1. An inter-party study group organized in 1935, the Next Five Years endorsed a mixed or managed economy. Its importance in gaining Conservative acceptance of Labour's post-war reforms has been noted by Marwick, Arthur, “Middle Opinion in the Thirties: Planning, Progress and Political ‘Agreement,’” English Historical Review, LXXIX, No. 311 (Aprıl, 1964)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. But Marwick does not discuss the economic ideas of the group nor its membership, which included few adherents of Labour. Significantly, these were equally divided between trade unionists and non-trade unionists. Macmillan, Harold, Winds of Change (London, 1966), Appendix 6Google Scholar.

About the Council of Action, organized in the same year by Lloyd George after he had been denied a post in the government, even less is known. It promised “a new deal for all classes of the community” based on proposals put forward by the Liberal Industrial Inquiry of the 1920s. Though forty or so Labour M.P.s were pledged to support its program, no representative of Labour sat on its National Council.

2. Maxton, James, “What now, Mr. Citrine?”, New Leader, XXIV, No. 100 (Dec. 1, 1933), 1Google Scholar.

3. “Does the T.U.C. Withdraw?”, ibid., No. 101 (Dec. 8, 1933), 4.

4. See, for example, Ch. 8 of Pelling, Henry, America and the British Left (New York, 1957)Google Scholar. entitled “The British Left and the New Deal,” and Pear, Richard, “The Impact of the New Deal on British Economic and Political Ideas,” Bulletin of the British Association for American Studies (hereafter, BBAAS), NS, No. 4 (Aug. 1962)Google Scholar.

Two questions are involved: whether the unions were socialist and whether they constituted a separate, monolithic bloc inside the Labour Party. With respect to the second of these questions, Brown, Kenneth D., “The Labour Party and the Unemployment Question, 1906-1910,” Historical Journal, XIV, No. 3 (Sept. 1971)Google Scholar has suggested that a clear-cut distinction between unionists and non-unionists cannot be made even before World War I.

5. The Labour Party, unionists and non-unionists alike, was still committed to constitutional procedures, and to the common ownership or control of only the most vital services and industries. Miliband, Ralph, Parliamentary Socialism (London, 1961), Ch. 7Google Scholar. The ILP, though calling for mass industrial action and describing itself as a party of “militant marxist socialists,” never evolved a clear, much less revolutionary policy. Dowse, R. E., Left in the Centre (London, 1966), pp. 186ffGoogle Scholar. On the whole, the differences between the ILP and the Labour Party were more pronounced before the ILP broke away in 1932 than in the years immediately following the break.

6. That is, whether socialism would take the form of public corporations staffed, like the BBC, by expert administrators operating autonomously though subject to ministerial control, whether unions would be represented on the boards of these corporations, or whether public industries would form a department of state. Questions such as these were certainly controversial: for details, see Dahl, R. A., “Workers' Control of Industry and the British Labour Party,” American Political Science Review, XLI, No. 5 (Oct., 1947)Google Scholar and Barry, E. Eldon, Nationalisation in British Politics (Stanford, 1965)Google Scholar. But as pointed out — (see below, p. 162) — they did not pit unions against the rest of the party.

7. See the Appendix, “A Note on the Collapse of Capitalism.”

8. As noted — (see below, p. 162) — their spokesmen were not even sure that capitalism had collapsed.

9. See the personal recollection of Hobsbawm, E. J. in Revolutionaries (New York, 1973), p. 257Google Scholar, and Miliband, Ralph, “Socialism and the Myth of the Golden Past” in Miliband, Ralph and Saville, John (eds.), The Socialist Register (London, 1964), p. 99Google Scholar.

10. Actually, some of them were “exceedingly weak on doctrine.” Miliband, Ralph, Parliamentary Socialism, p. 206Google Scholar.

11. Their criticism of the government for not undertaking such reforms was unanimous and unsparing. See, for example, Labour Party, Annual Report (1934), pp. 219–23Google Scholar.

12. H. N. Brailsford seems to have recognized this problem in Property and Peace (London, 1934), pp. 256–57Google Scholar. Also Cole, G. D. H., but not until later, The Meaning of Marxism (London, 1948). p. 120Google Scholar.

13. Contemporary accounts recognized the unanimity of this movement: Brebner, J. Bartlet, “British Labor Becomes Unruly,” Current History, XXXVII (Dec., 1932)Google Scholar, H. B. Lees-Smith, “British Labor's New Program,” ibid., XXXVIII (April, 1933), and George C. Catlin, “British Labor Moves Left,” ibid., XXXVII (Feb., 1933), to cite just three examples. Or, lest Current History be thought to have had a monopoly of this interpretation, see Martin, Kingsley, “A Programme of Action?”, New Statesman and Nation, NS, VII, No. 179 (July 28, 1934), 112Google Scholar.

14. Ramsay MacDonald may have been accused of plotting to betray the Labour Party, but the accusation(s) was neither so unfounded nor so comforting to Labour as Reginald Bassett suggests in 1931: Political Crisis (London, 1958)Google Scholar.

