CONTENTS - ouroboros ponderosa

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than ripe fur increasingly radical directiol1s. I{ ,C.l\... 1':lls0J kit lhal ;111
undistracted concentration upon home isslies may well have hrought iI
revolution, especially, he thought, as refleeled by Ihe "prewar loss 01
balance about home rule.""
The social and parliamentary impasse over self-determination r ....
Ireland-whether it should encompass the whole of the country or
exclude Ulster in the north-boiled over in thc Summcr of 1914. Th,'
south was ready to fight for a united Irish homc rule, thc loyalty of
EnglIsh troops was crumbling, and it looked, to RJ. Evans, for instance,
"as if Britain was at last breaking up through her own weakness and
disscnsion.n98
Colin Cross wrote, apropos of the crisis over Ireland-and the
industrial strife and sum'age violence as well-that "Had there been no
Europcan wa , in Summer 19] 4, Britain might wcll have lapsed
II1to ... anarchy. As Insh workers and peasants moved toward revolt a
divided England appeared "nearer to civil war than at any time since ;he
16th century," according to Cross."
Thc whole English party system began to founder at the time of the
Irish dilemma, especially given the split in the army. James Cameron
summed up this moment with some eloquence: "From a hundred obscure
places in Britain, from small-time barbers and icc-cream dealers and
Di r .lomatie Secretaries the message went back to the European Foreign
offIces: the Umted Kingdom, if you could call it such, is riddled with
dissension; indeed, there is the considerable likelihood of civil war."l00
Harold Nicolson saw the background of the industrial upheavals of
1910-1914, with its unfolding "revolutionary spirit," as creating veritable
pamc among the upper classes; this "incessant labor unrest" plus the
home rule clash brought the country, in his view, "to the brink of civil
war., , 101
Plai . nly, class tensions were becoming unbearable, "too great to be
contall1ed in the existing social and world setting," in the words of Arthur
Marwick.'02 In 1911 William Archer had conjectured that some "great
catastrophe mIght be necessary for a new, viable world social order."103
For England, as elsewhere, the whirlpool of contestation had grown
entreally turbulent over the four years leading up to mid-summer 1914.
"The cry of civil war is on the lips of the most responsible and sober­
mll1ded of my people" George V warned participants of a Buckingham
Palace conference on July 21, 1914.'04
Indeed, it can be argued that to look more closely at the attitudes
assembling the social crisis is to see no thin" less than a nascent refusal
. D
agamst the whole miasma of modern organizational mediation.
I ' I 1 r'>11 N 1 '., ( II, 1\. 1 1 I I',:\ I
t\ JII;ljU1' stlcial wc.lfare. L'llactllllnl. for e.xample. the Nati( ! nal lnsur;lIcc
;\ 1"1 oi" I 'J I I, sClveo only to increase the discontent at the labonng
,·Iasses. "" And it was this acl that accounted for growth in tbe trade
ullions, as the union bureaucracies provided functionaries needed for Its
."Iminislration. More distance from the workers, a greater closeness
I,..tween unions and government. A 1912 bill proposing to greatly extend
lire franchise met with universal intlifference.'06
. .
The Labor Party, voice of the unions and proponent 01 SOCial
it:gislation, likewise struck no chord with the populacc; oWll1g largely to
I he repulsion its bureaucratic nature evoked among the young espeCially,
it engendered no enthusiasm at all.
.
But the voracious appetites at large could be clearly seen In the many
major labor battles from 1910 on-and in their propensity for arson,
looting, and violence, as well as the strong preponderance of unautho­
rized anti-contract wildcat work stoppages. Halcvy saw the unrest as
"vering at times on anarchy," and dctermin d that it :, a "revolt not
only against the authority of capital but agams! the dlscIphne of t : d,
unions ,, '07-as if union discipline was not an essential clement of capltal s
authority.
. . .
By 1912, syndicalism, and its close cousin, gUIld SOCialIsm, werc
attracting much attention. But popular exertementwas actually a brt more
elusive not surprising sincc these projections, staffed by unron offiCIals
and bsed on union structures, were all but indistinguishable from
industrial unionism itself.
Unexeeptionally, English unions, too, were strengthened hy the war,
but worker rebellions managed to continuc, against high odds. The whole
summer of 19]6, for instance, featured much resistance throughout the
provinces in England and along the Clyde to the north. By th,s !lme, and
versus the disabling wartime array of forces, the struggles were not only
against the state and the employers but especially in opposition to the
union administrations. New mediation was callcd for and provldcd by the
shop steward movement of union rdor ?" a diversion essential to the
containment of the workers. The WhItely Councils, a form of co­
determination which increasingly emphasized the role of unions, was
another wartime dcvelopment aimed against proletarian autonomy. The
parliamentary committees at work on a council formula recognized that
the constant strire was the doing of the "undisciplined," not the unrons.
They "wanted to find a cure for the malaise that, before the war, bad
every year weighted more heavily on industry, and, In consequence, on
all of English politics.,,!08
A "Triple Alliance" among the miners', transport workers', and