation.” At Doncaster after a well organised attempt to hold up transport other than that permitted by the Council of Action and a tough struggle with the police, 84 miners were arrested and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. At Gloucester thirteen dockers were sent to prison for 14 days for stopping a barge and a tug in the canal. And so the game went on all over the country. In every district there was a powerfully organised police force ready for anything, and everywhere the workers found themselves totally unprepared for meeting this force.
If the workers attempted to move an inch beyond what the police were prepared to permit, they found themselves in difficulties which only well organised preparations could possibly meet. The Government steered the operation of picketing along the grooves of simple trade unionism, and any attempt at collective action was met with the presence of well trained and well armed police forces. Indeed with the continual pumping of pacifism into the workers from the General Council and the constant appeals to simply fold arms, the situation appeared like a dress parade in the setting of a mock civil war, with only one side armed on the plea of safety for property.
Nevertheless the workers are undoubtedly learning from the experience and one of the first things that is a direct product of the petty persecutions is a wide extension of the organisation of the International Class War Prisoners’ Aid.
Next: VII. Reflections and Perspectives