15. “There is no easy way to the millenium” was how Joseph Compton put it as chairman. Labour Party, Annual Report (1932), p. 158Google Scholar. C. R. Attlee was almost as succinct: “For years,” he said, “this Party has been fighting as a minority trying to get various changes in the interests of the workers. I think the events of the last year have shown that no further progress can be made in seeking to get crumbs from the rich man's table. I think in the present condition of the world we are bound in duty to those whom we represent to tell them quite clearly that they cannot get Socialism without tears….” Ibid., p. 205. It was their views, not just the views of the Left, that found their way into For Socialism and Peace, a programmatic statement issued by the National Executive in 1934.

16. Angell, Norman and Wright, Harold, Can Governments Cure Unemployment? (London, 1931), p. 141Google Scholar. The book was written shortly before the crisis.

17. See Oldfield, Adrian, “The Labour Party and Planning — 1934 or 1918?”, Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, No. 25 (Autumn, 1972)Google Scholar. But see Weiner, Herbert, British Labor and Public Ownership (Washington, D.C., 1960)Google Scholar, and E. Eldon Barry, Nationalisation in British Politics.

18. Technically, their acceptance of planning pre-dates the crisis. See the “Precis” of evidence submitted by the General Council to the Macmillan Committee in the TUC Annual Report (1931), pp. 265ffGoogle Scholar.

19. Samuels, Stuart, “The Left Book Club,” Journal of Contemporary History, II (1966), 81Google Scholar has attributed Strachey's disenchantment with communism to the Nazi-Soviet Pact. But Thomas, Hugh, John Strachey (London, 1973), pp. 183–84Google Scholar has shown that A Programme for Progress (1940), the controversial book in which Strachey set forth an interim plan of reform, was completed before the Pact was signed. The question, then, is whether it was Keynes who most influenced Strachey — a position taken by Crossman, Richard, The Charm of Politics (London, 1958), p. 142Google Scholar — or whether it was the New Deal, as Pelling, Henry, America and the British Left, p. 146Google Scholar believes. Looking back, Strachey accorded them equal importance. See his letter to Gaitskell quoted in Thomas, Hugh, John Strachey, p. 273Google Scholar. There seems, in this instance, to be no way of distinguishing between them.

20. This, in spite of inadequate spending levels and revenue schedules calculated at full employment yields. Lekachman, Robert, The Age of Keynes (New York, 1966), pp. 115ffGoogle Scholar.

21. Deficit spending was recommended in none of the policy statements issued by the party in the thirties. It was advocated in one resolution adopted in 1933, but this appears to have been an isolated case not entirely attributable to the New Deal. See n. 120 below.

22. Mowat, Charles Loch, Britain Between the Wars (Boston, 1971), p. 456Google Scholar.

23. Mackay, Donald I., Forsyth, David J. C., and Kelly, David M., “The Discussion of Public Works Programmes, 1917-1935: Some Remarks on the Labour Movement's Contribution,” International Review of Social History, XI, Pt. I (1966), 16Google Scholar.

Ross McKibbin has suggested that deficit spending, since it proved inadequate in the United States, Australia, and Sweden, would not have helped even if it had been tried in Great Britain. “The Economic Policy of the Second Labour Government, 1929-1931,” Past and Present, No. 68 (Aug., 1975)Google Scholar. But all he has demonstrated is that policies inadequately applied are inadequate, not that the same policies, adequately applied, are futile. Moreover, even if they were sure to have failed, Labour's reluctance to try deficit spending requires explanation in the absence of alternative proposals.

24. See Pear, Richard, “The Impact of the New Deal on British Economic and Political Ideas,” BBAAS, No. 4, 23Google Scholar, where it is suggested that British socialists in the 1930s were “overwhelmingly” not interested in America. Apart from literary figures with which this discussion does not deal and the Webbs, who were absorbed in Soviet affairs, only such leaders of the Labour Party as Attlee and Morrison and Greenwood can be said to have been truly uninterested.

25. The Tennessee Valley Authority was a notable exception, but the Left seems not to have taken much notice. Cole, G. D. H. dismissed it in one sentence in Practical Economics (London, 1937), p. 194Google Scholar. Though admitting that the TVA and the CCC were “constructive public experiments which might well form part of a national plan,” he referred to them as “drops in the ocean of public expenditure.” Economic Planning (London, 1935), p. 158Google Scholar. The unions were some-what more appreciative. See below, p. 163. But even they saw the TVA as an isolated example.

26. They anticipate New Left historians in minimizing Roosevelt's achievements on behalf of “the little guy” and in focusing on the capitalist nature of such reforms as he achieved. Where they differ is in their assessment of the possibility for further reform — unlike the New Left, the old Left does not seem to have thought the possibility very great — and in their willingness to pronounce judgment before the New Deal took shape. Whereas the historians look back and consider the record of the New Deal, the Left looked ahead and judged the nature of the experiment.

