Strike Across The Empire, 1925 - Baruch Hirson and Lorraine Vivian

The strikers confronted the shared hostility of governments, employers and union leaders alike. The text also deals with how the racism prevalent in the labour movement affected the conduct and outcome of the strike.

"THIS IS A STRIKE that has vanished from history. In August 1925, the seamen of Britain, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand walked off their ships in protest against a ten per cent wage cut. It was one of the few genuinely international strikes, directed against a powerful international cartel. One would have expected it to be widely debated. Yet, newspaper coverage apart, history has largely been silent. Bedeviled by racism, the men had to fight not only unemployment but their own trade union, led by the appalling Havelock Wilson and his 'storm-troopers'. A supine TUC refused assistance to an unofficial action and the colliers and their allies, assuaged by the temporary victory of Red Friday, were indifferent.
The seamen were defeated and there is a suspicion that the struggle was a dress rehearsal for the General Strike which followed and resulted in a decisive defeat for the working class.
Baruch Hirson and Lorraine Vivian have done a magnificent job. They have burrowed like moles in the newspapers of three continents, unearthed much new information and presented a full and convincing account of a shameful episode. Not only the forgotten seamen but history itself owes them a debt."
- G A Williams

Published; Clio Publications, London, 1992.

The seamen's strike of 1925: in Britain, South Africa and Australasia

(Baruch Hirson & Lorraine Vivian, 1992)

This essay provides the first account of the one international strike in history: that of the British seamen in 1925. Starting soon after the 1st of August in Britain, the strike failed to gain momentum until seamen walked off the ships three weeks later in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

The seamen stayed out for over three months in Australia and for about two months elsewhere. They defied the governments of four countries, the most powerful cartel of the time (that of the shipowners) and their union in Britain. Yet except for a number of student dissertations dealing with local events the history of this strike has not been told.

William Beinart, a South African historian, took one of the authors of this essay (Baruch Hirson) to meet Solomon Biurski, a veteran member of the Communist Party of South Africa, in London in 1984. Beinart had a copy of Biurski's un­published autobiography in which he claimed that in 1925 he had organized and led the committeei supporting the striking seamen in Cape Town. The story, as told by Biurski, was riveting but also puzzling: there was no record of the event in any history of South Africa. Neither Beinart nor Hirson had heard of this before and, in a preliminary search for evidence of the event, no references to the strike were found in the popular histories of trade unionism in Britain. At a later date, a more thorough search revealed some short accounts, most of them confined to events in Britain or Australasia.

Beinart, although interested, felt that it was too far from his existing research in­terests. Hirson, left with the matter in his hands, turned to the newspaper section of the British Library to check Biurski's story. What he found was remarkable. For almost two months the strike was on the main news pages, and Biurski's activities, although not quite as described in the manuscript, figured prominently. The Cape Town newspapers also referred to activities in Durban and had items from Australia, New Zealand and Britain. This initiated a search over many months through newspapers that were available in the British newspaper library, and the story grew.

Yet no documents referring to the strike were found in the British Public Records Office. Even the papers of the Seamen's Union, available at Warwick University, contained few documents for the year 1925. Of all the main British ac­tors only George Hardy wrote about the event. Emanuel Shinwell, leader of a rival union, which was involved in the strike, avoids the year 1925 in the many versions of his autobiography. The official and unofficial histories of the Communist Party in Great Britain, and the autobiographies of persons connected with the National Minority Movement (such as Harry Pollit), made no mention of the strike.

An extensive correspondence with friends and academics led to new contacts in Australia and New Zealand and this yielded further information, copies of debates in (the Australian parliament and senate, and also some archival sources in libraries. 'The research was revealing on several counts. Firstly for the wealth of newspaper coverage, from all sides of the political spectrum - although there were some newspapers which we sought to no avail. Secondly for the repeated assertion that it was a communist plot to destabilize the British empire, or the governments of one or other of the countries involved. Thirdly for the racial over­tones that were implicit (or explicit) in many of the arguments in Britain, South Africa and Australia. But over and above these factors it became apparent that there was a malaise in the seamen's unions and in the British Trade Union Con­gress. Havelock Wilson and his lieutenants in the seamen's union in Britain con­trolled the union with little regard for the membership and in their actions used methods that could be described as near fascist. Indeed Edward Tupper, one of Wilson's cohorts, subsequently wrote of using his 'storm troopers' in organizing a race riot. The leader of the seamen's union in Australia, ostensibly radical in 1925, subsequently joined ranks with Wilson in a rightward move that led him to con­demn socialism and champion a 'white Australia' policy. The TUC, in the months before the General Strike, stood by supinely and refused assistance to the striking men. They reaped the 'reward' for their inactivity in 1926 when, during the General Strike, which revolved around the action of the coal miners, the seamen were forced to bring in cargo loads of coal.

This meant that a crucial event in the months leading up to the strike of 1926, and one which had a crippling effect on the miners' action, has been overlooked. What started as a search to confirm a claim in a participant's memoir became a search for the understanding the first shot of the General Strike and posed a question that was always present, but has not been answered: was the seamen's strike of 1925 provoked in order to undermine the seamen before the main action was played out?

The reading of newspapers was more than one person could encompass. For­tunately, two students at the Middlesex Polytechnic, who attended courses given by Hirson, offered their assistance and went through the tedious task of searching through newspapers and journals: Clare Ghazi-Horsiny and Lorraine Vivian. After graduating, Vivian was persuaded by Hirson to undertake research on the strike in Britain for a Master's degree at Warwick University. For over a year this involved a separation of interests. In order to satisfy academic criteria, Lorraine worked independently, maintaining only minimum contact with Hirson. Only after she had graduated was it possible to resume collaboration.

By this time Hirson had completed his reading on the rise and decline of the strike outside Britain. Using the material in Vivian's dissertation, the work was written by Hirson. Both names appear on the title page because of the work that has been put into this research.
Now that our study of the strike has been taken as far as seems possible, we turn once again to the vexed question of the absence of the strike in most histories of trade unionism. We have to ask whether the seamen's strike was overshadowed by the general strike of 1926. But this makes no sense: the events of 1925 fed into the strike of 1926. Wherever we looked it seemed that almost all the major actors in the events of 1925 had something to hide: the communists because of the collapse of the Anglo-Soviet agreement in 1926; the 'Trade Union Congress because it had refused to support the seamen in 1925; Shinwell because of his tardy and confusing actions during the strike; and the officials of the National Union of Seamen and Firemen in 1925 had more to conceal than we could uncover six decades later.

While it always remains possible that failure to discuss the strike has been an oversight, it seems more likely that the open antagonism to the strike by the official union and the failure of the TUC to lend support to the seamen has led to its rela­tive neglect in Britain. The failure to see the connection between the strike of 1925 and that of 1926 is, in our opinion, a major failure of the histories written to com­memorate the General Strike.

In South Africa the immaturity of history as a discipline and the relative newness of labour history is sufficient to explain its absence from history books. Australia has several accounts of the strike in the ports, and some dissertations written for degree purposes in the universities. Most of these are not available to outside readers.

Having completed the work we were more than surprised when told by some publishers that the book was not viable because it was not 'reader specific'. That is, the potential readership was too scattered to warrant publication. Other publish­ers were less complimentary and this persuaded us to try our own publishing facilities.

Hirson did the typesetting and the design and got the copy camera-ready for the printer. It now remains to be seen whether there is a reading public out there, will­ing to read a story that we think compelling and important.

We thank the many people who assisted us in the Bibliography, leaving only our respective families to thank. They rendered every assistance while we took off time to work at the history. Without their forbearance this work would never have been completed. If we have erred at any point they, and the many people who have as­sisted us, are certainly not responsible.
Baruch Hirson
Lorraine Vivian

Abbreviations Used In The Book
AMWU Amalgamated Marine Workers Union
AWCT Association of Wireless and Cable Telegraphists
BSU British Seafarers Union
CPA Communist Party of Australia
CPGB Communist Party of Great Britain
CPSA Communist Party of South Africa
CSC Central Strike Committee
FSU Federated Seaman's Union (of Australia)
ICU Industrial and Commercial Workers of Africa
IFTW International Federation of Transport Workers
LPA Labor Party of Australia
MRC Modern Research Centre
NMB National Maritime Board
NMM National Minority Movement
NSFU National Sailors' and Fireman's Union
PC5 Port Clearance Card
RILU Red International of Labour Unions (Profintern)
SAIC South African Indian Congress
SALP South African Labour Party
TUC Trades Union Congress

At the beginning of August 1925 the wage of British seamen was cut by 10 per­cent. The most galling features of this reduction was the role of J Havelock Wilson, the President of the National Sailors and Firemen's Union of Great Britain and Ireland (NSFU). Without consulting the seamen he had offered tlic reduction to the employers. Consequently the strike that followed was as much against the union's leaders as against the shipowners.

The £1 reduction imposed on the seamen, with the connivance of their union leaders, was an act of betrayal. The British trade unions had just rejected the government's call for a general reduction of wages and, in concerted action, had threatened to call a general strike. They had won and wages were left untouched. July 31st, the deadline for the cut, was celebrated by the trade unions as Red Friday to mark their victory. Yet within forty-eight hours, seamen seeking a berth had to accept a wage cut. In the midst of their jubilations, few workers stopped to pause at the humiliation of the nation's seamen.

During the government's campaign to lower wages, the shipowners had joined the general clamour and, to the chagrin of all seafarers, had found willing allies in their trade union officials. They had been betrayed by their own association and, furthermore, they were obviously vulnerable. There was large scale unemploy­ment in the merchant marine and crews could be brought in from idle ports by the larger shipping lines. The seamen also faced competition from Lascars (Indian) and Chinese sailors. This alternative work force was paid at appreciably lower rates and that, whether intended or not, gave rise to strong racial antagonisms, a factor that was also to play an important part in the events that followed.

The seamen who did come out on strike when the cut was announced in Britain faced insuperable difficulties. The NSFU condemned those who would not sail and assisted the shipowners in recruiting scabs. The seamen were also split, occupationally, regionally and politically, and that was a barrier to organizational coherence both at home and at sea. Nor were they all in the same union. The Amalgamated Marine Workers Union (AMWU) led by Emanuel (Manny) Shin­well and smaller groups such as the Association of Wireless and Cable Telegra­phists had emerged historically out of sectional unions. The AMWU leaders, irrevocably split themselves, breathed hot and cold throughout August 1925 before declaring their support for the strike and even then they failed to offer a decisive lead.

The seamen's strike was not foreseen by the trade union movement in Britain nor offered support when it broke out. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) rejected all appeals for assistance and refused to support the strike because it was 'unofficial'. It was left to the National Minority Movement (NMM)[1] to organise the unofficial strike committee in London. Perhaps it was this cold-shouldering of the strike that has led to its exclusion from most analyses of trade union activities. yet our investigation led us to believe that the defeat of the seamen's strike contributed to the collapse of the General Strike only nine months later[2].

By mid-August the seamen's strike had all but collapsed in Britain. Most ships had sailed with a full complement of men and there seemed little purpose in the small handful of strikers in British ports persisting. It was at this juncture that the nature of the strike altered. After 20 August, when the ships reached ports in Atstralia, New Zealand and South Africa, men declared that they would not sail again. For the next sixty to one hundred days British ships were immobilised.

