¹ See, respectively, MacDonagh, O., “The Nineteenth Century Revolution in Government: A Reappraisal”, Historical Journal, Vol. 1, 1958, pp. 52–67;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Hart, Jenifer, “Nineteenth Century Social Reform: A Tory Interpretation”, Past & Present, No 31, 1965, pp. 39–61;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Goldthorpe, J.H., “The Development of Social Policy in England, 1800–1914”, Transactions of the Fifth World Congress of Sociology, Vol. IV, (Washington, DC, 1962), p. 55.Google Scholar These approaches have all been summarized briefly in Bartrip, Peter W. J., “Public Opinion and Law Enforcement: The Ticket-of-Leave Scares in Mid- Victorian Britain”, in Bailey, Victor (ed.), Policing and Punishment in Nineteenth Century Britain (London, 1981), pp. 150–2. In his own study of a specific mid-nineteenth century penal reform, Bartrip favours a ‘pressure of events’ interpretation.Google Scholar

² Gusfield, Joseph, “Moral Passage: The Symbolic Process in Public Designations of Deviance”, in Bersani, C.A. (ed.), Crime and Delinquency (London, 1970), p. 67,Google Scholar cited in Carson, W. G., “Symbolic and Instrumental Dimensions of Early Factory Legislation”, in Hood, R. (ed), Crime, Criminology and Public Policy: Essays in Honour of Sir Leon Radzinowicz (London, 1974), p. 111. Gusfield's principal work is Symbolic Crusade (Urbana, 1963).Google Scholar

³ Roberts, B.C., The Trades Union Congress 1868–1921 (London, 1958), p. 278.Google Scholar

⁴ Shipconstructors' and Shipwrights' Association (SSA), Quarterly Report, July-September 1915, p. 5. For other welcoming comments, see Clynes, J.R., What is the Munitions of War Act? (London and Manchester, 1915)Google Scholar and references in Rubin, Gerry R., War, Law, and Labour: The Munitions Acts, State Regulation and the Unions, 1915–1921 (Oxford, 1987), Ch. One.Google Scholar

⁵ Bartrip, , op. cit., p. 150.Google Scholar

⁶ The Fairfield incident has been well rehearsed in the literature. See, for example, Hinton, James, The First Shop Stewards' Movement (London, 1973), pp. 116–8;Google Scholar Wrigley, C.J., David Lloyd George and the British Labour Movement (Hassocks, 1976), pp. 141–2;Google Scholar McLean, Iain S., The Legend of Red Clydeside (Edinburgh, 1983), pp. 41–2;Google Scholar Reid, Alastair, “Dilution, trade unionism and the state in Britain during the First World War”, in Tolliday, Steven and Zeitlin, Jonathan (eds.), Shop Floor Bargaining and the State (Cambridge, 1985). pp. 55–6.Google Scholar The civil servants at the Ministry of Munitions had, in fact, been toying with the possibility of framing a few technical amendments to the Act. The situation on Clydeside caused them to address the prospect of radical changes. For the technical proposals, see Public Record Office (PRO) MUN 5/20/221.1/40, “Munitions of War Act 1915 – Amending Bill”, by Miles, J.C., 11 17, 1915; Official History of the Ministry of Munitions (OHMM), Vol. IV, Part II (London, 1920–24), p. 67.Google Scholar

⁷ Such disadvantages contrast with the favourable situation of the “moral entrepreneur” who, according to Becker, is able to mobilize a reform campaign. He takes, as his example, the United States Federal Board of Narcotics which sought to prohibit marihuana smoking in the 1930s. The Board, possessing abundant resources, adequate organisation and acceptability, was able to stimulate public interest in its campaign by arranging for the publication in newspapers of exaggerated and lurid accounts of the dire consequences of marihuana abuse, thus generating publicity which served to magnify the extent of the alleged evil. Thus, following lax enforcement of, or even indifference to, local laws prohibiting marihuana smoking, the Board eventually undertook the administrative responsibility for a federal law, in fact, a penal taxation measure, to curb the practice. What began initially as a bureaucratic enterprise – the Board “perceived an area of wrongdoing that properlybelonged in their jurisdiction and moved to put it there” – was transformed into a “problem” of public concern by means of the preaching of a general value underpinning the campaign. This was the value, carefully stressed in the publicity campaign, of “self-control” and the elimination of “illicit pleasure” (the state of ecstasy induced by marihuana). Becker also notes that while the “natural history” of a rule tends to “follow the sequence from general value through specific rule to particular act of enforcement”, the sequence could be changed. Thus, a “rule may be drawn up simply to serve someone's special interest and a rationale for it later found in some general value.” For all these points, see Becker, Howard, Outsiders (New York, 1972), pp. 133–8. As we shall see, the enactment of the Munitions Amendment Act in January 1916 also followed the emergence of a genral legitimating value which transcended special interest pleading.Google Scholar