27. “The American Presidential Election,” New Leader, NS, XIII, No. 43 (Nov. 4, 1932), 6Google Scholar.

28. “Socialism and the American Workers,” ibid., No. 45 (Nov. 18, 1932), 10. In contrast, Hamilton, Mary Agnes, In America Today (London, 1932), pp. 70–71Google Scholar, thought Roosevelt “liberal in the best sense in his general outlook” even though she found no issue of principle dividing the two major parties.

29. No praise was allowed. If Roosevelt did something of which the ILP approved such as trying to negotiate a trade agreement with the Soviet Union, the New Leader reported it indirectly by criticizing Roosevelt's critics — particularly A. A. Baumann of the Evening Standard.

30. “Child Labour,” New Leader, NS, XXV, No. 9 (March 16, 1934), 1Google Scholar, and “Trouble in America,” ibid., XXVI, No. 33 (Aug. 31, 1934), 3.

31. “Roosevelt and the Unions,” ibid., XXIII, No. 87 (Sept. 1, 1933), 4.

32. “US Strikers Stand Firm,” ibid., XXVI, No. 20 (June 1, 1934), 5; “Will They Strike?”, ibid., No. 21 (June 15, 1934), 3.

33. “Workers Revolt Against Starvation Relief and Wages,” ibid., XXVI, No. 26 (July 13, 1934), 1.

34. “Trouble in America,” ibid., XXVI, No. 33 (Aug. 31, 1934), 3.

35. “American Strike Takes Serious Turn,” ibid., XXVI, No. 36 (Sept. 21, 1934), 1.

36. Bernstein, Irving, Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941 (Boston, 1971), Chs. 2-4Google Scholar.

37. New Leader, NS, XXV, No. 14 (April 20, 1934), 2Google Scholar. The article was written by Jennie Lee, just returned from the United States.

38. “What is Happening in America,” ibid., XXIV, No. 104 (Dec. 29, 1933), 3.

39. American life was generally thought to be violent. See Cole, Margaret (ed.), Beatrice Webb's Diaries, 1924-1932 (London, 1956), esp. pp. 245 and 306Google Scholar; also Martin, Kingsley, Father Figures (London, 1969)Google Scholar. Martin, it might be said, wrote little about the New Deal. But under his editorship, the New Statesman and Nation carried signed articles every other week or so during Roosevelt's first administration. Herbert Agar, Ernest Davies, Frank Darvall, and Oswald Garrison Villard contributed frequently; Brailsford and Cole were regulars.

40. Brockway, A. Fenner, Will Roosevelt Succeed? (London, 1934), p. 134Google Scholar.

41. Ibid., p. 94.

This comparison had been made by others: Week, William G., “Fascist Economic Policy and the N.R.A.,” Foreign Affairs, XII, No. 1 (Oct., 1933)Google Scholar and Giuseppe Bottai, “Corporate State and N.R.A.,” ibid., XIII, No. 4 (July, 1935). In the United States, it was made by the Right as well as by the Left.

42. Brockway, , Will Roosevelt Succeed?, p. 129Google Scholar.

43. Ibid., p. 243.

44. Ibid., p. 245.

45. Ibid., p. 248.

46. Ibid., p. 33.

47. The Times (July 14, 1933) as quoted in Winch, Donald, Economics and Policy: A Historical Study (London, 1969), p. 210Google Scholar.

48. Burns, Eveline M., British Unemployment Programs, 1920-1938 (Washington, D.C., 1941), p. 132Google Scholar.

49. “For those of us who believe that human will and intelligence can be used to shape society, Washington is the one spot on the earth's surface that rivals Moscow in intetest. Not one but half a dozen major experiments in politics and economics are being tried out. The courage and the resource of the President make it, even for sceptics, a fascinating and sympathetic spectacle.” “The New Deal,” New Statesman and Nation, NS, VII, No. 153 (Jan. 27, 1934), 109Google Scholar.

50. “The Roosevelt Experiment,” Atlantic Monthly, CLIII, No. 2 (Feb., 1934), 143Google Scholar. This article had been published in 1933 by the Socialist League as a pamphlet bearing the same title.

51. In “America is Waking Up,” The Daily Herald (May 25, 1936), p. 10Google Scholar, Laski again observed that “America remains, after Russia, the most exhilarating country in the world.”

52. Nuffield College Library (hereafter, NCL), Cripps MSS/558. Copy of a letter to George Lansbury and Clement Attlee sent from Washington, D.C. on April 17, 1935, p. 5.

I am grateful to Dame Isobel Cripps for permission to quote from the Cripps papers. I am also grateful to the librarians of Nuffield College for their assistance in consulting these papers.

53. Ibid.

54. “Alternatives Before British Labor,” Foreign Affairs, XIII, No. 1 (Oct., 1934), 127Google Scholar.

55. NCL, Cripps, MSS/558. Draft of an article apparently submitted to Current History in May, 1935 but never published, p. 2.

56. Ibid., p. 8.

57. Property or Peace? (London, 1934), p. 258Google Scholar.

58. See, for example, Democracy hi Crisis (London, 1933)Google Scholar and The State in Theory and Practice (London, 1935)Google Scholar.