The impact on the three Dominions in which the strike was effective, even if eventually the men were forced back, was more diverse. In Australia, and to a lesser degree New Zealand, the antagonisms between trade unionists and govern­ment intensified. In South Africa it undoubtedly started the rift in the all-white Labour Party and distanced it from the National Party, its partner in the govern­ment. In all of them the economies were badly affected.

A strike in 1925 was a serious matter for the economies of Britain and the Dominions. Air travel, which was to change the relationship between Europe and the rest of the world within a decade, was still in its infancy and exporters of raw materials, agricultural produce and manufactured goods relied on regular sail­ings, as did mail and travellers, tourists and immigrants. Any prolonged delay could lead to severe losses for farmers, traders and manufacturers, as well as con­siderable inconvenience for those who maintained contact with persons overseas.

The shipowners were fully aware of the role they played in transporting people and in keeping international trade alive, but their first concern was the main­tenance of a healthy balance sheet. The world-wide cartel, in which British owned ships played a central role, had plans to reduce costs to maintain (and improve) its profitability. In the process they were prepared for a large initial drop in profits if that was the price to be paid for controlling their crews.

The employers would have had their way within weeks if it had not been for the action of the thousands of men who walked off the ships in the ports of South Africa and Australasia. With the men and women of the Dominions who suppor­ted them, they kept the strike alive. It was only when the seamen in South African ports, despairing of victory, decided to sail again that the AMWU called off the strike in Britain. One week later the NMM-controlled Central Strike Committee with headquarters in London conceded defeat.

The decision to cut the wages in August 1925 was the cruellest cut of the time: both absolutely, in view of the low wage earned by the seamen, and relatively when compared to the income earned by the shipowners. The wages paid to seamen had risen to an average of £14 10s per month after the war, but these rates had been pared back to £9 in four cuts (50s in May 1921, 30s and then 10s in March and May 1922, and a further 20s in May 1923). Wages then rose marginally to £10 per month in 1924. However, the average wage was reduced by the loss of wages when the ship was in port and the seaman's family survived only by drawing on social benefit.

The peculiar way in which the wages were reduced in 1925 is discussed in the next chapter. What concerns us here is its impact on the seamen at the time. A steward told his story to a reporter during the strike:
Q: Do you find it hard to live on the present wage?
A: Exceedingly hard, but it would be much worse with the £1 per month reduction ... the wages of a steward under the proposed reduction would be £8 5s. per month. I am in the habit of allowing 30s per week to my wife. This sum is paid fortnightly ... [and] in order that my wife may live for the first fortnight I draw an advance of £3.
The voyages to Australia and back usually take three and a half months ... For the ... voyage I would receive in wages £28 17s 6d. First of all there is the £3 in advance; there are then seven allotments of £3 per fortnight ... £l must be paid for unemployment and national health insurance. That is compulsory ... It is impossible for a man to avoid some small expenditure: such things as tobacco and other incidentals. Put that down as £1 for the trip... Now without expending one half-penny on myself for clothing and enjoyment I would have between £2 and £3 to draw when I was paid off in London. [The union officials] will be wait­ing to claim another pound for union dues. As a rule a ship is laid up for about three weeks in London, and for two weeks of that time I am unemployed ...
Q: Well, how do you and your family manage to live?
A: The majority of the lower paid men on British vessels when in London go on the dole right away. They are compelled to do this: it is the only possible way they have of living until they sign on a vessel again. I may say that several of the men on British ships today receive Poor Law relief. The wage today [before the cut] is not sufficient to purchase the requirements for themselves and their families. He later repeated that there were seamen in regular employment on British ships who received Poor Law relief. The shipowners were being effectively subsidised by the poor law relief authorities.[3]

The Rev J S Hart, Anglican Dean of Melbourne, appalled by the evidence, was quoted as saying:
To say that the shipping industry cannot stand [higher wages] is nonsense. If it can stand 'luxury ships', and pay good dividends on a heavily watered capital, it can do simple justice to its employees. Shipowners are not looked upon as a very poverty-stricken class, and nowadays they have abolished competition, and, having a monopoly, can make their charges sufficient to cover all fair ex­penses. If they are prevented from amassing fortunes, who cares?[4]

The seafarers thought likewise and, after walking off their ships, established links with local seamen or trade unions, with socialist and communist groups, and with the unofficial strike committee that had been set up in London. The only weapon against an international combine was international action and, whether aware of this or not, the British seamen started one of the few strikes of the twen­ticth Century to have international dimensions.

The strike was about a wage cut but the seamen complained about their work­ing and living conditions as well. On a voyage the seaman would get food and he had a place to sleep. However he had little else. The Committee of Overseas Seamen in New Zealand said in their 'Strike Bulletin' No 2 that when they signed on they were among the lowest paid (white) workers in the world, 'engaged in a perilous occupation'. They continued:
After working between 70 to 80 hours per week, and living and eating in a dark, badly-ventilated fo'c's'le, we receive the sum of £2.5s per week ... Out of this ... we are forced to buy our own eating utensils, bed and blankets, towel and soap, pay 5d per week to a national health insurance, and 9d per week to an unemployed assurance.

Conditions were described by the Strike Committee in Australia as hellish. In a message printed in the Workers Weekly they wrote:
Some of the ships we sail in are lousy, and there is nothing done. Fumigation does not kill the lice. We eat and sleep in the same room and at all hours we are called upon to do anything whether we are wet through or not - there is nowhere to dry our clothes and this necessitates at least four changes of clothing, and on £9... where are we going to get them - no we're mostly wet. Its hell - we tell you the conditions of living in British ships and as to shore leave. It remains at the discretion of the captain whether we get leave or not. If we overstay our leave we are logged and leave the ship with a bad discharge for even a trivial offence such as this, and a bad discharge may mean that our living is taken from us.[5]

Generalizations about seafarers conditions are difficult but for all of them work was arduous and dangerous, the working hours unsociable, the incidence of acci­dents and disease higher than average. Speaking about conditions in New Zealand, Olssen said the seamen 'worked and lived under a tightly organized sys­tem of command, disobedience being fraught with severe penalties'. Yet, he said, this was too vague a profile. Seamen had their own groupings on the ships and al­though they could, and did, unite at times, they reacted differently to the problems they faced. Firemen and stokers, he said, formed 'clannish and stroppy groups' and did not play much part in trade union affairs. For the rest, much depended on the size of the ship and the variety of men employed: the deck was 'a complex world of bosuns, lamptrimmers, watchmen, donkeymen, stokehold hands, firemen, and seamen'. There were also the cooks, stewards, and other hands that made up this floating island - tied together for several months, and then often splintered and dispersed after they docked.[6] For the historian their faces are blank and even the press photographs of the time fail to fill in the details - but they were reported to have marched and stood together against the greatest odds. Many were radicalized during the strike and although they originally marched to patriotic war-time tunes, ended by marching (at least in the Dominions) to the strains of the 'Red Flag'. However, many seamen - and their supporters - spoke contemptuously of the coloured races. This was compounded by an ubiquitous racism that was thoughtlessly absorbed, if not welcomed, by most workers and the genuine fear that foreign labour would be used to cut wages. This helped fuel the anti-Chinese and anti-black riots in British ports in 1911 and 1919.

In Australia, seamen faced competition from poorly paid Asian labour and, although a few realized that the answer was to unionize all seafarers, most supported a 'White Australia' policy, denigrating all blacks and Asians. On the eve of the British seamen's strike, the Australasian Seamen's Joumal (Vol 8, No 53), published an article compounded of poor anthropology and outright prejudice, which claimed that capitalism had 'forced the pace', advancing humanity to its present position, but,
... the capitalist class has built colossal fortunes out of cotton and sugar plan­tations, worked by enforced negro labour, when we know that, if left alone, these workers would be still lying in the sun the greater part of the time, feed­ing themselves on the banana with which Nature has provided them. The mine magnates of South Africa forced the Kaffirs to live in compounds and to toil on the mines to make profits for them, but when these men return to their distant kraals, they go back, willingly, to the simplest way of existence.
In India millions of poor peasants, producing almost incredible fortunes for their native and British rulers, if left alone would return thanks for a mud hut, a handful of rice, a cotton garment - and peace.

Perhaps aware of the overtones in his article, the writer added:
Even in Western countries there are millions of poor workers, operating in­dustries which bring the greatest luxury to the owning class, who do not KNOW that their houses are hovels; that their clothes are rags; that their children ought not to toil in factories, but should be in school, and that they themselves are starved and ignorant.

This account of conditions in India is absurd and it is noteworthy that there was no suggestion that the 'ignorant' white workers would gladly retire to eat 'bananas' (or fish and chips?) or return to 'their simple ways of existence', whatever that implied.

When the strike was over those who returned to the UK faced unemployment. Others stayed behind in the Dominions but most were denied entry to the local seamen's union, lest it lead to a surplus of men in a decreasing labour market and depress wages. By a twist of fate, the British seamen were placed in the same posi­tion as coloured workers, despite the solidarity accorded them during the long strike. What happened to those who stayed in the Dominions is not recorded, and they seem to have found jobs in other occupations. Many showed qualities of leadership during the strike. How much of this was fed into the workers' move­ment in the coming grim period of defeats and economic destitution remains un­known. What can be told is the story of their resolution, their initiative and their determination. If there were faults in the conduct of the strike, these are easily discernible, but over and above any mistakes the seamen and their supporters pro­vide a remarkable demonstration of international working class solidarity.

Of the women who waited at home for the seamen to return, there are only the scantiest of details. The wages (or 'allotments') due to families of men on strike were stopped by the shippers at an early stage of the action. Subsequently, many wives were reduced to absolute destitution. Some despaired and fell back on friends and families but many, used to privation at the best of times, demonstrated in support of the strike, protested at the plight of their families and set up groups for joint action. Others wrote despairingly to their men abroad, recounting the misery to which they and their children were reduced. The plight of these families, only partially told in the local and national press, was not very different from families split apart during war - except that in this case the women could not look to any official body for sympathy. Neither state, employer nor trade union move­ment was prepared to assist the families of men on strike. If anything, the plight of these dependents was used as yet another lever to force the men to return to work at the lower wage.

The strikers went back defeated and yet this was an important event on two ac­counts. Firstly, it was one of the few strikes that stretched across the seas, providing an example of class solidarity that transcended national boundaries. Secondly, this was a strike in which many communists were involved: in Britain in the strike com­mittee; in Australia and New Zealand, because some leaders of the national seamen's union were in the Communist Party and in South Africa, because leading communists offered support to the seamen. Yet much of this was fortuitous: there was no concerted communist campaign. S P Bunting, the South African delegate to the Sixth Congress of the Communist International in 1928 complained in public session that throughout the strike there had been no advice or instructions from communists in Europe, and the local party had been left to take decisions by itself.

The intentions of the capitalists of this country were made perfectly clear by Mr Baldwin when he stated that the workers of this country have got to have reductions of wages to help put industry on its feet, and in this view he is supported by men like Mr Havelock Wilson, who has recently been successful in reducing the wages of the seamen at the instigation of the shipowners.
Marine Worker, September 1925[1]

The editors of the Marine Worker, organ of the Amalgamated Marine Workers Union (AMWU), were bitterly opposed to the official seamen's union, the National Union of Seamen and Firemen of Ireland and Great Britain (NSFU), its leadership and, in particular, Havelock Wilson, the presi­dent of the union.