⁸ See, for example, Pribicevic, Branko, The Shop Stewards' Movement and Workers' Control, 1910–1922 (Oxford, 1959), pp. 45–8; Nation, 10 16, 1915, pp. 109–111Google Scholar (Cole); ibid., December 18, 1915, p. 442 (Mellor); Winter, J.M., Socialism and the Challenge of War (London, 1974), p. 136.Google Scholar

⁹ Herald, , 07 3, 1915.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ Cole, G.D.H., Labour in Wartime (London, 1915), pp. 214–5.Google Scholar

¹² Cotton Factory Times, August 6, 1915, for contents of the manifesto. According to the Trade Unionist, January 1916, 20,000 copies were printed and issued.

¹³ See the Herald, , 08 14, 21, 1915 for these points. For the response of the TURC, see the Seaman, 08 27, 1915; Nation, 08 21, 1915, p. 678.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Herald, , 07 10, 1915. Clearly, the TURC as an organization could not have been responsible for such a call, given that it was only established a few days after the Herald's remarks.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Following the breakdown of wage negotiations, and despite the intervention of Lloyd George and other government ministers, the South Wales miners resolved on industrial action. In the hope of pre-empting the strike, Lloyd George extended the recently enacted Munitions Act to the coal industry, and posted notices in the district, advising of the statutory prohibition on industrial action. The move had the opposite effect, for, the following day, 200,000 South Wales miners stopped work. The newly-appointed munitions tribunal chairman pointed out the futility of mass prosecutions to Lloyd George, who then exerted more pressure on the coal owners. A settlement, without any prosecutions, was reached within a few days. See Wrigley, , op. cit., pp. 122–8.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Herald, , 07 10, 1915.Google Scholar See also similar remarks in Cole, G.D.H. and Mellor, W., “Labour After the War: Preparation is Half the Battle”, Trade Union Worker, 03 1916, pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

¹⁷ It is difficult, therefore, to see the force of the argument that there existed a close affinity between the TURC and the, surely more effective and lasting, Clydeside shop stewards' organization, the Clyde Workers' Committee. For this view, see Drislane, R.M., “Trade Union Leaders and Politics, 1910–1922”, London University Ph.D. (1975), p. 151.Google Scholar A number of trades councils did lend their support to the TURC but to no effect. See Clinton, Alan, The Trade Union Rank and File: Trades Councils in Britain, 1900–1940 (Manchester, 1976), p. 121.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Other prominent signatories from the wartime rank-and-file movement included Tom Quelch and W.F. Watson.

¹⁹ Herald, , 07 17, 1915.Google Scholar

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ Cole, G.D.H., Workshop Organisation (Oxford, 1923), p. 89;Google Scholar ibid., Trade Unionism and Munitions (Oxford, 1923), p. 124.

²² ASE, Monthly Journal and Report, September 1915, p. 23.

²³ Ibid., p. 25.

²⁴ Ibid., p. 33.

²⁵ Ibid., November 1915, p. 60.

²⁶ Ibid., September 1915, p. 21.

²⁷ Ibid.

²⁸ Herald, Glasgow, 09 6, 1915.Google Scholar

²⁹ Ibid., September 10, 1915.

³⁰ The commitment seems to have been made on behalf of the men by a delegation of union officials including Jones, which appeared to concede that the men's action in refusing overtime was unjustifiable. It is not clear whether in fact the men had been consulted first before the promise was made. If not, then either Jones' rhetoric was hollow or his condemnation of the men's action was intended to pacify the company and tribunal. Subsequent events suggest that the men interpreted the officials' action as a sell-out. See ASE, Monthly Journal and Report, October 1915, p. 29; Engineer, October 29, 1915.

³¹ Herald, Glasgow, 09 20, 1915.Google Scholar

³² Ibid.