59. So far as Britain was concerned, Laski often spoke as though the collapse had already come in 1929. The State in Theory and Practice, pp. 150ff.

60. “What is Vital in Democracy?”, Survey Graphic, XXIV, No. 4 (April, 1935), 205Google Scholar.

61. “Roosevelt is There to Stay,” Daily Herald (May 7, 1936), p. 12Google Scholar.

62. Review of An American Experiment by Hugh-Jones, E. M. and Radice, E. A. in The Political Quarterly, VII, No. 2 (April-June, 1936), 464Google Scholar.

63. Deane, Herbert, The Political Ideas of Harold J. Laski (New York, 1958)Google Scholar. For a more sympathetic interpretation, see Peretz, Martin, “Laski Redivivus,” Journal of Contemporary History, I, No. 1 (1966)Google Scholar, and Strachey, John, “Laski's Struggle for Certainty,” New Statesman and Nation. NS. XXXIX, No. 996 (April 8, 1950)Google Scholar as well as Martin, Kingsley, Harold Laski (New York, 1953)Google Scholar.

64. “The Roosevelt Experiment,” Atlantic Monthly, CLIII, 151ffGoogle Scholar.

65. See The New Deal (New York, 1967)Google Scholar and “The New Deal: The Conservative Achievements of Liberal Reform” in Bernstein, Barton J. (ed.), Towards a New Past (New York, 1967) respectivelyGoogle Scholar.

66. For the views of the former, see Out of Our Past (New York, 1959)Google Scholar. For those of the latter, see The Coming of the New Deal (New York, 1958)Google Scholar and The Politics of Upheaval (New York, 1960)Google Scholar.

67. “The Roosevelt Experiment,” Atlantic Monthly, CLIII, 143Google Scholar.

68. Ibid., 150. Also see “What is Vital in Democracy?”, Survey Graphic, XXIV, 179Google Scholar: “History offers us no support for the belief that a ruling class, when threatened, responds by a magnanimous renunciation of its power….”

69. “Communism Faces the Wrath to Come,” New Republic, LXXXIV, No. 1091 (Oct. 30, 1935), 339Google Scholar. This was a review of Earl Browder's Communism in the United States.

70. Ibid.

71. The closest he came was in passages such as this: “But his [Marx's] title to eminence does not rest upon the Russian fulfillment alone. The crisis through which capitalist democracy is passing at the present time accords with the forecast he made. The power to produce without a parallel ability to distribute, the growth of unemployment, the increasing severity of economic crises … all these he marvelously foresaw.” See “Marxism after Fifty Years,” Current History (May. 1935), p. 10Google Scholar.

72. NCL, Cripps MSS/558. Draft of an article submitted to Current History, May, 1935, p. 10Google Scholar.

73. NCL, Cripps MSS/553. Cripps to Campbell, Dec. 14, 1934, p. 1.

74. Will Roosevelt Succeed?, esp. Chs. 1 and 11.

75. Strachey and Laski may be exceptions, but generally see R. E. Dowse, Left in the Centre, Ch. 8.

Most studies of the Left attest to the influence of Hobson rather than Marx, though the problem of assessing their relative influence is difficult since Marx's theory of capitalist collapse and Hobson's theory of recurrent capitalist crises have much in common. What is needed, actually, is a full historical study of Hobson: too often the extent to which his ideas overlapped or seemed to substantiate those of Marx is neglected in favor of the more readily apparent anticipations of Keynes.

76. This thesis appeared in over fifty books, not to mention the hundred or so articles written by Hobson between 1894 and 1936. The Industrial System (1909), The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (1894; 1st rev. ed., 1926)Google Scholar, The Economics of Unemployment (1922; rev. ed., 1931), and From Capitalism to Socialism (1932) are just a few of his best-known works.

77. As preferable to relief, that is, but only if they were accompanied by measures, to increase the proportion of purchasing power in the hands of workers. The “profits or rents they yielded were [to be] kept in public hands” and they were to be financed out of taxes, not loans. The Economics of Unemployment (London; rev. ed., 1931), pp. 78–81Google Scholar. Also see Property and Improperly (London, 1937), pp. 181–85Google Scholar.

78. And not without reason, for Hobson's recommendations were accepted by at least one of Roosevelt's close advisers: Tugwell, R. G., The Brains Trust (New York, 1968), p. 43Google Scholar.

79. According to Hobson, “… prosperity in American industry, though attended by higher money wages among a larger number of employees, increases the proportion of the national income that goes into profits and thence into savings and investments.” “Roosevelt's Triumph,” Contemporary Review, CL, No. 852 (Dec., 1936), 653Google Scholar. His assessment of New Deal tax measures has been largely substantiated by Brown, E. Cary, “Fiscal Policy in the ‘Thirties: A Reappraisal,” American Economic Review, XLVI, No. 5 (Dec., 1956)Google Scholar and by Conkin, Paul, The New Deal, pp. 64ff.Google Scholar, at least for the years preceding 1936.