Editorial comments in the magazine were directed at the trade union move­ment at large and their attack linked on the official union with the government for its offensive against existing wage agreements. On 30 June 1925 the mine owners, backed by the government, had given one month's notice that their 1921 agree­ment with the Miner's Federation of Great Britain would be terminated; that wages in the coal mines would be reduced by 10-25 per cent, and that the national minimum wage would be ended after 31 July. The mine owners claimed that this was made necessary by their losses over the past year and this alarmed trade union leaders of the steel workers, foundry workers, electrical trades and others as a threat to the wages in their own trades. The trade unions united and a special con­ference of the Trades Union Congress agreed that a strike would be declared on midnight of Friday, 31 July. In face of this threat the government, which had not yet completed its anti-strike strategy, offered to subsidise the miners' wages. The strike was called off and the Labour movement spoke jubilantly of Red Friday.[2] But the celebrations were premature - the reductions had only been delayed. Nine months later wages were cut and the government was in position to defeat the workers when they came out on strike.

But was it true that wages had to be cut to put Britain 'back on its feet'? The decline in Britain's hegemonic position in the world was already apparent before 1914. Facing competition from America and Germany, Britain was no longer supreme among industrial powers and the upshot had been economic stringency and increased class battles in the years before the outbreak of war.[3] As a result, said Trotsky, 'there had been unparalleled class battles waged by mine workers, railroad workers and the transport workers in general'.
The war of 1914-18 interrupted this revolutionary process and stopped the growth of the strike wave. Ending in the destruction of Germany, it seemed to restore to England the role of world hegemony. But it soon became apparent that instead of retarding the decline of England, the war had actually acceler­ated its decline ...
During the war, the enormous economic preponderance of the United States was developed and revealed in its full proportions. The emergence of that country from the stage of an overseas' provincialism suddenly forced Great Britain into second place.

At the conclusion of the First World War, Britain had hoped to stand at the head of Europe and once more to be the colossus of the world. The British ruling class stood aloof from Europe and, by virtue of its colonial possessions, still aspired to leadership of the West. Germany, its rival in Europe, had been defeated and, it was hoped, relegated to second class status through the Treaty of Versailles and the retribution exacted on her by reparations. However, states had emerged to dis­place Britain from the centre of the stage. To the east lay Japan, a new power to be reckoned with, although not yet an economic giant and to the west lay the United States, to which all Europe was directly or indirectly indebted.

The war, confidently expected to be over in months, dragged on for four long years and the continent was torn apart - as men were slaughtered in the trenches of Flanders and the ragged battles on the eastern front. Of the 60 million men mo­bilized by both sides in the war, over eight million were killed in the battlefields, seven million permanently disabled, and a further fifteen million more or less seriously injured. In the light of these global figures, Britain's losses were modest. Nonetheless, some 745,000 men and women were killed and 1.6 million wounded.[4] Then came the influenza epidemic of 1918-19 in which many more died.

The war destroyed resources and devastated the fields of Europe. Worse was to follow. Tsarist Russia was replaced by a Bolshevik regime, which, weak as it was, became the 'spectre that haunted Europe', while the break-up of the Austro-Hun­garian and Ottoman Empires created new crises in Europe. Only the empires of Britain and France seemed to remain intact, and even strengthened by the acquisi­tion of Germany's former possessions. Yet this too was an illusion. The colonial peoples were already stirring and new struggles pointed to the breaking of im­perial control. Before that happened there were new factors loosening the ties be­tween metropolis and colony. Among these was the altered balance of forces on the seas. In the same essay Trotsky pointed to the vital connection:
The commercial, industrial, and naval hegemony of England has in the past almost automatically assured the bonds between the various portions of the empire. The New Zealand minister, Reeves, wrote before 1900: `two things maintain the present relation of the colonies with England: first their faith in the generally peaceful intentions of England's policy; second, their faith in England's rule of the seas'. Of course the decisive factor is the second. The loss of hegemony of the seas proceeds parallel with the development of the centrifugal forces within the empire. The preservation of the empire is more and more threatened by the diverging interests of the dominions and the struggles of the colonies.

The victorious powers took steps to protect their hegemony by expropriating a large proportion of the German navy after the war. But that was at best a tem­porary expedient and ignored the existence of a world-wide shipping combine.

Imperial connections placed British shipowners in the fore in protecting nation­al shipping routes yet these men were not averse to dividing the world with their European 'competitors', were quite willing to use European shipyards to build their ships and to employ 'foreign' seamen to cut their wages bill. They also came out of the war considerably richer than when they went in. Figures widely quoted from Sir Leo Chiozza Money during the seamen's strike of 1925 stated that:
In the first 31 months of the war, before the excess profits tax came into operation, the shipowners of the British Isles made, in actual profits £350,000,000, and the ships had increased in value - not in number - from ... [£170,000,000] to £500,000,000.[5]

This is only part of the story. We will return to the shipping companies and their vessels below.

The war was followed, mainly in Britain and the USA, by a spending spree, based on the demand for commodities that had been so scarce during the war. Aldcroft, the economic historian, is quoted as saying that this fuelled a boom, helped on by a shortage of shipping space and a dislocation of internal transport systems in the immediate post-war period.[6] This was inflationary. Within the year the stock markets collapsed and the boom was over. Exports and prices fell equal­ly sharply, shipping declined and unemployment rose rapidly.

Individual capitalists (and combines) had emerged from the war greatly en­riched. They flourished in the post-war boom but felt the squeeze when the economy went into recession. This was also a period of stringency for the govern­ment as revenue fell with declining trade. Also, as a consequence of war-time bor­rowing, Great Britain was deeply indebted to the United States and beholden to her in the finance market. Although European states were in turn indebted to Britain, they could not, or would not, pay: while Britain was pledged to honour her war debts. According to Palme Dutt, theoretician of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), Britain lost markets as a result of the war. By 1925 exports had fallen to 75 per cent of its pre-war volume, while exports from America and some European states expanded. This led to an increase of Britain's balance of trade deficit from £134m in 1913, to £212m in 1923 and £344m in 1924. Capital for new investment abroad declined dramatically, approaching zero in 1925.[7] The employers found a simple solution for ending this decline: wages had to be cut and by 1925 the national wages bill was reduced to approximately one-half of its 1920 level. This was achieved in three cuts: £6,000,000 in the weekly full-time wages of 7.25 million wage workers in 1921, a further £4,200,000 a week affecting 7.5 million in 1922, and about £500,000 a week inflicted on three million workers in 1923. But the effect of these cuts was disastrous: the loss of purchasing power on the home market leading to further reductions in trade and industry.[8]

Nonetheless dividends in Britain were kept high: average payment on ordinary shares of 1,400 companies rose from 8.6 in 1922, to 9 (1923), 9.5 (1924) and 10.5 per cent (first quarter of 1925). Net profits rose as wages were cut, from £80m in 1922 to £115m in both 1923 and 1924.[9] In his article, Dutt maintained that:
...there is a real meaning behind the talk of 'bankruptcy', and a real force which drives inevitably to the present offensive. The fear is not yet the fear of 'bankruptcy' or 'starvation'. But it is the fear of the loss of that predominant position in the world market and in world finances which is the necessary basis of British Imperialism.
The continuance of the Empire structure depends on the continual provision of fresh supplies of capital [for] foreign investment. If this dwindles, the colonies drop off and pass elsewhere. On this basis is built the vastly in­flated structure of exporting industries, to the exclusion of vital home needs such as housing.

The mixed fortunes of the mercantile marine, this once mighty arm of British supremacy and control of the empire, was central to Britain's continued decline in the inter-war years.

The lines of communication between the British Isles and the rest of the world devolved on the navy and the mercantile fleet. In wartime it was the navy that protected the country and it was the seamen who ensured the con­tinuation of supplies, of armaments and of merchandise. Because of her pre­war supremacy, Britain possessed some 42 per cent of the world's ocean-going steamer tonnage and about 60 per cent of the world's shipbuild­ing capacity in 1914.[10] This was deemed sufficient to allow for the main­tenance of naval supremacy during the war, but the U-Boats had sunk a total of 1.7 million gross tons of British shipping by August 1916. The destruction intensified until the navy was able to counter the German naval offensive. By the end of the war Britain alone had lost one out of every four ships that put to sea, that is, about 7.75 million tons, yet the shipowners still prospered. At the end of 1916, after an outcry over profiteering, the government appointed a Controller of Shipping, but controls never covered all the ships. Each year the total tonnage of shipping rose, much of it requisitioned by the government to bring in crucial war goods. Consequently, 'Profits soared, and large capital gains were registered in mergers and purchases'.[11]

Between 17 and 20,000 men of the merchant marine went down with their ships but their employers profited, being paid handsome compensation for every ship sunk at sea. In this most patriotic of wars, Lloyd George had spoken of a 'land fit for heroes' and, in recognition of their contribution to the war effort, seamen had been extolled as 'heroes', a fact they referred to bitterly when they were charged and sent to prison during the strike of 1925.

British shipping companies went through a lean period - or at least a period in which the rich war-time profits could not be sustained. In part, this was a consequence of the depressed state of world trade in which too many ships chased decreasing freight, but there were other factors that led to this drop in profitability. The British shipowners had either taken possession of aged German ships, or bought a large number of craft at inflated prices after the war[12] and, with a large surplus of boats on their hands, were less willing than some of their competitors in Europe to convert to cost-saving oil-firing or diesel motors. The surfeit of boats, the drop in trade and the imposition of quotas by the US, the dramatic drop in emigration - a drop of 217,041 passengers between 1923 and 1924[13] - all af­fected the shipping lines. Freight dropped from an index of 374 in 1920 to 166 in 1921, and tramp freights from 602 (1920) to 141 (1921), both declining further, if more slowly, through the 1920s.[14]

The effect of the recession on dividends is a matter of dispute. Trade unionists maintained that the British shipowners were part of the richest combine in the world, had made £350m profit during the war (greater than the registered value of all the ships in the world), and continued to make handsome profits. They quoted W T R Preston, who reported in February 1925 to the Canadian government that an international shipping combine had divided the world into 'spheres of influ­cnce'. It raised fares exorbitantly and threatened competitors with ruin. The com­bine met regularly in Paris, Brussels, Vienna or Berlin, but not in Britain, 'to avoid complications with British authorities' and he added:
This combine is interlocked with the great steamship lines plying between the European continent and South America, South Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand ...
The British steamship interests control not only the North Atlantic steam­ ship traffic, but exercise a predominating influence in the great world-wide steamship combine.[15]

From 1911 to 1925, freight rates from Montreal to Britain increased by 700 per cent, said Preston, until competition from independent companies cut the in­creases to 50 per cent. Consequently, under monopoly control, Canadian ex­porters lost millions of dollars annually and the export trade to Britain was almost extinguished. Furthermore 'excess' profits on emigration to Canada during 1919-­24 had been £43m. Summing up, he said
The moving spirits in this gigantic world-wide maritime organization had conspired, combined, agreed and arranged to unduly limit the facilities of ocean transportation, and cause serious oppression to individuals, and incalculable injury to the general public.

