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² See, e.g. Holt, James, “Trade Unionism in the British and U.S. Steel Industries, 1880–1914”, Labor History, 18 (1977), pp. 5–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haydu, Jeffrey, “Employers, Unions and American Exceptionalism: Pre-World War I Open Shops in the Machine Trades in Comparative Perspective”, International Review of Social History, XXXIII (1988), pp. 25–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marks, , Unions in PoliticsGoogle Scholar; Taylor, Andrew J., Trade Unions and Politics. A Comparative Introduction (London, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and, more directly related to the theme of this essay, Cattaruzza, Marina, “‘Organisierter Konflikt’ und ‘Direkte Aktion’. Zwei Formen des Arbeiterkampfes am Beispiel der Werftarbeiterstreiks in Hamburg und Triest (1880–1914)”, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 20 (1980), pp. 325–355.Google Scholar

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⁴ See, e.g., Hobsbawm, E. J., “National Unions on the Waterfront”, in Labouring Men (London, 1964), pp. 204–230Google Scholar; Lovell, John, Stevedores and Dockers. A Study of Trade Unionism in the Port of London, 1870–1914 (London, 1969)Google Scholar; Bean, R., “Employers' Associations in the Port of Liverpool 1890–1914”, International Review of Social History, XXI (1976), pp. 358–382CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Daunton, M. J., “Inter-Union Relations on the Waterfront: Cardiff 1888–1914”, International Review of Social History, XXII (1977), pp. 350–378CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grüttner, Michael, Arbeitswelt an der Wasserkante, Sozialgeschichte der Hamburger Hafenarbeiter (Göttingen, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Phillips, Gordon and Whiteside, Noel, Casual Labour. The Unemployment Question in the Port Transport Industry 1880–1970 (Oxford, 1985)Google Scholar; and, most recently, Lovell, John, “Sail, Steam and Emergent Dockers' Unionism in Britain, 1850–1914”, International Review of Social History, XXXII (1987), pp. 230–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ See, e.g., Sewell, William H. Jr., Structure and Mobility. The Men and Women of Marseille, 1820–1870 (Cambridge, 1985), p. 50Google Scholar, and “Uneven Development, the Autonomy of Politics, and the Dockworkers of Nineteenth-Century Marseille”, American Historical Review, 93 (1988), pp. 604–637Google Scholar; Jones, Gareth Stedman, Outcast London (Oxford, 1971), ch. 19Google Scholar, and Lovell, , “Sail, Steam and Emergent Dockers' Unionism”, pp. 233–235.Google Scholar

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⁷ The exception is the extraordinary Federazione Italiana dei Lavoratori del Mare established between 1909 and 1911 under the leadership of Captain Giuseppe Giulietti who combined ultra-patriotism with a proto-fascist social ideology which successfully transcended the class differences aboard ship. See Webster, Richard E., L'imperialismo industriale italiano. Studio sul prefascismo 1908–1915 (Turin, 1974), pp. 336–337, and also later in this essay.Google Scholar

⁸ See Miller, R. C., “The dockworker subculture and some problems in cross-cultural and cross-time generalizations”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 11 (1969), pp. 302–314CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and also Nelson, Bruce, Workers on the Waterfront, Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unionism in the 1930s (Urbana-Chicago, 1988), ch. 1.Google Scholar

⁹ Winer, Issy, With Banner Unfurled: The Early Years of the Ship Painters and Dockers Union (Sydney, 1983).Google Scholar

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¹¹ For an interesting and quantitative discussion of this point see Sewell, , Structure and Mobility, pp. 109–120.Google Scholar

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¹³ Zeitlin, Jonathan, “‘Rank and Filism’ in British Labour History: A Critique”, International Review of Social History, XXXV (1989), pp. 42–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and discussion by Richard Price, James A. Cronin and, again, Zeitlin, in ibid., pp. 62–102.