80. From Capitalism to Socialism, esp. Ch. 13.

81. Though Hobson appears to have advocated deficit spending in “Saving and Spending,” New Statesman and Nation, NS, V, No. 90 (Nov. 12, 1932)Google Scholar, his objections to this policy may otherwise be traced from the first edition of Imperialism in 1902 through the 1931 edition of Economics of Unemployment. His review of Cole, G. D. H. (ed.), What Everybody Wants to Know about Money in the New Statesman and Nation, NS, VI, No. 138 (Oct. 14, 1933)Google Scholar assumed the need for balanced budgets; as indicated in n. 77, he wanted public works to be financed out of taxes not loans.

82. Winch, Donald, Economics and Policy, p. 188Google Scholar.

83. At least in his early works. In the thirties, he vacillated on this issue, not seeming to appreciate the distinction. Both the Economics of Unemployment and From Capitalism to Socialism bear the traces of considerable confusion.

84. Thıs is clear even in “The Living Wage” proposals of the ILP, which Hobson helped to formulate in 1926.

85. Brailsford's views appeared in Property or Peace? (London, 1934), p. 121Google Scholar; Cole, in Economic Planning (London, 1935)Google Scholar, Chs. 4-6 and in “State Capitalism and Capitalist Planning,” New Statesman and Nation, NS, VI, No. 134 (Sept. 16, 1933), 317Google Scholar. Cole, Dame Margaret, The Life of G. D. H. Cole (London, 1971)Google Scholar and Carpenter, L. P., G. D. H. Cole: An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge, 1973)Google Scholar are more helpful on other aspects of Cole's thought.

86. “New Deal and Old Masters,” New Statesman and Nation, NS, VII, No. 165 (April 21, 1934), 589Google Scholar.

Between 1932 and 1937, Brailsford published six articles on America in the New Statesman and Nation. They show him to have been more cautious, perhaps, than his friends in judging the New Deal. But they do not support the contention that “Although he was not sure that it would succeed, he readily allowed the possibility.” Pelling, Henry, America and the British Left, p. 138Google Scholar. Brailsford's open-mindedness, like Laski's, was often rhetorical. Thus in the same article in which he wrote: “The courage and resource of the President make it, even for sceptics, a fascinating and sympathetic spectacle. But it is much more than this: it will bring us the answer of history to the question of whether a planned and ordered economy can be built on the foundation of private enterprise and ownership,” Brailsford went on to say that “The promise of midsummer was a false dawn” and to question whether “old incentives would work if income were redistributed in an adequate way.” “The New Deal,” New Statesman and Nation, NS, VII (Sept. 8, 1934), 109–10Google Scholar. Brailsford's caution, especially in 1934, reflected doubt about the scope of the New Deal, not the necessary solution.

87. Hobson conceded that public expenditure “must have helped not only to tide over the unprecedented distress but, by maintaining the level of popular consumption, to stop the collapse of industry from going to its lowest depths.” But he denied that it promoted recovery. “Roosevelt's Triumph,” Contemporary Review, CL, 653Google Scholar.

88. Compare Hobson, ibid., and Brailsford, Property or Peace?, pp. 119-22.

89. At times, he seemed to suggest that Roosevelt was thwarted in his efforts — “The Eclipse of the New Deal,” New Statesman and Nation, NS, X (Sept. 11, 1937)Google Scholar; at others, he seemed to suggest that Roosevelt never tried to do more than curb the “unethical excesses” of capitalism — “The Astonishing Election”, ibid., IX (Nov. 7, 1936). As late as 1934, however, he credited Roosevelt with “trying to transform the laissez-faire capitalism of his Continent into a permanent system of planning and control.” “The New Deal and Old Masters”, ibid., VII (April 21, 1934).

90. For Richard Pear's remark about Cole, see his essay on “The Impact of the New Deal on British Economic and Political Ideas,” BBAAS, No. 4, 21.

91. “Stalemate and Recovery,” New Statesman and Nation, NS, VI, No. 128 (Aug. 5, 1933), 152Google Scholar.

92. “Capitalism on Trial,” ibid., No. 131 (Aug. 26, 1933), 229. This article was the first in a series of four entitled “The Present Confusion.”

93. “America's What Next?”, ibid., VIII, No. 222 (May 25, 1935), 740.

94. Economic Planning, p. 142.

95. Since Cole was convinced of the “inherent instability of the capitalist system” and “the inescapable capitalist tendency to generate a renewed depression” — “The Limits of Monetary Reform,” New Statesman and Nation, NS, VI (Sept. 2, 1933), 258Google Scholar — the only question was whether Roosevelt would or would not alter the scope of the New Deal.

96. Economic Planning, p. 135.

97. Ibid., p. 161.

98. Ibid. Cole did make use of this concept, however, in “Mr. Lloyd George — Pro and Con,” New Statesman and Nation, NS, VIII, No. 230 (July 20, 1935), 84Google Scholar, and even in “What is Roosevelt Driving At?”, ibid., VI, No. 140 (Oct. 28, 1933), 504-05.