Similarly, a Navigation Commission investigated the Australian Shipping monopoly, and Frank Anstey, a Labour Party member of the House of Represen­tatives, submitted a supplementary memorandum to the Governor-General. He said many alleged Australian companies were in fact British, but 'acted under aliases as if they were criminals seeking to escape attention'. Consequently, the passenger trade, which was nominally confined to locally registered companies, was carried by British interests alone. Even the sea tramps, that carried all the coastal cargo trade, were auxiliaries to the combine, and regulated their rates to ensure that there was no competition.[16]

The routes between England and the Pacific Ocean were dominated by the Peninsula and Oriental Shipping Company (P&O), and its major shareholder, Lord Inchcape, was seen by the left to typify the combine. The Westralian Worker of 11 September 1925 said that he was also a director of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, of the Suez Canal Company and the Eastern Telegraph Company, con­trolled the largest British domestic coal distributors, Wm Cory and Sons, was director of shipyards and steelworks in Scotland, tea plantations, collieries, and so on. Shipping companies did not disclose their profits - but the Economist of 18 July 1925 reported that an analysis of P&O's combined balance sheets during the previous quarter showed that, after paying debenture interest, the profits were £5,984,577, or an increase over 1924 of £795,879.[18] In 1924 P&O paid dividends of 12-15 per cent.

Despite the high dividends paid, British firms faced a serious problem in 1925. The economic slump affected every enterprise, and when trade declined, the shipping firms were bound to be hit. The crisis became par­ticularly severe when the New York Federal Reserve Bank raised its discount rate from 3 to 3.5 per cent. To stop a flow of money to the US the British rate was raised on 5 March, from four per cent to five. This placed British exports at a disadvantage on the world market and the government had to choose be­tween supporting industry or preserving Britain's position as the world's financial centre. Winston Churchill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was ad­vised that it was the City (rather than industry) that had to be bolstered and he put England back on the gold standard, with the pound fixed at close to its pre-war value of $4.79 from the end of April 1925.

This was a gross over-valuation of the currency by approximately 10 per cent, and brought Britain to the brink of an economic crisis. British goods were now so overpriced on the world markets that trade dropped catastrophically. Conse­quently the employers decided to cut costs by 10 per cent starting with wages. The first industry in which this was attempted was coal mining, and this led to the confrontation on 31 July 1925, when the government was forced to retreat. The shipowners, in committee[19], also targeted transport workers. It was this that led directly to a wage cut from 1 August 1925, the very day after other unionists were shouting 'Victory'.

Such was the economic background to the events that led to the cut in the seamen's wages. It is doubtful whether they realised the nature of the problems that led to the reduction in their wages. What they did see was the effect of the cut on their slim resources. They came out on strike and many were to learn, from their own experiences and from the many statements they heard or read, the larger ramifications of the action they had taken. They took on forces that proved beyond their power to overcome:the employers, state power, and their own (official) trade union.

On Sunday 28 June 1925, a special conference of the National Sailors and Firemen's Union of Great Britain and Ireland (NSFU) was convened. The delegates appeared to consist entirely of union officials and there is no in­dication that the membership was informed of, or aware of, its taking place. Yet, the purpose of the conference was to consider a proposal by Havelock Wilson that the Union offer the shipowners a reduction of wages.[1]

Wilson's address to the conference is informative, both for its style and for its contents. After a roll call of delegates he said:
Well, gentlemen, I have no doubt that many of you when you got the circular convening this meeting were asking each other the question, 'I wonder what this is about'. On the other hand, I have no doubt that many of you had a shrewd idea what it was for. The real object of the meeting is to consider the serious state of affairs which exists in the shipping industry, not only in this country but in every maritime country in the world. I have been informed that the owners are seeking for some relief with regard to wages, and I have an idea that there are some owners who would like a cut of £3 per month, be­cause they contend they are unable to run their ships on the freights that are current today.

Wilson then referred to a document on the wages paid to seamen in Europe, circulated to delegates. There it was claimed that most received less than half that paid by British shippers.
What I want you to do, if my advice is worth having - and I suppose I am the President of this union because my advice is worth a little consideration - (hear, hear) - I want you to be wise, and if there is going to be a cut your duty to the men is to make that cut as small as you possibly can. (Hear, hear). The man who takes up that attitude is a wise man; he is a statesman ...

To counter any possibility of delegates calling for a strike, he said there would be scabs who would gladly take the jobs in the event of such action. Among these he listed Arabs, non-union men and those who had been compelled to join the NSFUto secure a berth. He continued:
Now we have got to watch and see that whatever cut is made is a small one. I always believe in the bold course. The general who knows when to rush in with a chance of success is generally the man who comes out on top. I can well imagine that if in the ranks of the shipowners someone were to start about a cut of £3 a month, there would be any number who would join in that talk. My object is to prevent that from taking place, and so far I think I have been suc­cessful. I have heard rumours for a long time now, I have said nothing public­ly because the least said sometimes the sooner it is mended. But when we get up to closer quarters - I spoke to many who I knew were holding respon­sible positions, and knowing that the wages question was to be discussed I begged of them that whatever discussion on wages was to take place they would not fix any demand. Do you see what I mean? - that they would not, for instance, send us along a notice to say that they wanted a reduction of £3 a month or any other sum; but rather that they would meet us to discuss the serious condition of the shipping trade and see whether any relief could be afforded.

Wilson continued, seemingly taking the audience into his confidence, but without producing any documents, or providing any hard information. He was of­fering them a ring-side seat where they could watch (approvingly!) but without really intervening. He continued:
I had an idea in my mind in doing that; because if we met the owners and there was any demand made [by them] for any particular sum, and we played the right part, I feel sure we would bring over from the owners' side a consid­erable amount of support; whereas, if a fixed sum were talked of, they would be like we are ... [that is, obdurate].
Now, I am going to advise you when we meet the owners that we should offer them to take off the £2 that we got last year. Everyone says we stole it. I believe that. We did ...

Delegates were then invited to speak and most rose to support Wilson in his claims. Some underlined the dangers of strike action, saying there were over 5,000 men idle in Liverpool alone who would gladly scab if there was a strike. There was also praise for Wilson, and praise (from delegate Matt Tearle) for union policy:
There is no other Trade Union in Great Britain that has worked so har­moniously as we have worked with the shipowners, and when I say the shipowners I mean the National Maritime Board. That Board has shipowners represented on it.

However, any man who rose to question what was said, and there were a few, was ignored or quickly silenced, and some were told that their complaints had al­ready been attended to. Wilson spoke paternalistically to the delegates saying that when he travelled on a ship and spotted faults, he had them rectified by talking to the owners. 'I venture to say', he told one delegate, 'that in a very short time some of the things that I found out will be adjusted. No one knows anything about that, but it is going on all the time'.

There was apparently no more to be said. Conference adopted a resolution in­structing delegates to the Maritime Board to offer a £1 cut in wages. This it was stated would check demands by the shipowners for a higher reduction.

In some respects this tallies with the minutes of discussions at meetings of the Shipowners section of the National Maritime Board (NMB) and at the Shipping Federation's Executive Council; but some discrepancies indicate that not all the facts were placed before the seamen's conference.[3]

Firstly, the situation leading up to the one pound increase in 1924 was not seen in quite the same way by the shipowners as Wilson had reported. The latter did not consider that the money had been 'stolen' but indeed thought that Wilson's demand was 'rather modest'. F C Allen reported that, with Cuthbert Laws, he met Wilson at the Shipowner's Section of the NMB in 1924. He continued:
In my own humble view he wants £1. I think he was rather modest, in so much as he could well have asked us for two [pounds] and expected to get one, or something of that sort. But anyhow what he said was: 'We do not want any beating about the bush; we do not want to have any auctioning of this, but One Pound is the least I can talk of' - he must have £1 (sic).

Allen and Laws met with Wilson again and said there was no economic justification for an increase. However, said Allen:
He recognized all that, but he says he is being pushed by the people below him and if a settlement is not come to there will be a row, and he implies that Cotter [of the Amalgamated Marine Workers Union] may go round the country and stir it up, and he is very anxious therefore to get a settlement as soon as he possibly can ...

Wilson phoned Allen shortly thereafter to say that he had been criticized for not demanding more, and 'went through a very unpleasant afternoon'. It had there­fore been agreed that the extra pound would be paid in two instalments and all that was in dispute was when the first 10s should be paid. The two part payments were made in June and September, restoring the position as of April 1923 and, although some shipowners grumbled, as indeed they would, the employers got off very light­ly.

The second difference arose from a failure to disclose that the letter from the shipowners to the union only asked for the annulment of the increase of 1924 - with no demand for a higher deduction.[4] The Shipping Federation's position was outlined at a meeting of the Executive Council of 22 May 1925. Mr Dalgleish, moving the resolution on wage reduction, said that monthly wages paid on ships in Europe were far below British levels. That is: Spain £5 4s.6d, Germany £4 18s, and Italy (wages and provisions) £8 6s. Therefore, he said,
... the time has arrived when the advance of wages granted to the transport workers and to all seafarers in 1924 should be withdrawn and notice be given immediately to the unions.

This was in line with the Ulster District Committee resolution:
That in view of the continued and increasing depression in Shipping, both Deep-Sea and Coastwise Trades being equally affected, and also taking into consideration the lately revised scale of wages on German ships operative as from 1st April 1925, as compared with British vessels, this Committee recom­mends that the question of the necessity of a reduction in seamen's wages be brought before the Executive of the Shipping Federation, Ltd, at the earliest opportunity.

The Ulster committee claimed that shipping, particularly of coal, had declined sharply and that the lost volume could not be regained without drastic reductions in costs: that is by reducing dockers' wages and cutting the cost of trimming, load­ing, loading and discharging, piloting, and internal transport. This was a com­prehensive list, and the Shipping Federation endorsed the demands which were aimed at every operation contributing to the cost of shipping. Obviously, they con­cluded, the 1924 wage increase to seafarers had to be revoked. A copy of the resolution was to be sent to Wilson and to Transport Workers officials, pilotage authorities, etc.

The base was laid for the meeting of the NMB at which Wilson could offer the shipowners a cut of one pound from 1 August 1925. That gathering, held on 3 July, was even more remarkable than those that preceded it. According to the publish­ed minutes of the NMB, Sir Frederick Shadworth Watts opened the meeting with a statement that the shipping trade was in bad shape, and called on the seamen to propose a reduction. Havelock Wilson rose in response and called for an amicable agreement:
As you have so wisely said, perhaps [the shipping trade] has never been so bad as it is today ... We do not want any argument just for the sake of 'manoeuvring for position', as they call it. Let us have none of that game! Let us be straight and plain!

Wilson then said that a conference had been called, and it had cost the union nearly £1,000 - indicating that it was in earnest in their intentions 'and were desirous of helping you [the shipowners] in every possible way':
Now we come this morning, and we are going to say to you: 'Last year you were good enough to give us an advance of £1 a month'... Now we come, and having taken into consideration what you did last year, we have come to say this morning: 'We will give up that £1 at once' - without any argument, without any alarming statements about what is going to happen and so on. We do that, and I hope Mr Chairman, and you Gentlemen, will recognize that in doing that we are doing a manly thing, and certainly in the right spirit too - quite the right spirit. You might have come here and talk about 30s, or some other figure, but it is better for us to suggest the reduction, and when I say that is what we suggest I want you to understand that this is our offer, and we advise you strongly to accept it.