¹⁴ Broeze, Frank, “The Muscles of Empire-Indian Seamen and the Raj 1919–1939”, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 18 (1981), p. 66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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¹⁶ See, for example, Ingleson, John, “Life and Work in Colonial Cities: Harbour Workers in Java in the 1910's and 1920's”, Modern Asian Studies, 17 (1983), pp. 455–476CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and McCoy, Alfred W., “The Iloilo General Strike: Defeat of the Proletariat in a Philippine Colonial City”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 15 (1984), pp. 330–364CrossRefGoogle Scholar (dealing with 1930–1931); any chance of Communists taking control over the dock workers of Shanghai, however, was destroyed by the powerful triad “Green Gang”! (Lethridge, H. J. (ed.), All About Shanghai (Hong Kong, 1983), pp. xii–xiii.)Google Scholar

¹⁷ Lowenstein, Wendy and Hills, Tom, Under the Hook, Melbourne Waterside Workers Remember 1900–1980 (Melbourne, 1982), p. 6.Google Scholar

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¹⁹ Saville, John, “Trade Unions and Free Labour”, in Flinn, M. W. and Smout, T. C. (eds), Essays in Social History (London, 1975), p. 264.Google Scholar While the P & O and British India clearly were the powers behind the scenes of the Shipping Federation, its long-standing leader was Orient Line's director, Sir Thomas Lane Devitt, whose main public function was to promote various sail-training schemes and, with that, popular ideological support for Britain's merchant marine.

²⁰ Heckscher, Siegfried, Die Lage der in der Schiffahrt Hamburgs beschäftigten Arbeiter (Berlin, 1903), p. 241.Google Scholar

²¹ In a review of Bernhard Huldermann's biography of Ballin (Berlin, 1922), copied in the diary of Johannes Merck, formerly financial director of the H. A. L. (Hamburg, Staatsarchiv, Familienarchiv Merck, II 8, 2b, p. 203).Google Scholar

²² To this list could even be added Tom Mann in his pre-Australian phase, when he in 1896 stood as an almost successful candidate for the I.L.P. in the North Aberdeen by-election.

²³ Liebermann, Sima, Labor Movements and Labor Thought. Spain, France, Germany and the United States (New York, 1986), pp. 126–134.Google Scholar

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²⁵ A good collection of essays on this stage of world shipping can be found in Yui, Tsunehiko and Nakagawa, Keiichiro (eds), Business History of Shipping, Strategy and Structure (Tokyo, 1985).Google Scholar

²⁶ To the many well-known testimonies may be added that of Captain William Marden, the London manager of the West Australian Shipping Association: letter to WASA, 30 August 1889, in Battye Library, Perth, WASA (2478A), file 55.

²⁷ Pudney, John, London's Docks (London, 1975), p. 124.Google Scholar

²⁸ Lovell, , Stevedores and Dockers, pp. 116–117.Google Scholar

²⁹ Brown, Ronald, Waterfront Organisation in Hull, 1870–1900 (Hull, 1972), p. 88.Google Scholar

³⁰ Mogridge, Basil, “Labour Relations and Labour Costs”, in Sturmey, S. G. (ed.), British Shipping and International Competition (London, 1962), p. 284.Google Scholar

³¹ Lovell, , British Trade Unions, pp. 35–36.Google Scholar

³² Taplin, Eric, The Dockers' Union. A Study of the National Union of Dock Labourers 1889–1922 (Leicester, 1985), p. 133.Google Scholar

³³ Significantly, it was the failure of arbitration in an industrial dispute at Port Pirie, in 1908, which converted Tom Mann to revolutionary syndicalism and the adoption of the strategy of the big industrial union.

³⁴ Hund, Wulf D., “Der 1. Mai 1890”, in Berlin, J. (ed.), Das andere Hamburg (Cologne, 1982), p. 129.Google Scholar

³⁵ Evans, Richard, “Wahlrechtsraub, Massenstreik und Schopenstehlkrawall: der Kampf gegen die Wahlrechtsverschlechterung 1905–1906”Google Scholar, in Berlin, , Das andere Hamburg, pp. 162–180.Google Scholar

³⁶ Kludas, Arnold et al. , Hafen Hamburg (Hamburg, 1988).Google Scholar

³⁷ Saul, Klaus, “‘Verteidigung der bürgerlichen Ordnung’ oder Ausgleich der Interessen? Arbeitgeberpolitik in Hamburg-Altona 1896 bis 1914”, in Herzig, Arno et al. , (eds), Arbeiter in Hamburg (Hamburg, 1983), p. 285.Google Scholar There is a great paradox here, indicative of the ambiguous position of union leadership, in the fact that in other circumstances (e.g. in Liverpool in 1912) the issuing of tickets was supported by some union leaders on tactical grounds as it could lead to a more or less closed-shop situation, while others regarded registration as the only effective long-term method to achieve decasualisation.