³³ The following major tribunal clashes in the first few months, apart from the Liverpool incident and cases in Glasgow, may be mentioned: (1) a subsequently withdrawn prosecution of 28 strikers at Vickers, Barrow in July. See (PRO) MUN 5/353/349/1, “History of Labour Regulation Department, by Miss Butler, C. V., 02 1917”Google Scholar (2) fines imposed on 31 Manchester strikers in the same month. See Woman's Dreadnought, August 7, 1915, p. 295; ASE, Monthly Journal and Report, August 1915, p. 32; (3) the dismissal, without leaving certificates, of over 100 armour-plate workers at the Manchester works of Armstrong Whitworth in August. See the Nation, September 4, 1915, p. 735; Herald, Glasgow, 09 4, 1915.Google Scholar The irony of John Hodge's Steel Smelters' Union apparently sanctioning a strike in response to the dismissals was not lost on the Forward, the Glasgow socialist newspaper, which noted Hodge's previous declarations that any strikes at the time were “inconceivable and unthinkable”. See the Forward, September 11, 1915; (4) the prosecution of 50 boilermakers from Thorneycroft's shipyard in Southampton. See, inter alia, Lord Askwith, Industrial Problems and Disputes (London, 1920), pp. 396–8; (5) a succession of mass prosecutions for striking and for allegedly breaking yard rules in Tyneside shipyards, together with multiple leaving certificate applications. See Herald, Glasgow, 09 9, 27, 29, 10 20, 11 25, 1915;Google Scholar R. v Newcastle Munitions Tribunal, ex parte George, Lloyd. Law Journal, Vol. 50, 1915, p. 530;Google Scholar (6) extensive unrest leading to tribunal hearings at Robb, Caledon shipyard at Dundee. See Herald, Glasgow, 10 1, 16, 1915; Scottish Record Office (SRO) HH31/22, “Memorandum as to the Prosecution of Certain Workmen in the Employ of the Caledon Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Dundee”; (PRO) MUN 5/80/341/3, “Clyde Munitions Workers: Minutes of Evidence”, pp. 151–6, 271–6; also (PRO) Tl/132/1, “Treasury Out-Letters to Ministry of Munitions” and (PRO) MUN 5/97/349/10, “Treasury Correspondence re Fines Imposed by the Munitions Tribunals, December 8, 1915, and February 11, 1916”.Google Scholar

³⁴ ASE, Monthly Journal and Report, September 1915, p. 22.

³⁵ New Statesman, August 7, 1915, p. 411.

³⁶ Ibid., November 13, 1915. Also David Sugarman, Palmer, J.N.J. and Rubin, G.R., “Crime, Law and Authority in Nineteenth Century Britain”, Middlesex Polytechnic History Journal, Vol. 1, Spring-Autumn 1982, pp. 111–15.Google Scholar

³⁷ Wolfe, Humbert, Labour Supply and Regulation (Oxford, 1923), p. 175.Google Scholar

³⁸ Gouldner, Alvin, Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy (Glencoe, 1954) for the use of this term.Google Scholar

³⁹ (PRO) MUN 5/48/300/9, “Meeting with Shipbuilding Employers' Federation, August 12, 1915”.

⁴⁰ Nation, November 20, 1915, p. 289.

⁴¹ ASE, Monthly Journal and Report, December 1915, p. 94. See also the general observations of another correspondent in ibid., October 1915, pp. 76–7.

⁴² That is, presumably in the November issue.

⁴³ Trade Unionist, April 1916, p. 3.

⁴⁴ Land and Water, October 2, 1915, pp. 18–19.

⁴⁵ Cf., the Clydeside shop stewards' convenor, David Kirkwood's remark to Lloyd George that, “I am as much a slave to Sir William Beardmore (his employer) as if I had the letter “B” branded on my brow”. See George, David Lloyd, War Memoirs, Vol. 1 (London, 1933), p. 314.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ For a general response to Jowett's charges, see Sydenham's, Lord reply in Land and Water, 10 9, 1915.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Yorkshire Factory Times, October 28, 1915. According to Clinton, op. cit., p. 75, the Munitions Act was constantly being discussed by trades councils, and protests increasingly grew strident as the war wore on.

⁴⁸ Yorkshire Factory Times, October 28, 1915.

⁴⁹ ASE, Monthly Journal and Report, January 1917, p. 27. The date of this comment lends support to Clinton's remark (supra).

⁵⁰ Ibid., November 1915, p. 57.

⁵¹ New Statesman, December 4, 1915, P. 197.

⁵² Cited in Roger Davidson. “Government Labour Policy. 1914–1916: A Reappraisal”. Journal of the Scottish Labour History Society, No 8, June 1974, p. 3.

⁵³ Ibid., 8, pp. 13–14.

⁵⁴ Socialist, January 1916, p. 32. This was, of course, the view of the Clyde Workers' Committee. McManus later became the leader of the newly-founded British Communist Party. The forged Zinoviev letter of 1924 contained his (equally forged) signature as a “witness” to the letter.

⁵⁵ Clarion, , 11 26, 1915.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁶ Ibid., September 17, 1915.

⁵⁷ These were presumably the ministry's labour officers.

⁵⁸ There was widespread criticism of the competence of inspectors. See a Commons amendment proposed by W.T. Wilson of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners that inspectors be “properly and technically qualified”. This was resisted by Christopher Addison, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Munitions, despite the allegation that pawnbrokers' assistants, labourers and butchers had been appointed to these posts. They were the “laughing stock” of the men and of the foremen. One instance was cited by Wilson where an inspector had rejected 78 out of 84 shells while another had passed 74 of them. See Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, Journal, January 1916, p. 45.