Wilson, undoubtedly referring to the threat of a general strike, warned of unrest in the country, and the importance of reaching a settlement in the same spirit as in the past. Then he spoke of the difficulties faced by shippers who ran their ships at a loss, many driven to the bankruptcy courts - 'So we offer you that £1'. He also felt obliged to appeal to the shipowners for sympathy - because his union officials would have 'to face the ordinary sailors, firemen, cooks and stewards' and he knew what they would have to go through:
So far as I am concerned, there will be abuse heaped on me in tons. I do not hear it. I am not there. I am safely fixed in a place called St George's Hall. What does it matter to me if a fellow on a ship is cursing me and saying I ought to be shot? I do not hear it, and if anyone comes and tells me he has been on a ship where they give me a very 'good' character, I am not con­cerned, because I do not hear it myself. But I know what my colleagues have to go through, and here is the remarkable part of the whole thing to me. The abuse which these good gentlemen will be subject to will not come from Union men, but from a lot of dirty useless rubbish. Somehow or other these fellows get on the ships, and they want to use the Union for their own pur­poses...

Wilson inveighed against those who would not join the NSFU, or (foreseeing the consequences of the day's work) would not accept the wage reduction. He described such men as 'the biggest lot of blackguards I ever met in my life ... if I were a shipowner, I would be ashamed to carry them'. After assuring the employers that the reduction covered everyone (masters and officers excepted) who had benefited from the increase of 1924, it was only left for the meeting to agree that the reductions would take place from 1 August 1925.

The agreement was celebrated at a dinner at the Hotel Cecil on Thursday 23July. A description of the event that appeared in the shipowner's journal Fairplay of 30 July said:
Some 400 guests, including well known shipowners and labour leaders and officials and many sailors, firemen and stewards with their wives sat down to dinner at the joint invitation of the Shipping Federation and the National Sailors' and Firemen's Union.
Toasts were proffered: to the seamen by Sir Alan Anderson (who presided) and to the shipowners, by Wilson, who reportedly said that in earlier fights, especially in those resulting from the Shipping Federation being formed: 'that the Shipowners were justified in what they did, and that he was wrong'.

He was loudly applauded. The extent of the applause to this acceptance of strike breaking was not recorded: but seemingly, it was not altogether lost amidst the popping of champagne corks.

The events of June and July 1925 were not exceptional inside the shipping trade. Shipowners and union officials would meet regularly, both formally and informally and, with a word here and a nod and a wink there, matters af­fecting the lives of 140,000 men were settled. This had become the practice only after 1911, when shippers and the seamen's union had found it more con­ducive to collaborate than to fight, but it had not always been the case.

The National Amalgamated Sailors' and Firemen's Union (later renamed the NSFU) was launched by J Havelock Wilson in 1887,[6] but met bitter opposition from the shipowners until 1911, when the NASFU was accorded recognition - al­though amicability was still some years away. Part of the problem faced by the union arose from the terms of association of the Shipping Federation Ltd, founded in 1890. 'From the first', says L H Powell, its official historian, 'the Federation was founded as a fighting machine to counter the strike weapon, and it made no secret of the fact'. The employers used 'depot ships', manned by potential scabs, to take over the running of strike-bound vessels and intended initially to control the labour force and break the union' [7] The employers also insisted that seamen seek­ing a berth first obtain a 'Federation ticket', pledging the holder to serve alongside non-union seamen. This served a double purpose: it gave the employers a monopoly on labour recruitment and it blocked a 'closed shop'.

Conditions for organizing seamen worsened during the first decade of the 20th century, not only in Britain, but throughout Europe. Strike breakers were sent from Britain to Germany and Sweden in 1907/8. In 1909 the shipowners were united in an International Shipping Federation. The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITWF), to which the NSFU was initially affiliated, seemed to be the last bastion against the attacks of the employers, but it had few resources and was ineffectual.

It was at this juncture that a strike was planned, to take effect at the end of 1910 or early 1911. The ITWF urged caution, believing that a strike could not succeed and the large European unions withdrew support. Only the Belgian and Dutch sections supported the strike when it commenced on 14 June 1911 in Britain. Ironically, the newly founded National Transport Workers' Federation in Britain, which was expected to join the strike, withdrew at the last minute. Yet despite the pessimistic forecasts of the two federal bodies, the time was propitious for strike action. Shipping activity in 1911 was at an all-time high, trade was booming, and freight rates were high. There was little unemployment and there were few scabs available in the event of a strike.

The NSFU called the seamen out and the men won a resounding victory. The union was recognized in many ports and the seamen won wage increases.[8] The factors leading to success differed from port to port. In Southampton the men struck five days early and the employers conceded defeat before other ports came out. This bolstered other strikers, leading to concessions, albeit after violence (and some casualties) in Hull, Glasgow, and elsewhere.[9] The seamen's action also dovetailed with that of dockers and this strengthened both groups of workers.[10] But the most important factor was the mobilization of the seamen. In this Wilson was fortunate in having the backing of Tom Mann, just returned from Australia, and of Joe Cotter and Frank Pearce of the ship's stewards.

Cotter, Pearce and Mann, who played different parts in the strike, were syn­dicalists - although there is little evidence that this philosophy had any impact on the seamen. Mann was involved in all the transport strikes of the year - some of which overlapped the seamen's strike, and others following an independent course; Cotter's and Pearce's intervention brought the stewards and cooks into the strike.[11] In Cardiff it was Wilson's crony, 'Captain' Edward Tupper, who played a major role in bringing out the seamen.[12]

The strike of 1911 was a high point in the seamen's union militancy and took place at a time of intensified trade union struggle throughout the country.[13] It marked the beginning of recognition for the seamen's union, although it was another two years before a national wage increase was granted and the closed shop and negotiating machinery were instituted. [14]

Following the strike of 1911, Wilson invited any three shipowners to visit the NSFU offices and inspect its books and documents. It is not known whether any inspection followed, but some of the employers were impressed and thereafter there was some co-operation between the two sides. However the Shipping Federation still remained implacably opposed to any unionization.

The strike of 1911 split the union apart - and this was to become a factor in the events of 1925. There are two (possibly complementary) reasons to explain what happened. According to Mogridge, a large number of members were enrolled in Southampton, where the strike was settled first, and the branch soon accumulated £1,000. Union officials demanded the money under the rules of the NSFU,[15] but the branch balked, and demanded a full inquiry into the financial control and management of the union before making any payment. When Wilson rejected their demand the branch broke away. However according to Shinwell the Southampton branch defected because Wilson accepted a smaller wage increase than was promised, on the understanding with the shippers that employment would be made available only to men who joined the NSFU.[16]

In August 1912 the Glasgow branch seceded and joined the Southampton men to form the British Seafarers Union (BSU). Here too there are two versions of events. Mogridge says that Shinwell (seconded to assist in the organization of Clydeside seamen) recruited shore-workers who prepared the ships for putting out to sea - considering them valuable allies in any future dispute. This was countermanded by Wilson and he also had the committee officials in Glasgow dis­missed. This led to the secession of the entire branch. Shinwell says only that dock­ers, who were unorganized at the time, had come out in sympathy with the seamen, and had responded to meetings he addressed. The break, according to Shinwell was occasioned by Wilson 'closing the branch because we had obtained the higher rate of pay'. It has not been possible to check these different stories but, whatever the cause, the unions broke apart.

When war came, seamen were affected by the wave of patriotism that swept all Britain and their ability to keep open the lines of communication and sup­plies won them fervent support. The men of the merchant marine were regaled for their heroism - the shipowners, with somewhat less publicity, reaped the profits of war. Many of these facts lay concealed during the long years of war but details were widely broadcast during the strike of 1925, when radical papers printed accounts of profits and losses.

The war also affected the working of the unions. Their leaders became Empire loyalists and active recruiters for the war effort. Shinwell claims that he undertook 'certain duties on behalf of both the Admiralty and the newly created Ministry of Shipping' and this included collecting reluctant crews and prevailing on them to 'accept employment on auxiliary vessels'.

The seamen kept the sea lanes open, and many lost their lives with union leaders acting as cheer-leaders. Havelock Wilson, according to Mogridge, threw 'himself into the war against Germany with all the fierce energy and virulent oratory that had previously been directed against the [Shipping] Federation'. Furthermore, he 'stumped the country making jingoistic speeches' and dispatched 'Captain' Tup­per 'to break up meetings of pacifists'. The devastating effect of U-Boat action, and in particular the sinking of the Lusitania, with the loss of more than 1,000 lives, made Wilson's task comparatively easy. In the process he became an estab­lishment figure, viciously anti-Labour, anti-German, and (after 1917) anti-Bol­shevik. His patriotism and his war-time services earned him the CBE.

The seamen did not share this enthusiasm. There was growing resentment over wages and working conditions, and anger over the prosecutions of men who were accused of desertion when they transferred to the US navy (which paid higher war-rates). Meanwhile the war brought the NSFU and the Shipping Federation closer together. Spurred on by the new identity of interests a number of issues were agreed. There was a substantial pay rise, a national wage agreement was negotiated and joint control in recruiting crews was established. Finally, in November 1917, the National Maritime Board (NMB) was formed, composed of members of the Shipping Federation and the NSFU, and chaired by a civil servant from the Ministry of Shipping. This body effectively took over the regulation of the war-time agreements, and also acted as the arbitration board for the industry. In 1919 the NMB was made a permanent institution, but without the member from the Ministry.

The new arrangement did not go unchallenged. Vigilance Committees were formed in Liverpool, with nuclei in Glasgow and London[18] who opposed the col­laboration with the shipowners and Wilson's autocratic treatment of all opposi­tion. The resentment grew in May 1921 when wages were cut by £2 10s. When the Committees tried to have the wage cut reversed Wilson met their challenge by changing the NSFU's voting regulations, denying them the possibility of obtaining office.[19]

In the years to come all arrangements in the merchant marine were finalized by the NMB, with the NSFU claiming the right to act for all seamen in Great Britain and Ireland. Besides small associations serving specialist interests (like the telegraphists) there were two effective organizations outside the NSFU - the BSU and the Cooks and Stewards' Union, led by Joe Cotter. The latter union broke with Wilson when he agreed to an all-round wage cut in 1921 and, when they called a strike for its restoration, officials of the NSFU obtained scabs for the employers[20] The strike collapsed and more than 17,000 men left the Cooks and Stewards Union, forcing them to seek an al­liance with some other body. The BSU, confined to Glasgow, Southampton and London, also sought allies and, on the initiative of the National Transport
Workers' Federation, the two unions combined in the Amalgamated Marine Workers' Union (AMWU) on 1 January 1922.[21]

In a move designed to counter the AMWU and stop the development of a potentially more militant union, the Port Consultant's Card, or PC5, was intro­duced in April 1922 in collusion with Wilson. Seamen in search of a berth were re­quired to produce the card, duly stamped by the NSFU to show that membership was in good standing, and counter-stamped by the employers. The PC5, which be­came a bone of contention between the NSFU and its rival unions, was used by the former as an inducement for men to pay their subscriptions. At a meeting of the executive of the union on 23 April 1922, an official named Bond was minuted as saying:
The first day they had it in operation was on Friday, and they would be amazed to realize the change it had brought about.Men who, for various reasons, because they had not paid up perhaps for a long period, came cap in hand to try and get the PC5 card... [T]he results already obtained had been most satisfactory ... on Saturday alone, a day when usually they could not collect a tanner, they had obtained the sum of £60 from the men signing on. He was glad of the arrangement, because it had established a better spirit with the [Shipping] Federation Offices...[22]

Union officials became increasingly arrogant and, according to Lindop, they would beat up men who would not take the PC5. The AMWU was badly affected, although initially it claimed that exclusion from the agreement was a good thing. Thus Joseph Cotter, the President, said on 9 January 1922:
... the new union was not attached to the National Maritime Board, and apologized to no one because of it. They were going to have no faking at all. They were not going to have any Shipping Masters interfering with the union...[23]

However, the NSFU and the NMB used the card to prevent other bodies taking part in any negotiations. The AMWU lost members and in 1922 published a pamphlet against the PC5 Card claiming that the NSFU regarded seafarers as:
... chattels to be handled about by the officials of the Sailors' and Firemen's Union and the Shipping Federation; neither your bodies nor your souls belong to yourselves. As a matter of fact, if this gang had their way you would be in the position of the chattel slaves of a hundred years ago.

