THE WORKING-CLASS MOVEMENT
The Post-War History of the British Working-Class. By Allen Hum (Gollancz. 6s.) PERHAPS the most significant fact about this able and effective bdok is that its title is misleading. A history of the British working-class since the War, however short, should include an analysis of wage movements in relation to prices, a discussion of the relative prosperity of different types of employment and of consequent changes in the distribution of working-class population. It would have to deal with the statistics of drunken- neSs and crime, and with changes in social habits ; football and the cinema, the greyhound and the whippet would all come within its province. There would also have to be a chapter on popular religion. None of these things are discussed in Mr. Hutt's new book. It is a history, not of the working- class but of the working-class movement ; and the two things are obviously not identical. The British workman is Aristotle's political animal, but he is many other things besides.
Mr. Hutt's thesis is that all the past errors and present ineffectiveness of organised Labour in this country arise froth the fact that it has leaders who "have a prOfcnind lack of faith in the working-class and an equally profound . . . awe of . . . the almighty and unshakeable power of the capitalist class." Discard the leaders, he says, and the mentality which they represent, forget all the little quibbles about constitutional and revolutionary methods ; and the triumph of the working- class movement is assured. This argument certainly; contains one fallacy and may contain another. It may be that those old- fashioned people who see a fundamental difference between the constitutional and the revolutionary method are right.
It certainly is the fact that the differences of outlook and social habit which divide the skilled-artisan from the casual .labourer, the miner from the agricultural worker, and the clerk (for Mr.
Hutt makes an appeal to the lower middle class) from all of them, will not permit them to be banded together under the banner of militancy. The working-class includes both " Haves " and
" Have-Nots," and mere propaganda will not make the former take the risks which the latter advocate ; the man with a family and a job will almost-always prefer the job with a ten per cent. wage-cut to the risk of no job at all. And in all countries the lower middle-class is the bitter enemy of organised Labour and the backbone of Fascism.
Viewed as a contribution to political science the books fails to rise above the limitations of the conventional-Mi'r a- cist expo- sition. As a piece of historical writing it is quite first-rate. The appallingly deficient generalship which time and again has led Labour to disaster is exposed in all its workings. The General Election of 1924, the General Strike of 1926, the complete failure to put forward a constructive policy in 1929- 1931, the hopelessly equivocal and fluctuating attitude of the leaders on the question of peace and war are all described in detail and with skill. It may have the defects of all contemporary history, and it makes no pretence of being impartial, but it is good history for all that. Mr. Hutt has a sense of atmosphere and a power of conveying it. He never is unfair to an opponent ; he even finds good words to say for Mr. Bevin and, by implica- tion, for the clergy. Two facts of outstanding importance emerge from the narrative ; the amazing loyalty of the Labour Party to its leaders in spite, not only of defeat, but of snubs to the rank and file which no Conservative Minister would dare to inflict ; and the amount of time and energy devoted to attacking a Communist menace which, on the other hand, the leaders have described as insignificant. The contrast, developed by the author, with M. Blum, who has made a much larger Communist Party than exists in England subserve, through the Front Populaire, the policy of a Socialist Government, is most effective, though it is only, fair to remember that both Social Democracy and its leaders have until recently been constantly
attacked by the Communist Press both in England and abroad. In short, while those who do not believe that the basis of a class war, conducted continuously and on all fronts, at present exists in England will inevitably differ from Mr. Hutt in indi- vidual judgements, as a contribution to the post-War history of Great Britain viewed from a particular angle his book cannot
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