⁵⁹ In 1909, he published the pragmatically entitled Common Objections to Socialism Answered.

⁶⁰ Clarion, , 10 8, 1915.Google Scholar

⁶¹ New Statesman, 11 13, 1915, pp. 124–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶² Ibid., p. 125.

⁶³ The French minister of munitions.

⁶⁴ Forward, September 18, 25, October 2, 9, 1915.

⁶⁵ To the extent that ideological objections to war were shared by the New Statesman, they did not explicitly inform its criticism of the Munitions Act. In this respect, its editorial approach differed from that of other socialist publications, such as the Labour Leader, the banner of the I.L.P.

⁶⁶ The Times, November 1, 1915.

⁶⁷ At its 1916 conference, the ILP was to approve a resolution calling for the “unconditional repeal of the Munitions Act, recognising that no amendment of the same can be effective while the principle of the Act remains the same and the control of munitions is vested in the hands of private ownership upon a basis of profit”. See ILP, Annual Conference Report 1916, p. 45. The Labour Party, by contrast, had merely demanded the “most drastic amendments” to the Act. See Labour Party, Report of Fifteenth Annual Conference, Bristol, 1916, p. 128. While the party was active in parliamentary discussions on the munitions legislation, the executive committee of the party was rather more subdued and scarcely gave any consideration to it at its regular meetings, as the absence of reference to this question in the executive minutes seems to suggest. But see Martin, R. M., TUC: The Growth of a Pressure Group, 1868–1976 (Oxford, 1980), p. 132.Google Scholar Martin argues for a leading role for the party in forcing a relation of “close dealing and hard bargaining” between the government and the unions. However, even if the assessment related exclusively to the Labour Party in parliament, the ASE, surely, possessed greater influence.

⁶⁸ Clarion, , 11 26, 1915.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁹ SSA, Quarterly Report, July-September 1915, p. 5.

⁷⁰ Clyde Munition Workers, Report of the Rt Hon. Lord Balfour of Burleigh and Mr Lynden Macassey, K.C., Cd. 8136, 1915.

⁷¹ The most comprehensive analysis of the report's investigation into the leaving certificate scheme is in Alastair Reid, “The Division of Labour in the British Shipbuilding Industry, 1880–1920”, Cambridge Ph.D., 1980, esp. pp. 342–9.

⁷² See note 6.

⁷³ Engineer, December 17, 1915.

⁷⁴ Notes 6 and 71, supra.

⁷⁵ See, especially, Wrigley, , op. cit., pp. 144–8.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ In the case of those trade union officials both on Clydeside and nationally who had previously given fulsome support to the introduction of the Act, but who were now reluctantly converted to the reformist demand for amendment, it is suggested that their intentions were, in part, to restore their reputation for robust leadership among their membership. For their earlier support for the measure of July 1915, and their condemnation of dissent (note 4, supra) had now been shown to be a serious and embarrassing misjudgment. Thus the trade unions' reform campaign from October 1915 constituted, on the part of these officials, as much a symbolic quest to uplift both their self-esteem and their authority, as it did an effort to secure instrumental gains. In effect, a concern for their own leadership position prompted the officials to identify yet a further justification (apart from the national interest) for their about-turn. Thus the belated pursuit of “equality, equity and reciprocity”, in the words of Alexander Wilkie of the Shipwrights', emerged as an integral feature of their campaign to lessen the iniquities of a statute which had recently received their imprimatur. For Wilkie, see SSA, Quarterly Report, October-December 1915, 80, quoting his speech in the Commons on January 4, 1916 [sic]. “Reciprocity” was identified by Lloyd George as a feature of trade union demands made at the conference of November 30. See Herald, Glasgow, 12 1, 1915.Google Scholar Perhaps one acute example of the shift in attitudes on the part of union officials is shown by the Fairfield Shipwrights' episode. There, the union's disapproval of the strikers had originally been “[…] generally shared by the official representatives of the other unions. But the movement started by the rank and file soon overcame the resistance of their leaders”. The latter no doubt reasoned that if they could not beat them, they might as well join them. See OHMM, Vol. IV, Part II, 54.

⁷⁷ For a defence of a corporatist perspective on the war economy, see Rubin, Gerry R., “Law, War and Economy: The Munitions Act 1915–17 and Corporatism in Context”, Journal of Law and Society, Vol. 11, 1984, pp. 317–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷⁸ Whether the concessions gained by the trade unions in the amendment statute of January 1916 were substantive may well be questioned, though they were no doubt hailed as a symbolic victory. For a consideration of the matter, see Rubin, Gerry R., “The Enforcement of the Munitions of War Acts 1915–1917, with special reference to Proceedings before the Munitions Tribunal in Glasgow, 1915–1921”, Warwick University Ph.D. (1984), pp. 113–17.Google Scholar