Finally, in May 1923 Shinwell raised the matter of the PC5 in Parliament and asked the representative of the Board of Trade to institute an enquiry into the method of engaging seamen. The following day Shinwell told the Congress of the Seamen's Section of the ITWF that:
After I had stated my case, there arose from the Government benches a shipowner, who is a member of the Shipping Federation, and who employs a great deal of Chinese labour. He claimed that the shipowners were entitled to make the arrangements they had with the [NSFU] because the body does everything the shipowners asks them to do. [24]

There was little the AMWU could do and it was powerless when the NSFU agreed to wage cuts. Only on one occasion did its members take strike action. In April 1923 some 200 firemen in Southampton came out with their union's backing, and were joined by some members of the NSFU on unofficial strike. However, the action was limited and scabs were easily found. The strike collapsed and 134 men were arrested for breaking their articles.[25]

Although there were ports where it was not essential to carry the Card to get a berth, many seamen had to join the NSFU to get a job. Despite this, militant seamen with pre-war syndicalist ideas were vigorously opposed to any institutions in which the employers were involved. The AMWU pamphlet claimed that at a union meeting convened to discuss the card it was said that:
[i]... a lot of fellows hate the sight of the Shipping Federation and say they would not be found lying dead in the company of a Shipping Federation offi­cial ... They suggest that after having fought the Federation they are being driven back to them.

The TUC intervened in March 1924 when it tried to bring the two unions together. However the discussions broke down over Wilson's demands that the joint body be subordinated to himself and the NSFU officials. Thos was obviously unacceptable to the leaders of the AMWU and the talks were abandoned.

The problem lay not only in the attitude taken by Wilson and the NSFU: all was not well inside the AMWU. There was simmering discontent for some time and this surfaced on 23 March 1925, when five officials, consisting of former members of the BSU were dismissed by a majority vote and Cotter and Shinwell hurled abuse at each other. [26] The internal squabbling continued and intensified - and Cotter's supporters claimed that the AMWU was in deep decline and should be disbanded. Cotter, despairing of any progress, was obviously in contact with Wil­son and the NSFU and preparing to change allegiance.[27]

On 4 April, at an Executive Council meeting, the AMWU was said to have total assets of £27,773, with nine branches in Britain and one at Antwerp. However the Glasgow branch was inactive and the Liverpool delegate, fearing that more money might be squandered over and above the £100,000 which he claimed had been used without any benefit to the seamen, called for dissolution.

Then at the annual conference Cotter, the president, claimed that the AMWU had almost ceased to exist and that there were no more than 1,800 members throughout the country. This was the prelude to a turbulent meeting. Cotter was called upon to resign, to pay rent for the union house he occupied and to sign the union cheques which he steadfastly refused to do. Cotter's friends were accused of sabotaging efforts to build branches and even the majority who wanted to build the AMWU could bring little news of success. Yet, three facts emerged at the confer­ence that were to have a bearing on coming events. Firstly it was announced that the Southampton branch was making progress and was committed to the union and secondly, that Shinwell had come to an agreement with some tug, hopper and dredger firms that only AMWU men would be employed. As Warner, the Lon­don delegate reported: 'It was, really speaking, a PC5 of our own'(!)

The third item came from Shinwell and carried a message that at that stage was not altogether clear. Almost casually, he informed the conference delegates:
I am just going to tell you something .., that I have got from the NSFU officials themselves, they told me they expected to be up against something, so we must prepare when that something happens, and be assured we will be prepared, and take advantage of it (loud cheers).

This was the first public intimation of the events that were to lead up to the seamen's strike. Yet despite this knowledge nothing was done to pursue the matter further or to take the initiative in preparing for 'that something' which was about to happen. The leaders of the AMWU knew how to exchange insults with the NSFU, but they did not have the heart to prepare for action against the shipowners.

The National Maritime Board was the conciliation body in the world of the mercantile marine. It was here that shipowners met with the leaders of the NSFU, and in the words of Sir Walter Runciman '[sat] in Conference together, and discuss in harmony the small and big things that surround their respective avocations'. [28]

There was more praise for Havelock Wilson in Powell's official history of the Shipping Federation. In a brief entry on page 127 he said:
These pages have been peppered with the name of Mr Havelock Wilson. He was a maker of industrial history and a product of his times. The collective feelings of shipowners towards him changed in 30 years from something perilously near hatred to genuine admiration. No trade union leader of his generation made a more lasting impression on his time. He was fearless and far-sighted. And once he had become convinced of the need for collective bargaining, for honouring agreements and for industrial peace, he fought for all these with all his unsurpassed tenacity.

However, outside the statements made by his friends among the shipowners, the comments on the career of Wilson become less complimentary and more acerbic. G D H Cole and Raymond Postgate, after saying that in his early years Wilson did 'good work' for the seamen, then added on page 435 that: 'before long [he] had acquired for himself a more disagreeable reputation than any contemporary
British trade union leader'.

Alan Bullock the historian was more damning. He said that the NSFU was
... under the despotic control of Havelock Wilson, [it] had become a com­pany union working hand in glove with the employers in the Shipping Federation. Membership was enforced by the employers and in return Wil­son ruthlessly suppressed any demand - the eight hour day, for instance - which might inconvenience the shipowners. Little was done for the seamen, whose conditions were amongst the worst in any industry. Yet so complete was the hold which Wilson and the shipowners together exercised over the engagement of seamen that it was difficult to remedy what had become an open scandal. Any protest, leave alone attempts to start a rival union, was certain go be followed by the dismissal and victimization of the men involved.[29]

It was left to those who confronted him in action to produce the more damaging details. William Gallagher, Clydeside rebel and later member of the CPGB, after referring to Wilson's sabotaging of the Stockholm peace conference in 1917, described one incident in his memoir on pages 187-8:
Havelock Wilson ... the greatest patriot of all the trade union leaders, fresh from his victory in getting the sailors to refuse to sail the ship in which Mac­donald was booked to travel to the Stockholm conference, came to Glasgow about this time for a great jingo meeting ...
Entrance was by ticket only, but radicals printed copies and distributed them to oppositionists ...
But Wilson wasn't depending on tickets alone to secure a meeting. He brought a crowd of gangsters from the north of England to St Andrew's Hall and served them out with a considerable supply of booze. It was one of the earliest applications of fascist methods in the country, with a guaranteed police protection.

Yet these brief and anecdotal accounts do not allow the reader to see the man behind the screen that he seems to have so carefully erected. Most of what is known about Havelock Wilson was filtered through his own hands. He was always anti-socialist and never joined the parliamentary Labour Party, although he sat in the house as a Liberal almost continuously after 1892. He differed from other trade unionists, he said in his autobiography,
... on the question of the destruction of the so-called capitalist system. My theory is, right or wrong, I want every man to be a capitalist, because as long as a man has money and he is taken away from the poverty line he becomes an independent and free man ... (p 187).

Whether Wilson 'had money' is not known, but he certainly lived well above the poverty line. In 1921 he received from the NSFU £1,000 per year plus expenses, a motor car and chauffeur and a private residence at the union's headquarters for himself and his wife. In addition he earned £400 a year as an MP.[30] This was a handsome salary in those years. Wilson undoubtedly funded the movements he sponsored over the years and he was not short of financial resources.

On 9 October 1925, during the strike, the Westralian Worker printed extracts from a book by Frank Anstey, an Australian Labour MP, entitled Red Europe.
In the House of Commons, Mr Pringle, Liberal MP said the English institu­tion for the corruption of men and women was started as a section of the Ministry of Munitions under Lloyd George, and was afterwards linked to the Ministry of Information. He stated that large pecuniary inducements were held out to trade union officials - and sometimes with success - to make secret reports as to 'agitators' and 'anti patriots' inside the unions. Havelock Wilson of the Seamen's Union, was openly charged by Arthur Henderson with handling £50,000 of which he, Wilson, dared not explain the origin. Tom Richardson, MP alleged that clerical work for Wilson's Patriotic Crusade was done in the war office. 400 Patriotic Trade Unionists, at £1 per day and expenses, were engaged to demonstrate in Coventry against the munition strikers.

Wilson's jingoism was followed by an unscrupulous appeal to Hugo Stinnes, the armaments manufacturer, in early 1922 for money.[31] This, together with his strike breaking activities during the war, and his launching of the 'Industrial Peace Union of the British Empire' in October 1926 indicates a likeness to the labour leaders who later collaborated with the fascists of Mussolini's Italy. The advertisement sponsoring the Industrial Peace Union said:

Officials of the union were men hand-picked by Wilson. They were all full time officials, and none went to sea. In fact, many had never been to sea at all - and among the most notorious was 'Captain' Edward Tupper, 'VC'. Tupper's VC was as spurious as his captaincy and almost the only thing about him that was not in doubt was his inability to tell the truth. He also had a propensity for violence and an undoubted talent for raising scabs to break the 1925 strike.

Our knowledge of much of Tupper's activities comes from his autobiography and if the facts must remain in doubt (because of the strange mix of fantasy and fact in whatever he said), his intentions are clear. In chapter four we note his claims that in 1911 he organized race riots in Cardiff, where he had been sent by Wilson to organize the strike. His boasts were that in 1925 he established close co-operation with the Shipping Federation when he took over control of the NSFU while Wilson and Cotter were on their Canadian cruise (see chapter nine), that he had worked with the shipowners to lessen the impact of the strike in Australia (p 276), and arranged for the deployment of scabs in Britain (p 274).

The seamen's monthly shillings were used to provide the funds for hiring strong­arm men, for raising and transporting scabs during strikes and for the many projects including the 'Industrial Peace Union' designed to fight the 'reds'. Yet it seems that the NSFU provided no funds for the welfare of its members. It certainly made no contributions 'for sickness, idleness or striking'.[33]

Little of the seamen's disaffection with the shipowners and the union has been recorded, and much of the information about the (presumably vocal) Liverpool Vigilance Committee has come mainly from Wilson's letter in 1926 (see above). The position of workers in the union in the 1920s was one of subordination. Wilson and the officials entrenched themselves, negotiated with the employers and rarely (if ever) consulted the membership.

