THE DOCK STRIKE AND BEYOND
GRAVE as the immediate consequences of the London dock strike are, the deeper causes of a stoppage immeasurably disastrous to the national economy raise issues graver still. The strike itself is the action of men deaf to their own leaders and to every dictate of sanity and reason. There is nothing for any man in full command of his senses to strike about, and not one of them could give any better explanation of his decision to cease work than a parrot-cry about refusing to unload " black " ships. The two Canadian vessels in question are in no sense black. They are the type of Canadian ship which Canadian dockers in Canadian ports are working today without the smallest protest or hesitation. The Communist-led Canadian Seamen's Union, (which has been repudiated by organised Labour throughout Canada) powerless to cause serious trouble in its own country, has sent emissaries here to persuade British dockers to strike first at Avonmouth, then on the Mersey, now at the great docks of the Port of London, till the Government, all attempts at reason failing, has been compelled to declare a state of emergency, issue regulations thereunder and appoint a directorate of five to work the port with the help of troops and any volunteers that may be available. At the end of the first day of the new regime the Prime Minister had to tell the House of Commons that there were 11,000 men at work in the Port of London, and 13.528 on strike. That accounts for practically the whole of the Port of London. With the Government's decision no one can quarrel—except the Communists, who have exploited the whole incredibly stupid attitude of the rank and file with un- flagging assiduity and calamitous success. There was no other possibility. The nation's life must be preserved. Food ships must be unloaded, if not by dockers then by soldiers. As for the sug- gestion, so strangely supported by the Manchester Guardian on Wednesday, that the two Canadian ships round which all the trouble centres should be unloaded by troops or volunteers, after which the strike would collapse immediately, that, as the Prime Minister pointed out, with Mr. Eden's full approval, would mean con- ceding a principle which no Government could concede—that dockers might successfully stage an illegal strike because they had a dislike, for industrial or political reasons, for some particular ship, and get their way. That would be a simple—and fatal—solution.
The emergency has been declared ; the regulations under the declaration have been framed and published ; the emergency com- mittee is in charge ; the likelihood is that in the course of the next few days reason will belatedly assert itself, and the number of men at work gradually increase and of the strikers decrease. The immediate crisis will end, but no confidence regarding the future will exist. The same folly—and worse than folly, for there is no ground for criticising the Attorney-General's blunt and incontro- vertible assertion that the action of the strikers at a time like this is sheer treason to the country—may break out again at any moment. One thing is clear. It is as astonishing as it is incontestable that the British docker, on the Severn or the Mersey or the Thames, in himself a good-tempered, hard-working, rather easy-going type, can be led by the nose by any agitator with a glib tongue and a recognition of the magic effect of the one word "black-legging." What there is which differentiates the dockers from the average trade unionist in other industries is a question that deserves more investigation than it gets. It may be that decades of conditions of casual labour have left their demoralising mark, but the creation of the Dock Labour Board has relegated all that to the past, and should have relegated its consequences too. Since the days of John Burns and Ben Tillett and "the docker's tanner" a revolution in conditions and employment has been wrought, but the appeal of baseless slogans to the average docker seems as potent as ever it was. There is something to fathom further here. But one thing at least is clear. Such temperaments provide ideal material for the Communist seeking ceaselessly for an occasion for fomenting trouble. Communists in this country are not numerous. The actual party numbers about 40,000. But in the different trade unions they exert an influence out of all proportion to their num- bers. From local branches or lodges to the central executives they lay themselves out to gain key-positions. Election to the House of Commons matters little. Twenty members there could do the party no more good, and the nation no more harm, than the present pair. In the industrial world it is totally different. To destroy is always easier than to construct, and destruction is the main purpose of both Communism's high priests and its humblest acolytes. Bring anything that does not follow the Moscow pattern to the ground. Make Western Union fail. Make Marshall aid fail. Wherever there is a scrap of capitalism left, assail it, undermine it, paralyse it, at no matter what cost to the community it serves. That sounds a formidable task, but so long as British workers, be they miners or engineers, railwaymen or dockers, lend facile ears to plausible, if hollow, arguments and incitements it is relatively easy. What is the answer? That Communism is a public enemy is beyond all question. Whether it is a public enemy against which the Government should take legal action is much less certain. Should a movement whose allegiance, if the term be permitted in this context, is to a country other than this, and whose attitude to this country is undisguisedly subversive, be forbidden to exist? Is our belief in freedom of speech and writing and assembly to be abdicated in order that the Communist peril may be forcibly exorcised?
The answer must be definitely, No. If Communist candidates for Parliament can persuade a majority of the electorate to vote for them they have every right to be returned and sit. To deny that would be to deny the most elementary principles of democracy. But if Communists engage in subversive acts which bring them within the scope of the law, the law should be invoked against them with the utmost rigour. Their activities should be closely watched. The method of subtle subterranean assault on industrial peace must be exposed. Means must be found of bringing home to trade unionists generally the imminent peril in which the whole principle and structure of trade unionism is placed by Com- munist machinations. Some progress is being made in that direc- tion. The decisive majority by which the Transport and General Workers' Union—to which the majority of the dockers belong— resolved on Monday to ban all Communists from local or central office is highly encouraging, though the decision does not take effect till twelve months hence. But the knowledge of the position Communists hold in bodies like the Amalgamated Engineering Union and the Electrical Trades Union is seriously disturbing. An important article in Wednesday's Times showed how alarmingly successful Communists in Australia—at present half paralysed by a miner's strike in mid-winter—have been in establishing themselves in key positions in every union, though their total membership throughout the Commonwealth is no more than 12,000. There the method is revealed more convincingly than in this country. It is for British trade unionists to decide whether they are prepared, in tame acquiescence, to sec the same nefarious consequences worked out here.
All that raises the one vital question—what appeal can be made effectively to the decent, respectable, normally hard-working trade unionist who seems incapable of realising what an industrial stoppage means to the community of which he forms a part ? How are the miners to be made to understand that voluntary absenteeism of 121 per cent. is, if not legally, at any rate morally, treason to a country in the straits in which this country is struggling at the present moment ? What is the supreme secret of effective incentive? The highest, of course, and the most effective is religious, but the limits of its operation are lamentably narrow. It may be true that there is a lack of due contact between union leaders and their members, and between workers and the national boards in the nationalised industries. It is certain that in such a crisis as the present Ministers, heavily engaged, it may be conceded, in other quarters, have done less than might be hoped and expected of them. The radio provides the natural mechanism of approach. The Minister of Labour has broadcast twice. That is as it should be. But the Prime Minister is needed at the microphone. So is Mr. Bevin, still the greatest individual force in the trade union world. No effort can be withheld. No stone, in a politically discredited phrase, can be left unturned. The immediate necessity is for a settlement of the dock strike. That seems likely to happen in the course of days. But a larger and decisive issue has been raised, and unless th.it is resolutely faced, on the basis of search- ing diagnosis and considered cure, considered intensively on the highest level, then the prospects of settled industrial peace will be negligible—and we shall deserve abundantly what will come to us.
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