³⁸ Böge, V., “‘Werkzeug des Umsturzes’ oder Instrument reformorientierter Arbeiterpolitik? Die Gründung der ‘Volksfürsorge’ in Hamburg 1912–1914”Google Scholar, in Herzig, , Arbeiter in Hamburg, p. 395.Google Scholar

³⁹ Schildt, Axel, “Hanseatische Vernunft kontra Extremismus? Zum antifaschistischen Kampf der hamburger Sozialdemokratie 1929–1933”Google Scholar, in Berlin, , Das andere Hamburg, p. 271.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Guin, , Mouvement ouvrier nantais, p. 263.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ibid., p. 267.

⁴² Laubier, Patrick de, La grève générale en 1905. Le mythe français et la réalité russe (Paris, 1979), p. 33.Google Scholar

⁴³ Moss, Bernard H., The Origins of the French Labor Movement 1830–1914 (Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1976), p. 142.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Guin, , Mouvement ouvrier nantais, pp. 345–356.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Moss, , Origins of the French Labor Movement, p. 359Google Scholar, quoting Le Populaire of 9 08 1908.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Guin, , Mouvement ouvrier nantais, p. 356.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Herlihy, Patricia, Odessa. A History 1794–1914 (Cambridge, MA, 1986), p. 93Google Scholar, and also Von Laue, Theodor H., Sergei Witte and the Industrialization of Russia (New York-London, 1963), p. 256.Google Scholar In 1901 Odessa had been the scene of a smaller dock strike.

⁴⁸ Gray, John, City in Revolt, James Larkin & the Belfast Dock Strike of 1907 (Belfast, 1985).Google Scholar

⁴⁹ An interesting and contemporary parallel to the communal solidarity of Belfast's maritime workers is provided by the continued inter-ethnic cohesiveness of black and white longshoremen in the Dock and Cotton Council of New Orleans, especially in their bitter (but successful) strike of 1907 (Rosenberg, Daniel, New Orleans Dockworkers: Race, Labor, and Unionism, 1892–1933 (Albany, NY, 1988), p. 181.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Cattaruzza, , “‘Organisierter Konflikt’ und ‘Direkte Aktion’”, p. 346.Google Scholar

⁵¹ It may be stressed here that attempts to find additional strength in imperial links with sister organisations in Australia and New Zealand, after the collapse of the maritime strikes in those countries, had all come to nought.

⁵² Golding, K. A., 75 Jahre ITF. Zur Geschichte der Gewerkschafts-internationale, die seit 1896 Geschichte macht (Vienna, 1971), pp. 7–9Google Scholar; see also Mann, Tom, Memoirs (London, 1923), pp. 106–117.Google Scholar

⁵³ Pelling, Henry, A History of British Trade Unionism (4th ed., London, 1987), pp. 134–135 and 140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁵⁶ Lovell, , British Trade Unions, pp. 45–49.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Cattaruzza, , “‘Organisierter Konflikt’ und ‘Direkte Aktion’”, pp. 344–345.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Schwarzwälder, Herbert, Geschichte der freien Hansestadt Bremen, vol. 2 (1810–1918) (Bremen, 1976), p. 553.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Roth, , Trade Unions in New Zealand, p. 36.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Reeves, W. Pember, State Experiments in Australia and New Zealand (2 vols, London, 1902).Google Scholar

⁶¹ Quoted in Roth, , Trade Unions in New Zealand, p. 38.Google Scholar

⁶² Goodstein, , Theory of the General Strike, p. 96Google Scholar; Clark, Martin, Modern Italy 1871–1982 (London, 1984), pp. 141 and 220.Google Scholar