During the voyage the men were compartmentalized, deckhands generally mixing together and firemen and cooks forming their own special group. While some men managed to stay together on the same vessel over several years, others moved from ship to ship after spending a short time in port. There is no indication of any union activity in port or on board ship, and the union did not figure as part of the men's work experience. In a commentary, the Glasgow Forward said on 29 August 1925:
Now, one readily admits that a Seamen's Union must of necessity have less of a democratic control than is customary in other unions. The ships come and go. Men cannot in the very nature of things attend branch meetings. It may even be the case that decisions must frequently be taken without it being pos­sible to consult anything more than a fraction of the membership.
But Mr Havelock Wilson's Union has long been notorious, or shall we say unique, in its methods ...

Unique it was and when asked publicly (on board SS Mauritania, New York, 20 September 1925) why no ballot was taken when negotiations were opened on the reduction of wages, he said the union was 'not compelled, according to the rules, to take any such ballot'. A ballot was only required on a call to strike. However, as he had declared earlier in this address, the last strike he had called was in 1911 and he did not intend calling another, the conclusion was obvious.

The situation was altered only when the men were involved in a struggle and made public their dissatisfactions. Thus, on 2 October 1925, when interviewed by the Westralian Worker, a seaman replied to questions:
Q: Who are the officers of the Seamen's union [in London]?
A: This is a thing we are all asking. We do not know who the officers are; meetings of the union are never called; matters of great importance to the workers employed on board ship are never discussed. As a matter of fact all we know about our union is that Havelock Wilson is the president, and that some repre­sentative of it must give us a PC5 before we can get a job. We can tell you all about the conditions on the vessels, all about the work we do; but don't ask us anything about our union affairs because we don't know; we never hear of them.
Q: But you elect your officials annually, don't you?
A: Elect officers? No, the officers of the British Seamen's Union are not elected annually or otherwise. I have been a member of the British Seamen's Union for years and I have never been asked to vote on anything ... Although we are fully paid-up members of the union we know nothing whatever about its affairs the only thing we are allowed to know is when there is a reduction in wages ... Then we get a radio message from Havelock Wilson telling us what to do.

And what they were to do was obvious. They had to accept the position and go about their work.

It is arguable that the period 1910 to 1926 is the most bitter period of class warfare in modem British history. From 1922 onwards the workers were defeated and subdued in one industry after another. The General Strike was the majestic but pathetic epitaph to their struggle. - Gareth Steadman Jones[1]

In the several published accounts of the General Strike of 1926, few have con­sidered that event as the culmination of a period of increasingly bitter class warfare and not one has mentioned the seamen's strike that commenced on 2 August 1925 and extended to October or later. Even at the time, only the Marine Worker editorial of September 1925, discussing the wage cut in the merchant marine, grasped the significance of Havelock Wilson's role.[2]

Since 30 June 1925 the attention of union leaders had been fixed on the threat to wage levels. The coal mine operators had given the statutory one month's notice of termination of the 1921 national agreement with the Miners Federation of Great Britain. Thereafter the guaranteed minimum wage would be replaced by locally negotiated wages. This would lead to a drop of 10-25 per cent or more.[3] The Miner's Federation called on the Trades Union Congress (TUC) for assistance and, after talks between miners and mine owners collapsed, a national strike was planned. The miners needed the co-operation of all transport workers to stop the movement of coal supplies and for this the seamen would play a key role. The en­tire labour movement was mobilized during the month of July and a conference, attended by a thousand delegates, met on 31 July to pledge support in the struggle.

The government was determined to stop the unions but was not yet fully prepared. Since 1919-21 there had been draft plans to counter major industrial unrest but the machinery was dated and depended on the existence of a large army. This was discussed by the Cabinet in 1924 and although, according to the minutes, no emergency was anticipated at the time, the Home Secretary was authorized to renovate the plans. These were not yet complete in July 1925 - and it was feared that industrial paralysis would overtake the country before 'volunteers' could be mobilized.[4] The government's view was communicated to the King:
Many members of the Cabinet think that the struggle is inevitable and must come sooner or later: the P M does not share this view. The majority of the Cabinet regard the present moment as badly chosen for the fight, though the conditions would be more favourable nine months hence ...[5]

Consequently, the Cabinet decided to subsidize the coal mines to maintain the minimum wage for nine months while, ostensibly, an inquiry into the productive efficiency of the industry was conducted. This halted plans for strike action.

Leaders of the Labour Party were ecstatic. Red Friday (as 31 July was named) was described by the Daily Herald the following day, as 'the biggest victory the labour movement has won yet in the course of its history'. Communist Party writers were also exultant, although the party's paper warned in an editorial that this was 'an unstable peace' and would only lead 'to renewed class conflict'. The editor maintained that the loss of Britain's industrial monopoly necessitated a reduction of prices in foreign markets. This would drive the employers to reduce wages, al­though the return to gold had 'increased the value of the holdings of the rentiers in land industry and war loan stocks by about £1,000,000,000'. Indeed, it was said, there was a possibility that during this nine months' truce the 'capitalist class will launch an attack upon some other bodies of workers'.[6]

Yet, not a mention in this editorial of the cut in seamen's wages or of the strike that had already been declared in ports across the land. Instead the editorial looked inwards and directed attention to the coming Labour Party conference, restricting its demands to a call for an end to discrimination against communists, to allow affiliation of the CPGB to the Labour Party and to replace the existing reformism with 'a fighting workers' policy.

In November 1923, workers inside the miners, railwaymen and engineers' unions met with members of the CPGB and formed 'minority groups'. This was followed by a conference on 23 August 1924 to launch the National Minority Movement (NMM): 'to act as a point of crystallization' inside trade unions in Britain and 'to organize the working masses of Great Britain for the overthrow of capitalism'.[7] Initially the NMM aimed to strengthen workshop organization, create one union for each industry, enrol all workers in the unions, and defend wages against further cuts.

The NMM was affiliated with the Red International of Labour Unions (RILU or Profintern), which had its headquarters in Moscow. To further the aims of the RILU in Britain it was proposed that an Anglo-Russian trade union committee be established, and that through contact between leaders of the RILU and the TUC, there could be progress towards unity between the social democratic International Federation of Trade Unions and the Russian dominated RILU. This aim dominated NMM policies and was to determine events through 1925 and the general strike of 1926.[8]

Sometime in 1924, George Hardy, one time leading member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) who was in charge of the RILU seamen's section in Hamburg, returned to Britain. Elected national organizational secretary of the NMM, Hardy created a British seamen's section.[9] A small number of seamen in London, belonging to either the NSFU or the AMWU, joined the seamen's sec­tion of the minority movement in mid-July 1924.[10] Its significance for the events that followed the wage cut was its presence in London. The unofficial strike com­mittee that was set up in early August invited Hardy to join them and he devoted his time to the working of the strike committee. This gave the Workers Weekly (organ of the NMM and the RILU) direct access to the strikers.

RILU policy was laid down for Britain by its leading theoretician in Moscow, Lozovsky. He demanded protection for 'revolutionary trade unionists' from the reformist leadership, but, he warned, the unity of the trade unions had to be main­tained: they had to be held together, unified, and captured for communism. In line with this policy the NMM repeatedly said it had no intention of splitting any trade union or of forming splinter unions. This policy, seemingly admirable in principle, was to the detriment of the seamen. Unable to unseat the leaders of the NSFU, or to convince other trade unions that their cause needed support, the seamen had nobody to present their case. In this case the only way forward was to break away from the union that claimed to speak in their name. By maintaining the unity of their official organization, the strikers ended by being split in their action.

During July attention was focused on events in the coal fields and little atten­tion was given by the labour movement to press reports that the National Maritime Board intended cutting seamen's wages on 1 August. The seamen did not act to counter the move and the AMWU, despite being forewarned by Shinwell, remained dormant.

In mid-July the newly formed seamen's section of the NMM declared that it would fight against wage reductions and would demand that a special rank and file delegate conference be convened, with full powers to ratify or reject any agree­ments on wages and working conditions. The NMM also called for an eight hour day for all ratings and, highlighting pressing complaints, demanded beds, blankets and cooking utensils for all seamen.

There is no evidence to suggest that any group had plans to call the seamen out when the cuts were implemented. The Workers Weekly, which appeared on Saturday 1 August, had an article by Hardy, mentioning the cut and calling for an alliance of miners, railwaymen, transport workers and engineers. He proposed a programme for the seamen that included a 10 per cent rise in wages and time and a half for overtime, an eight hour day for deckhands and six hours below, provision of bedding; new radical conditions for men leaving ships and returning home. He also called for the right to form ship's committees to represent the men in any com­plaints at sea and a closed shop. Hardy spoke of 'prepar[ing] to resist the reduc­tions on 1 August' and, in a monumental miscalculation, said that the 25,000 registered unemployed would not scab, because 'they will realize that our fight is their fight'.

The only report of seamens' protest came from Hull on 31 July. The local branch of the AMWU, obviously ahead of the national body, convened a meeting that was attended by about 200 seamen. It was resolved that men would be urged not to accept a berth except at the old rate of pay and that they would insist on the abolition of the PC5. It was also announced that the action would be unofficial and that there would be no strike pay.[11] Yet, after the initial meeting, there seem to have been no stoppages in Hull.[12]

Reports on the seamen's action were confused by the bias of the reporters and the institutions they supported. R E Bond, who was associated with the NMM, claimed retrospectively that the strike in Britain commenced on 2 August 'when large numbers of seamen refused to sign articles in the London Docks'. Yet, if there were such men, their action was spontaneous and there was no organization to support them. Bond also stated that a strike committee was formed on the 8th of August.[13] Yet the Workers Weekly of 14 August which had two articles on seamen carried no news of seamen striking. It only reported on 21 August that a strike committee of six had been elected at a mass meeting of seamen in Canning Town and that arrangements had been made for picketing and for meetings, 'with the result that several ships were held up [in London], the men refusing to sign on'. Also on Sunday 16th about 2,500 seamen, firemen and supporters marched through the streets of Poplar (East End of London), behind a banner:[14]

The existence of an unofficial strike was mentioned on the 18th in the Daily Herald. The only other news of strike action came from Newcastle, where seamen met and pledged themselves not to sign articles at the reduced rate of pay. At least two ships were delayed during the next few days, in each case be­cause seamen demanded the old rate of pay.[15] At this juncture newspaper reports diverged even further in their coverage of events at the ports. The conservative press dismissed talk of stoppages, speaking only of short delays or of the strike collapsing. The labour and communist press mentioned strike action and picketing, although the action was limited to a few ports. For ex­ample, the clerical staff of the Dundalk and Newry Steam Packet Co in Liver­pool walked out on the 19th over salary cuts. They were followed by the dockers and shipping services came to a halt.[16]

On 22 August it was reported that members of the NSFU and the AMWU were on the Central Strike Committee (CSC) in London assisted by members of the NMM. However, it seems more likely that it was the NMM that seized the ad­vantage of launching the committee and that they controlled the CSC throughout the strike, their members being drawn mainly from the NSFU.