99. He was familiar, for example, with proposals to distinguish between current and capital accounts and to budget for not one but a period of years. The Next Ten Years in British Social and Economic Policy (London, 1929), p. 77Google Scholar. He also spoke in terms of under-production as opposed to under-consumption. “The Economy Stunt,” New Statesman and Nation, NS, V, No. 70 (June 25, 1932), 817Google Scholar, “Our Unused Wealth,” ibid., VI, No. III (April 15, 1933), and The Crisis (London, 1931)Google Scholar, reprinted in Economic Tracts for the Times, which he co-authored with Ernest Bevin. And though he rejected deficit spending in Economic Planning (1935) and “America's What Next?” (May 25, 1935) and was hesitant about it in Gold, Credit and Employment (London, 1930)Google Scholar, he did accept it in The Crisis. Following the Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission (1909), Cole had, throughout the twenties, been prepared to raise short term loans for public works during a depression when interest rates were low. “The One Thing Needful,” New Statesman and Nation, XXII, No. 554 (Nov. 24, 1923), 202Google Scholar. In “What is Roosevelt Driving At?”, ibid., VI, and “Mr. Lloyd George — Pro and Con,” ibid., VIII, moreover, he seems to have accepted the theory behind pump-priming, not just relief. In other words, Cole had the basis for arguing that capitalism might be rebuilt, had he wanted to use it.

100. Most notably, Hugh Dalton, who thought Roosevelt's “a very galant effort” but concluded that “freedom from the plague of recurrent booms and slumps can be found only in a Planned Economy.” Unbalanced Budgets (London, 1934), pp. 10, 458Google Scholar.

101. Thus Cole refused to cooperate with either the Next Five Years Group or the Council of Action: “I do not believe,” he said, “that this sort of policy can really be made to work. I do not believe that you can at the same time rebuild Capitalism and re-distribute wealth.” “Chants of Progress,” Political Quarterly, VI, No. 4 (Oct.-Dec., 1935), 534Google Scholar.

102. Presumably, capitalism would be transformed in the process of being controlled; how long it could continue as capitalism or where the dividing line between capitalism and socialism lay, remained vague. Cole merely noted that the next Labour Government “will have its hands full with immediate and pressing problems; and, while it will need to have always in mind the relation of its current measures to the wider task of a complete, though gradual change from a capitalist to a Socialist economy, it will be under the necessity of showing speedy practical results, if it is to have any chance of retaining power in its hands.” The Next Ten Years, p. 415. Brailsford also thought a Labour Government would have to show practical results. See “The Road to Power”, New Clarion (Sept. 3, 1932)Google Scholar as quoted in Barry, E. Eldon, Nationalisation in British Politics, p. 315Google Scholar. Evidently, measures deemed futile when implemented by capitalists seemed efficacious for socialists.

103. There is a discrepancy between Cole's position in How to Conquer Unemployment: Labour's Reply to Lloyd George (London, 1929)Google Scholar and his position in The Next Ten Years. In the former, he denounced reckless borrowing and warned that public works could not bring about “the reconstruction of industry on a sound and permanent basis.” In the latter, he urged their importance in bringing about the restoration of industry, noting that the Liberal proposals, though “far too timid and hesitant,” did indicate the right line of advance.

104. The Next Ten Years, pp. 394-95.

105. Ibid., p. 7.

106. “The Labour Party's Future,” New Statesman and Nation, NS, VIII, No. 248 (Nov. 23, 1935), 761Google Scholar.

In an earlier article, “The Battle of Hastings,” ibid., VI, No. 136 (Sept. 30, 1933), 377, Cole had warned that “under Capitalism, the more Mr. Roosevelt now succeeds in getting men back to work by monetary reflation and by a control which does not really put the key positions into the hands of the State to-day, the more widespread and disastrous the succeeding crash is certain to be.” Reiterating the words “under Capitalism,” he went on to say that “the contention is not that any reflationist experiment is bound to fail, but that it can succeed in the long run only by passing beyond Capitalism and superseding the capitalist incentives to production and the capitalist system of distributing incomes by effectively Socialist alternatives.” He was thus forced into a position of arguing that “reflated” capitalism was a good basis for building socialism. See n. 110. The point here is that relative to his position in 1929 or even in 1931, Cole was minimizing the importance of expansionist measures within the existing system. The distinction between capitalism and socialism had become more clearly defined.

107. “Can Capitalism Survive?” in Cole, G. D. H. and Webb, Sidney, What is Ahead of Us? (London, 1937), p. 20Google Scholar.

