And Quiet Flows the Clyde
By D. W. BROGAN
IN the same week, a group of sullen but not basically rebellious shop stewards in Glasgow recently took a tongue-lashing from an English and Labour minister; and Rosslyn Mitchell, almost or quite the last of 'the Clydesiders,' died. A few days later, the liner trains laying up at Gushetfaulds yards in Glasgow were locally de- clared 'black,' but nobody minded. The days when the `Red Clyde' frightened—or was declared to frighten--the Government and the more states- manlike' union leaders are over. I can recollect the name of only one Glasgow Labour MP. I cannot recall the name of any Glasgow leader known outside the West, and although Glasgow Corporation is proposing to clean the Clyde again, it is not 'redundant with blood,' as a bad Irish poet, Mangan, wrote of the Erne. For what Mr. Middlemas* recounts and analyses is the story of a political firework display, not of an effective movement. The real parallel is with the Girondins, another local ginger group, not with the Jacobins, much less the Bolsheviks.
Mr. Middlemas defends himself from the charge of wasting time on a movement that died long before it was buried. It is not only that we ought to know why this talented and militant group failed, but what were the consequences for the Labour party, for Great Britain and for Scotland. And having chosen his subject, Mr. Middlemas has handled it admirably. There are, it is true, signs that he is not totally at home.
But on nearly all that matters, Mr. Middlemas is a sure guide. He rightly recalls the turbulent and rebellious history of Glasgow. It was a Whig city; it was a kind of Covenanting capital. Drumclog is not far away; the memories of the French Revolution, of Chartism, of heroic if ill- starred strikes are living still. Yet, the story told here recalls the Forty-five (which ended in mere romance) rather than the Whiggery that ended in the ambiguous triumph of the Glorious Revo- lution, with Principal Carstares (born in•Cathcart) the Harold Wilson of Scottish history.
* TIIE CLYDESIDF.RS: A LEFT-WINO STRUGGLE roa PARLtAMENTARY POWER. By Robert Keith Middle- mas. (Kirtehinsen, 50s.) In Mr. Middlemas's moving story, there is no doubt that the Prince Charlie was Jimmy Maxton and the Lord George Murray, John Wheatley. But if we get off the historical escala- tor in reverse—that is, the Scottish historical memory—there is no doubt that John Wheatley is the real hero, and Maxton simply the beloved rebel, in his old age, the little friend of all the world, but the wrecker of the Independent Labour party and so the begetter of various imitations and unconsciously the ally for a time of the British Communist party, whose patron saint was another Clydesider, Willie Gallacher.
What was the role of the Clydesiders? They proved, first of all, that there would be no revo- lutionary takeover. People who saw the great revolutionary mob driven out of George Square in January -1919 knew that there was to be no `Red October' or even Easter Week in Glasgow. The People's Flag was not to be dyed deepest red on the Clyde. But the Lloyd George/ Churchill preparations to crush the alleged revo- lutionary movement (as Father Gapon's march in Petersburg was crushed in 1905) were super- fluous. John -Wheatley noted the sad truth. Revolution would be verbal. (He was, after all, from Waterford, not Wexford.) But added to the reputation of rebelliousness acquired during the war, the riot marked the Clyde in English (and Edinburgh) eyes as `Bolshie.' Statesmen, etc., trembled or professed to tremble in the Carlton and in the New Club, in London and Edin- burgh. Few trembled, I suspect, in the Western Club in Glasgow.
In 1922, the political disillusion caused by the `cOupon election' and the collapse of mere Mili- tancy was replaced by the euphoria of the sending to Westminster of the new MPs. Maxton was eloquent; Kirkwood, to die a peer, was incarnate Scottish working-class, self-righteous- ness. Some of the others were eloquent; some were winning. But only one was a 'man of govern- ment,' as the French put it- -John Wheatley. He was the equal of Joe C'hamberlain and the most successful minister of the first Labour govern- ment. When the MacDonald government fell, he had the chance of becoming the. centre of resistance to 'MacDonaldism and he had brains in the academic sense as well as in the party political sense.
But it is easy to see in Mr. Middlemas's narra- tive why MacDonald kept him out of the second
Labour government and why Wheatley could not force his way in. He had made too many enemies. He was an Irish Catholic. He was a rich man. (He was a good deal more than 'prosperous.' His printing firm had, as an unconscious client. the Conservative Central Office for a time!) He could be passionate but. preferred to be convincing. (Mr. Middlemas tells us of how George V understood, after an audience, why Wheatley was so bitter. Wheatley told my father, after the interview, 'There's a lot more in the little man than I suspected.') Those were not the days %Oen it was thought 'quite democratic of Labour leaders to live in NW3, and there were many jokes, kind and unkind, about Wheatley's attempt to live as he had done in the past—but differently.
Yet as the second Labour government slid into rubble, Wheatley, who not only was out of office but had ideas that were not second-hand Glad- stonian finance or William Morris romance, was the obvious rallying-point for the left; he '% as all and more than all that Aneurin Bevan was to be. But dis aliter visum. Suffering from high blood pressure, indifferent to medical advice (Mr. Middlemas does not tell us that his daughter was a very distinguished doctor), Wheatley died. And with him died 'the Clyde' as an effective political force. The way was open to Mosley and Cripps.
All this story is admirably told, for not only is Mr. Middlemas an effective narrator, he is a reflective political historian. He has his blind spots. (One is for Sonar Law.) But the most serious one is his ignoring of the fact that Glasgov,. like Liverpool, was then a highly religious city: i.e., full of envy, malice, uncharitableness, hate. What held the Labour party back was that, for a great part of 'the working population, King Billy, Dan O'Connell, the Pope, the Grand Master were more important figures than the Lord Provost or the Moderator. About half the popu- lation was of Irish origin, Catholic and Protes- tant. Maxton knew where, in Bridgeton, his working-class enemies came from and he knew how they were catered to. Two events, one not mentioned at all, one only alluded to, immensely improved the Labour prospects: the Irish Treaty of 1921 and the Alness Education Act of 1918. Each weakened the hold of the clergy over the Irish vote., since each settled questions that had held the Irish. bourgeoisie, clergy and workers to- gether. (Mr. Middlemas greatly exaggerates the Liberal devotion of the priests; Many were , at heart Tories but couldn't say so.) It took longer to emancipate the Protestant Irish workers, but it was done. Mr. Middlemas has worked hard in private archives and in unpublished theses. An afternoon, even today, spent at Hampden at an 'Old Firm' match would have been useful, too. 'Faith of Our Fathers' and 'The Sash Me Father Wore' were the rivals to 'The Red Flag.' They have ceased to be, except ceremonially.
To end on a more elegiac and comforting note. I arranged, during the war, a transatlantic broad- cast between selected teams from. the House of Commons and the House of Representatives. The day after it took place, I received a haughty note from the then Director-General. Why had I chosen Mr. Maxton for the House of Commons team? I replied, truthfully, that he had been chosen by the Prime Minister. It was a long way from Barlinnie Jail and Churchill's tanks off George Square and, on that long ■\ ay, the Red .Clyde had dried up.
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