From the beginning the issue of scabbing had to be faced. Shipowners and offi­cials of the NSFU worked together to break the strike and both recruited crews from among seafarers and, where necessary, from untrained men. But in many ports where unemployment among seamen was endemic, there was little problem in signing up a crew, albeit with a short delay. Men were also deterred at the docks by the announcement that there would be no strike pay, no unemployment dole, and no poor laws relief for men who did not accept berths.
To secure crews for strike-bound ships, the employers first mobilized men in London and arranged to have them bussed to the docks. They then brought in men from further afield. The strikers tried to reach the men to win their support and bus drivers, railwaymen and others, refused to carry scabs,[17] but it was always an unequal struggle. Subterfuge was also used by the employers to stop the men striking. One account that we received probably accounts for some of the ships that just kept sailing even at the height of the strike. T R Patten of Plymouth, in a letter to the authors, stated that he had been an assistant baker on the Empress of France. The ship came into Southampton from Canada in the summer of 1925, and after passengers for the UK had disembarked, the men who expected to go ashore found the gangway blocked by the Master-at-Arms and two of his staff. Notices were posted up cancelling shore leave and the puzzled men were told that there was free beer in the bonded store.

All the bar-keepers were busy opening bottles of beer, pouring the contents into enamel pails. It was a case of bring your own jug or container. I well recall a cook returning to the galley with a bucket full, and a baker with a gallon measure full.

This continued until 2.30 pm when news came through that an attempted strike had collapsed, and that men due for leave could go ashore. Patten con­cludes:
No doubt the support of the E/France's crew had been expected, the Company's officials knew of this hence the free beer when the crew were kept on board.

The press said nothing of this kind of incident. In a brief reference to the ships that had just sailed, the EveningNews of 7 September said: 'The Empress of France too was able to depend on her old crew'.

It was not certain in the latter part of August that the strike would spread, and even the dispatch of representatives from the CSC in London, to ports around the country, seemed to have only limited effect, even if the Daily Herald of 22 August could report that 35 ships were held up in the Thames, 'between the Port of Lon­don and Gravesend'. Then came the news that the seamen who arrived in Australia on 20 August had resolved to walk out, followed a few days later by similar announcements from South Africa and New Zealand. The strike could be said to have taken root from that point onwards.

Two days later, on the 22nd, firemen walked off the SS Orbita in Southampton five minutes before it was due to depart for New York. But many rejoined the ship and extra men were brought in by tender, allowing the ship to sail. Other liners raised their gangways early to prevent similar walk-offs. There was news in the press of meetings, of the setting up of strike committees in many major ports, and reports of clashes with police and of further recruiting of scabs.[18]

Tension was building up and it was reported that some NSFU officials were car­rying guns.[19] On Thursday 27 August, George Reed, the branch secretary in Step­ney, for reasons that were never satisfactorily explained, fired four shots at a meeting of seamen from his room above the union office. Richard Cocklin, who tried to stop him, was shot and injured. Reed handed his revolver to a policeman and was reported as saying: 'Here you are. What would you do if you had Roumanian Jews coming over here and smashing up our homes'? He appeared in court and was given bail of £100, for which the General Secretary acted as surety. Reed was sent to the union's convalescent home. At trial, he was found not guilty of attempted murder. He claimed that he had fired over the heads of the crowd to disperse them and that he had only recently borrowed the gun from a colleague, because he had been threatened.[20] There the matter was allowed to rest.

By now officials of the union were actively engaged in recruiting scabs, and moved men from areas of high unemployment to ports where the strikers were ac­tive. Tupper boasted of 'fetch[ing] loyal union crews from all over the shop' and getting them aboard liners at night.[21] The shipowners were doing the same and during the dispute moved some 3,500 seamen from one district to an other to make up crews and took steps to stop the activities of pickets.

The strike spread to many ports and received extra impetus after news ar­rived that men had walked off the ships in South Africa and Australasia, but the main centre of action in Britain was Southampton, the point of departure for southern seas. On 30 August a mass meeting in Southampton was ad­dressed by Cannon, Shinwell, and McKinley, president, organizer and general secretary, respectively, of the AMWU. The seamen, many of whom were members of the NSFU, gave unanimous support for strike action against the wage cut, and protested against the stopping of allotment pay to families of the men who had taken action abroad. A strike committee was formed (presumably independent of the London committee) and the men resolved to approach other seamen to join them in strike action. Cables were sent to Australia and South Africa congratulating the men on their 'gallant stand' against the wage cut. [22]

The intervention of the AMWU was crucial. In Britain it came when the strike was faltering and for many strikers abroad the AMWU became the centre through which they could present their demands.[23] Yet there was no satisfactory reason for the long delay in swinging behind the strike. Nor was any reason given for the AMWU's failure to call out its members on the tugs.[24] Without the tugs, as is discussed below, the ships could not have left port, yet despite protests from the NMM and the London strike committee, they continued to work throughout the strike.

Shinwell was silent on the issue of the tugs and he gave several explanations for the delay in coming to the support of the strike . He was reported by the Daily Record and Mail as saying firstly (on 1 September) that the AMWU had no alter­native but to intervene because the seamen had never been consulted over the wage cut, and because of the decision to prosecute seamen who were on strike abroad. Then, according to the issue of 3 September, he told a meeting of 4,000 seamen in Liverpool about a 'conspiracy' between Havelock Wilson and Joseph Cotter, holding up union funds, work and activities for a period of five months which extended well into August.[25]

By 15 September Shinwell produced a third version of the AMWU's tardiness in joining the strike. His statement, reprinted in the Forward of 19 September, said:
The Marine Workers' Union was reluctant to enter another struggle, be­cause on the last occasion when a wage revision took place their men were blacklegged by men belonging to Havelock Wilson's Union, and the [AMWU] suffered considerably as a result.
But the fight was forced upon us, and we had our members solidly behind us in declining to depart from the mandate that had been given us which was to fight all wage reductions.

Cannon, president of the AMWU, presented the case somewhat differently. In the Southem Daily Echo of 2 September he declared:
There is no 'Red' plot. It is a bread and butter plot. Ever since August 1st seamen and firemen of Southampton have been chafing under the reduction of wages. They know that the miners were successful in resisting a reduction, and no other body of workers in the transport industry have had their pay reduced.

Then describing the reactions of NSFU men on the Orbita and other ships, he continued:
As the days passed it became evident that the unrest was growing. Non-unionists and members of the NSFU, together with men attached to the AMWU, were insistent upon an opportunity being afforded them to discuss the matter. As a result of this the AMWU called a meeting of seamen.

The meeting, he said, was not confined to AMWU members and after the posi­tion was explained to the men they were left to decide policy. The resolution came from the body of the hall and since then no man at Southampton had accepted an engagement. Even the crew of the Majestic, signed last Friday, had given notice and left the ship. Scabs were brought in but some refused to sail when they heard the position. Although the Majestic had now sailed, he said, none of the original crew were on the vessel. In this he was correct: later reports indicated that the ship sailed with a depleted crew, although it was joined by men waiting on board a tug off the Isle of Wight.
As a counter move to the sailing of the Majestic, the AMWU called out their men on the cross-Channel ferries, and called for a restoration of the wage cut. Consequently, on the evening of 2 September Southern Railways warned the travelling public that 'owing to a general strike of our seamen, there is no pos­sibility of any of our boats sailing from Southampton to-night'.[26] Ferries from Dover and Folkstone were not affected because, it was reported, seamen at those ports were not members of the AMWU.[27]

However, as with the larger ships, scabs were easily found and even on the eve­ning of the 3rd some ferries sailed from Southampton to the Channel Islands and France. Without assistance for the seamen in France or on the islands, the strike across the Channel was soon over. But in the ports of Britain men were coming out, and this led to an acrimonious press attack on the seamen and on the AMWU. Shinwell was a particular target of vituperation with anti-semitic overtones, being variously described as 'the ex-tailor's presser', and 'Shinbad the Sailor'.

The press in Liverpool was particularly offensive. The article in the Daily Courier, of September 3rd was typical of the daily outpouring. Under the heading 'Red Agents in the Ships', the article spoke of 'small but desperate bands of malcontents' trying to hold up the ships. Special watchmen and detectives on the staff of steamship companies were assigned to watch the berthed vessels. One company official referred to fire hoses in the docks as guns at the ready to stop pickets and was reported as saying: 'We have got to watch these pickets as we would watch rats ... We shall stop them at any price from getting into the engine­room, because some of them are very desperate'.[28]

The Courier also printed a long statement from Colonel H Concanon, joint chairman of the White Star Line, asking the press to inform all seamen that their actions abroad was mutiny and rebellion in the case of ships at home. Further­more, if the strike were successful - 'an unthinkable possibility' - it 'would have a serious effect on industries throughout the country'. He concluded a long state­ment by reasserting that all boats would sail and that the strikers were being duped.

When the leaders of the AMWU decided to back the seamen's strike it must have seemed to some that this was their one opportunity of winning the sup­port of the majority of the men in the merchant marine. This was the event, announced by Shinwell at the July conference, for which they should be prepared to 'take advantage'. He had been loudly cheered then and here was the opportunity. The AMWU called for the restoration of the wage cut, for the removal of the PC5 and the reconstitution of the Maritime Board. These were obvious demands. The exclusive right of the NSFU to sit on the NMB and the operation of the PC5 card had to go if the union was to be reformed, or the officials replaced.

The AMWU, despite the legitimacy of its complaints against the NSFU, was by no means innocent of subterfuge. The most serious matter involved the tugboats. Without these craft the ships could not have got to sea and many scabs needed by the captains to make up their depleted crews could not have been moved onto the ships before they sailed. Yet, throughout the strike the AMWU refused to call out these men. The agreement with the tugboat owners was separate from that of other seamen, they argued. More to the point (although apparently unknown to the NMM) the AMWU would have come into conflict with the firms who had given them their little 'PC5' agreement. On 12 September the Worker criticized Shinwell for not pulling the tug-boat men out, and on the 14th the Central Strike Committee criticized the AMWU in a strike bulletin because it was organizing its own pickets. It also said of the tugs of one of the companies:
We further pointed out to the National Officials that if they are in this dispute to win, that the tug-boat men who are manning the Sun tugs should cease to tow the liners into the river, as elementary trade union principles demand that they should cease this work ...[29]

Despite this the AMWU's complaints over NSFU policy needed an answer. Yet in line with Lazovsky's policy the NMM opposed the demand that the officials of the NSFU had to be replaced, and objected to the attacks on Wilson, on the grounds that the AMWU was only interested in 'poaching' members. In retrospect it is difficult to find excuses for any of the parties concerned. The NSFU's activities before and during the strike were reprehensible; the AMWU had undermined its claims to openness by boasting that they had their own PC5 arrangement with the tugboat companies and the NMM with its convoluted Profintern policy wanted no splits in the NSFU, irrespective of the rights or wrongs of the situation.

In a cat and mouse game inside the striker's camp the AMWU set up their own office in London, organized their own pickets and established a cafe to which striking seamen were invited. There they were offered free refreshments and their names and addresses were taken. The CSC advised the men to take the refresh­ments, but to proffer false names and addresses. Within a very short time the refreshment centre was closed![30]

On 3 September 1925 a special meeting of the Executive Council of the Ship­ping Federation was convened to discuss the strike. The Council members were well informed - their objective being to assess the strengths and weak­nesses of the seamen's actions and to prepare for the coming period of con­frontation.

Cuthbert Laws, the General Manager of the Federation, opened the session with a report saying that the strike had not started until the 12th of August. From the viewpoint of the 'agitators', he said, the strike was well conducted. 'Picketing was severe and intense' and this had intimidated a large part of the workforce in London, where two out of three were now afraid to sign on. Crews had to be taken to the ships at night and many men had to be brought in from other areas.

From London the action had moved to the Tyne, 'and for a time it was pretty fierce'. However, the Federation was active in the