108. Ibid.

109. Ibid., p. 10.

110. To differentiate his position from that of the unions, Cole suggested that “Socialists who want a ‘Rooseveltish’ policy in this country want it not because they think Rooseveltism as such can succeed in restoring stable prosperity, but because ‘reflated’ Capitalism seems to them to afford a better basis for the building of a Socialist system.” “The Battle of Hastings,” New Statesman and Nation, VI, 377Google Scholar. In suggesting this, and in supporting efforts “to make a transition to a better system without an intervening period of sheer chaos,” Cole was actually differentiating his position from that of his friends on the Left. The Crisis (1931) in Economic Tracts, p. 13. Less convinced than his friends of the necessity or desirability of capitalist collapse, Cole nevertheless assumed, from 1932 to late 1935, that collapse was inevitable.

111. TUC, Annual Report (1933), pp. 265–70Google Scholar.

112. Ibid., pp. 261-62. In its annual report to the Labour Party, the National Executive Committee also complimented Roosevelt's efforts as compared with those of the government. Labour Party, Annual Report (1933), p. 3Google Scholar. Most references to Roosevelt were, in fact, a vehicle for attacking the government.

113. See, for example, Pelling, Henry, America and the British Left, p. 136Google Scholar. Pelling also cites the report of Gomper's friend, W. A. Appleton, to the conference of the General Federation of Trade Unions in 1934. As secretary of the GFTU, Appleton had observed: “Great Britain understands the seriousness of the experiments America is making. Some of them will fail; some will succeed; but whether they fail or succeed, they provide data which other countries can very advantageously study.” Ibid., p. 137. His observations can scarcely be taken as a whole-hearted endorsement of the New Deal.

114. TUC, Annual Report (1933), p. 265Google Scholar.

115. Ibid.

116. Ibid., p. 266.

117. Ibid., p. 264.

118. Ibid., p. 263.

119. Ibid.

120. The prior advocacy by the unions of an easy money policy has been established; also their advocacy of counter-cyclical public works. The only question concerns the financing of such works by means of deficit spending. In “Trade Union Reactions to the Economic Crisis,” Journal of Contemporary History, IV, No. 4 (Oct., 1969), 112Google Scholar, Sidney Pollard attributes the unions' conversion to this policy to the New Deal. The resolution he cites — the resolution of 1933 just quoted above — does indeed call for the financing of public works “by the use of the national credit.” But this policy appears in no other resolution or statement of the TUC for the rest of the decade, not even in the comprehensive program for dealing with slumps outlined by Bevin as President of Congress. TUC, Annual Report (1937), p. 76Google Scholar. Moreover, even if the resolution of 1933 were not an isolated example, it would be difficult to attribute the unions' conversion solely or even largely to the New Deal. The ground had been well prepared. As Pollard himself notes, the General Council had earlier called for the “greatest possible increase in public expenditure for productive work in times of crisis.” TUC, Annual Report (1931), p. 129Google Scholar. And as the TUC knew, the International Federation of Trade Unions of which Citrine was President, had strongly urged that credit “be used for the financing of large-scale schemes for the creation of work.” TUC, Annual Report (1932), p. 125Google Scholar. Citrine's ideas need study. But it would appear that the unions were ripe for conversion, if such occurred, before the New Deal.

121. Bullock, Alan, The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin, I (London, 1960)Google Scholar, Skidelsky, Robert, Politicians and the Slump (London, 1967)Google Scholar and Sidney Pollard, “Trade Union Reactions to the Economic Crisis,” JCH, IV, all suggest that it was the unions, not the Left or the politicians, which broke with economic orthodoxy.

122. The Committee was chosen by the Executive from among its own members. Joseph Compton, Stanley Hirst, George Latham, and J. R. Clynes represented the unions, which thus had four of the eight original members, a proportion that remained fairly constant as the Committee expanded. See the Labour Party, Annual Report (1933), p. 6Google Scholar and Dalton, Hugh, The Fateful Years (London, 1957), p. 23Google Scholar.

123. The initiative of this Committee is noted in Hugh Dalton, ibid., p. 73, n. 1.

124. This term was favored by those who advocated semi-autonomous corporations as a means of regulating and controlling industry rather than governmental departments. But it gained currency early in the thirties because it also served to paper over divisions within the Labour Party as to the merits of direct state control. See Barry, E. Eldon, Nationalisation in British Politics, p. 302Google Scholar.

125. TUC, Annual Report (1935), Appendix E, p. 485Google Scholar.

126. Barry, E. Eldon, Nationalisation in British Politics, pp. 317ffGoogle Scholar.

127. Miliband, Ralph, Parliamentary Socialism, p. 202Google Scholar.

128. Thus C. T. Cramp joined Dalton in supporting public corporations as advocated by Herbeit Morrison, while Cole and William Mellor joined Bevin and John Bromley in demanding labor representation on their boards.

129. Using a desire for workers' control and labor representation in managing socialized industries as his measuring rod, E. Eldon Barry, Nationalisation in British Politics argues, for example, that the party was not truly socialist.

130. Pollard, Sidney, “Trade Union Reactions to the Economic Crisis,” JCH, IVGoogle Scholar — the most incisive analysis of the unions' position and the only one to clarify the dual nature of their commitment.

