Dimming of the Day

25 The Picture of Britain the Liberal government supported after the 1906 election by a much increased Labour representation. There were 872 strikes in 1911, including major strikes in the docks and the railways. 1 March 1912 saw the first national miners’ strike: The Times called it ‘the greatest catastrophe that has threatened the country since the Spanish Armada.’ This resulted not in revolution but in an Act which established a minimum wage in the industry though the quantum was to be decided locally. Problems were not over. The period from 1910 to 1914 is sometimes known as “the great unrest” and the more excitable saw socialist revolution on the way. In his memoirs David Lloyd George said that in 1914, Trouble was threatening in the railways, mining, engineering and building industries, disagreements were active not only between employers and employed, but in the internal organisation of the workers. A strong ‘rank and file’ movement, keenly critical of the policies and methods of the official leaders of trade unionism had sprung up and was gaining steadily in strength. Such was the state of the home front when the nation plunged into war. And as the Siege of Sydney Street in 1911, and varied lurid fictional accounts suggested, where other folk devils failed there were always the Anarchists! Economically, the period leading up to the war was on the face of it one of success and prosperity: exports more than doubled between 1900 and 1913, but the prosperity was not equally spread and it has been calculated that average real wage rates were 4% lower in 1910 than they had been in 1896 19 . New social security benefits (on the models introduced in Germany by Bismarck 30 years earlier) made up some but not all of the difference. It was easier, perhaps, to turn your gaze inwards to the cricket field. 19 The Common People 1746-1938 , Cole and Postgate, Methuen, 1938