⁶³ Webster, , L'imperialismo industriale italiano, pp. 336–337.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Lyttelton, Adrian, The Seizure of Power, Fascism in Italy 1919–1929 (London, 1973), pp. 68, 82 and 95.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Webster, , L'imperialismo industriale italiano, pp. 342–347.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ This is, of course, not to deny that previously no maritime strikes or protest had taken place; see, e.g., Ville, Simon, English Shipowning during the Industrial Revolution (Manchester, 1987), pp. 104–105Google Scholar and the references mentioned here.

⁶⁷ Nelson, , Workers on the Waterfront, p. 273.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Quoted in Taplin, Eric, The Dockers' Union. A Study of the National Union of Dock Labourers 1889–1922 (Leicester, 1985), p. v.Google Scholar Cf. also Phillips, and Whiteside, , Casual Labour, pp. 271–272.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Kelly, , Idle Hands, Clenched Fists, p. 65Google Scholar; significantly, no attention is paid to such issues in Nicolson's, Harold semi-official biography King George V. His Life and Reign (London, 1952).Google Scholar

⁷⁰ In 1907, moreover, an International Shipping Federation was founded to counteract the influence of the International Transport Workers Federation and “to combat the growing forces of socialism and aggressive trade unionism” (Marsh, Arthur and Ryan, Victoria, The Seamen. A History of the National Union of Seamen (London, 1989), p. 53).Google Scholar

⁷¹ For a final example, relating to the Greek Panhellenic Seamen's Federation PNO in the early 1920s, see Kitroeff, , “The Greek Seamen's Movement”, p. 79.Google Scholar The “reformist leadership” of the PNO was unable to prevent its membership from joining the strike called by a small left-wing union which was ended by the intervention, at the cost of two strikers' lives, of government troops.

⁷² Cf. Lovell, , “Sail, Steam and Emergent Dockers' Unionism”, pp. 248–249.Google Scholar

⁷³ Marsh, and Ryan, , The Seamen, pp. 59–60.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ It may be stressed that Wilson's strong leadership of the National Sailors' and Firemen's Union after the Great War, expectedly, resulted in the rise of a breakaway union, the Amalgamated Maritime Worker Union which, after a bitter struggle with both the shipowners (two major strikes in 1923 and 1925) and the N.U.S., was finally wiped out in 1927. See Mogridge, , “Inter-Union Rivalries in British Shipping”, pp. 397–406.Google Scholar The A.M.W.U. had in Australia and South Africa been supported by the then radical maritime unions and also took part in the General Strike of 1926.

⁷⁵ International Labour Office, “Seven Maritime Sessions of the International Labour Conference”, International Labour Review, 78 (1958), pp. 429–460.Google Scholar It may well be stressed here, again, that Wilson's National Union of Seamen was the only major union not to join Britain's General Strike in 1926!

⁷⁶ Cf. Nelson, , Workers on the WaterfrontGoogle Scholar, and Kimeldorf, Howard, Reds or Rackets: The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront (Berkeley, 1989).Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Miller, , “Dockworker Subculture”, p. 309.Google Scholar See also Nelson, , Workers on the WaterfrontGoogle Scholar, and Willett, Donald, “The 1939 Tanker Strike”, International Journal of Maritime History, 2 (1990), 1, pp. 155–173CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a conflict which led to a resounding defeat for such radical forces within American maritime unionism. The pragmatic leader of the National Maritime Union, Joe Curran, “was in advance of the rest of the American labour movement in purging communists from its ranks” (ibid., p. 173).

⁷⁸ Lowenstein, and Hills, , Under the Hook, p. 6.Google Scholar Another aspect of the same tradition is that, in Western Australia, the annual May Day parade is not held in Perth, the seat of the Trades and Labour Council but in its port-city, Fremantle.

⁷⁹ Due to several factors which it would carry too far to discuss here; amongst the most important of these must be regarded the historical lateness of maritime unionisation, the largely unskilled nature of maritime workers, and the relative physical isolation of maritime precincts and regions.