131. TUC, Annual Report (1931), pp. 406–07Google Scholar.

132. In an oft-quoted remark, Bevin inveighed against those members of the Labour Party whose belief in socialism provided an excuse for doing nothing about unemployment under the existing system:“… when you go on a Royal Commission you have to deal with facts as they are and the problem as it is.” TUC, Annual Report (1931), p. 464Google Scholar. Specifically, he proposed lowering of the retirement age, a 40-hour week and a raising of the school-leaving age. My Plan for 2,000,000 Workless (London, 1933)Google Scholar. But in this Plan, Bevin made it quite clear that he did not expect his proposals to “solve” unemployment. Ibid., p. 7. He complained that in 1929, “Lloyd George ran off with his ‘cure-all-in-one-year’ patent medicine, and a lot of Labour Candidates forgot their Socialism and ran after him.” Labour Party, Annual Report (1930), p. 198Google Scholar. In this speech, as in many others, he stressed the need for socialism. Bullock, Alan, The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin, I, esp. Ch. 19Google Scholar.

133. See his address to the Society for Socialist Information and Propaganda, May 28, 1932, as quoted in Alan Bullock, ibid., 505.

Others, though less explicit, seem to have shared this assumption. Arthur J. Cook did not think that capitalism had collapsed. TUC, Annual Report (1931), pp. 423–24Google Scholar. And neither did John Bromley. TUC, Annual Report (1932), p. 67Google Scholar. Nor Joseph Compton. Labour Party, Annual Report (1933), p. 132Google Scholar. Exceptions may be found — George Latham, to mention just one. Labour Party, Annual Report (1932), p. 159Google Scholar. And there were many references to the failure of the system: the resolution, for example, on “The Failure of Capitalism and the Maintenance of Democracy” moved by J. R. Clynes. TUC, Annual Report (1934), p. 366Google Scholar. But failure must be distinguished from collapse. See “A Note on the Collapse of Capitalism” in the Appendix. On the whole, the unions believed that capitalism could not be made to work in the long run. They merely lacked the apocalyptic vision of the present expressed by spokesmen for the Left.

134. See the statement of Arthur J. Cook. TUC, Annual Report (1931), pp. 423–24Google Scholar. Also, see the unions' pronouncements against dictatorship; for the experience of Germany, Italy, and Austria seems to have convinced the unions that the collapse of capitalism led to fascism or nazism rather than to a choice between fascism or nazism and socialism. Ellis Smith observed that “Capitalism would tolerate democracy in its present form as long as it could afford to do so. As long as capitalism was expanding they did not mind concessions in this or that form. Now capitalism has reached its present stage, instead of giving concessions it is demanding them from the working class, taking away more of their life blood in order that capitalism can be perpetuated” as fascism. Labour Party, Annual Report (1933), pp. 218–19Google Scholar. And J. R. Stanley echoed his observation. TUC, Annual Report (1934), p. 265Google Scholar. By implication, prosperous capitalism afforded a better basis for building socialism than capitalism in crisis.

135. Citrine, Walter M., “Economic Crisis and Recovery in the United States,” Labour, II, No. 4 (Dec., 1934), 84–86Google Scholar. Citrine had just returned from a visit to the States.

136. Editorial, ibid., III, No. 7 (March, 1936), 151. Richard Pear seems correct in suggesting that “A British socialist in dealing with American affairs must perforce become a New Dealing Democrat …” or that he must, at least, take Roosevelt's side against more conservative critics. “The Impact of the New Deal,” BBAAS, No. 4, 23.

137. Editorial, Labour, III, No. 7 (March, 1936), 151Google Scholar.

138. M. Philips Price, “The New Deal and Agriculture in America,” ibid., II, No. 6 (Feb., 1935), 134-35.

139. Compare ibid., I, No. 5 (Jan., 1934), 99 with A. Susan Lawrence, “The Labour Movement in America,” ibid., I, No. 6 (Feb., 1934), pp. 126-27.

140. Officially, British Labour supported the AFL in its feud with the CIO: the two organizations continued to exchange delegates, and in 1937 the reaffiliation of the AFL to the International Federation of Trade Unions was sponsored by Citrine. Organizational loyalty, discipline, and unity seemed at stake. But the TUC was not so unsympathetic to the claims of the CIO as the Left supposed. Articles by leaders of the CIO were published in Labour along with articles defending the AFL — Dubinsky, David, “The New Unionism Comes to America,” Labour, IV, No. 1 (Sept., 1936)Google Scholar, for example. And the political efforts of the CIO found favor: the TUC was none too happy about the refusal of the AFL to organize for independent political action.

141. For a good discussion of this point and of the tension that had previously arisen between the two organizations over the question of war aims in 1917 and direct action in the 1920s, see Pelling, Henry, A History of British Trade Unionism (London, 1963)Google Scholar.

142. TUC, Annual Report (1933), p. 25Google Scholar.

143. Ibid., (1934), p. 295.

144. Ibid., pp. 286ff.

145. AFL, Annual Proceedings (1934), p. 310Google Scholar.

146. Ibid.