The General Strike of 1926 cast its shadow before it - a dark and ominous shadow. Governments had mismanaged the economy and exports fell as the value of the pound rose abroad; the Managers and owners of the mines mismanaged the mines; also coal was being produced in the British Empire by colliers on starvation wages, thus, in the course of making huge profits for the greedy mine-owners, bringing down the international price of coal; cheap coal was beginning to be exported from Poland and the Ruhr; for all these reasons, and certainly through no fault at all of the miners, there was less demand for U.K. coal. The industry was facing a mounting crisis. Yet the only remedy for the slump that anyone liked to contemplate was that the miners, the only efficient part of the equation, should be forced to accept lower wages and longer hours; there seemed no other way to maintain the high profits of the bunglers at the top. Even the most hard-hearted, hard-faced members of the ruling and employing class must have realised the gross unfairness of such a course and were fearful of the consequences - there is nothing so effective in stirring up panic and fear as a guilty conscience. So the Government started to prepare themselves for the suppression of any activity that was likely to arise as a protest from the mining community or the Trade Union community in general. The number of unemployed was still alarmingly high. The Government knew perfectly well that what was to be suggested as a remedy was almost certain to meet with strong if not violent opposition from the victims, namely, the workers, whose wages and jobs were in jeopardy. Both sides prepared for battle. The United Kingdom was far from united - it was a nation divided.
As early as August 1924, Army Orders announced the formation of a Supplementary Reserve for the Regular Army. Whatever the innocent reasons officially given for the raising of this Supplementary Reserve, there was active recruitment among trade union members who were understandably anxious about the intended use of such a body. In January, 1925, Mr Henderson reported to the National Executive of the Labour Party on the subject; he had, he said, enquired of Mr Stephen Walsh who had replied in the following terms: "The Supplementary Reserve as its name indicates is a formation supplementary to the existing Army Reserve and is in no sense a special reserve. It has been rendered necessary because of the vastly changed conditions of modern Army requirements. .... These changed conditions have to be met... ... it can only be effected by enabling the Army authorities to rely upon a reserve of men of the skilled artificer and technical class......Two classes will be enlisted, the first will be organised into technical units and trained as such,the second," (and it was this category that set the alarm bells ringing for trade unionists) "will require no training, their military duties, when called upon, being similar to the work they perform in peace."... " The Army Order terms of last August setting up the Supplementary Reserve binds every officer in the Army from the highest to the lowest and are an explicit guarantee that the liability to be called out in aid of the civil power will not be enforced.....As to the action taken by the Army authorities in conjunction with the Railway Companies for recruiting of a Railway section of the Supplementary Reserve, I know nothing. That is an administrative act for which, of course, I can accept no responsibility."
But, not unnaturally, the trade unionists, the left-wing of the Labour Party and the Communist Party took the view that, in creating this Supplementary Reserve of skilled artificers and technical workers, the Government was building up a reserve force of workers who would have to obey the orders issued by the Army, even if they were called upon to break any strike by their fellow-workers; a pool of men who were forgoing their right to withdraw their labour, since as army reservists, to disobey their army officers would be deemed to be mutiny.
Saklatvala asked over and over again in the House for details of recruitment to this Supplementary Reserve. On 18th February, 1925, he put down a question to the Secretary of State for War asking for the number of men so far recruited and the trades from which they had been drawn. In reply,Sir Worthington Evans gave some figures and added, "The only groups of employers which have been approached by the War Office with a view to recruiting for this branch of the Reserve are the 4 railway companies of Great Britain, and certain engineering firms and transport companies."
Of course, were there to be a coal strike, it was almost certain that the miners would be supported by railway and other transport workers who in all probability would refuse to move any coal; thus in recruiting just these men into the army, the Government could be certain that the movement of coal and other goods, in the event of major strike action, could be undertaken by those workers who had been recruited into the Army reserve.
The following month, Saklatvala was on his feet in the House again, this time asking for a break-down of the numbers of recruits in the various trades. He was told such statistics were not available. He then asked the Secretary of State for War whether he had approached Trade Union Groups, as he did groups of employers, to enlist their sympathy and assistance in encouraging recruiting in the Army Supplementary Reserve; and if so, how many and which trade unions were they? The Under Secretary admitted in reply that he was in negotiation with the National Union of Railwaymen and also the Transport and General Workers' Union. The next nagging question that Saklatvala raised was to ask about assurances given that the Supplementary Reserve would not be called upon to intervene in any civil dispute and he was told the only assurance to this effect was that contained in the Army Orders.
A few days later he asked for the numbers of engine-drivers, firemen, signal-men,motor drivers, electricians and clerks who had so far been recruited to the A.S.R. No details were forthcoming and he raised the question yet again a few days later, saying that, in view of the unsatisfactory replies to his questions he begged to give notice that he would raise the question on the adjournment. This he did on the 30th March, 1925. In his speech he reiterated the history of the A.S.R. and recounted what extreme importance was ascribed to it both by the present and the previous Secretary of State for War, who were both of the opinion that without sufficient numbers of skilled men being raised in the A.S.R., the Army would not be efficient. In view of the vital importance of the numbers being recruited, Saklatvala said, he found it astounding that the Secretary of State told him that the figures for the recruitment for each vital trade were not available either at the War Office or in the House. When the efficiency of the British army depended on satisfactory recruitment, it was astonishing that these all-important statistics were not available. "I put these questions one after another, making allowances for the democratic spirit of this House, and I put the same question in a round about manner in 5 different forms, and I am still without an answer."
He went on to quote the Secretary of State on the subject of coercing the members of the A.S.R. into activity against their fellow workers in any civil dispute as saying: "No doubt the Communists do claim that in no circumstances should the Army or the reserve be used in support of the Civil Power, but hitherto trade union leaders have never argued that the State is not entitled, if the police force proves insufficient, to claim the assistance of the armed forces of the Crown." Saklatvala said that the Communist Party went further; he said: "The Communist Party is right in its attitude that international war of the working classes of any other country is as criminal and fratricidal as Civil War at home. ...... There must be a common understanding, and that can only be arrived at by facing facts, and the facts today are - I, for one, and my Party,as such are not ashamed in stating it - that we consider it our sacred and religious duty to tell all the British workers to keep away from the Army as well as from the Army Supplementary Reserve."
This forthright attitude to the Army was to land him in serious trouble the following year.
In September 1925 the Sunday Worker wrote: "The Sunday Worker is able to state positively and definitely that the A.S.R is being used as a means of placing at the disposal of the big railway companies a corps of enrolled and oath-bound black-legs, liable to penalties of martial law for refusing to scab for their felow workers. Couple this with revelations as to the recruiting into the A.S.R. of thousands of local Government employees and the reality of capitalist dictatorship is made clear. As the Herald says, "Are not all these preparations being made to ensure victory for the employing class in their forthcoming offensive against the workers' standard of living?"
It was on the 30th June 1925 that the coalmine owners announced that they would terminate all existing wage agreements at the end of July and demanded an immediate end to any minimum wage and an immediate reduction in miners' pay. Not surprisingly, A.J.Cook, the militant Secretary of the Mine Workers' Federation, refused to accept the changes demanded. The General Council of the T.U.C. gave its support to the miners. Baldwin, on the other hand, said that all workers must take a reduction in wages to put industry on its feet. The T.U.C. was as good as its word and, in response to these unreasonable demands by the Government and the mine owners, put an embargo on the movement of coal by rail, road and sea. This prompt and strong action resulted in Baldwin offering a subsidy to the mining industry to maintain wages at their existing level until 1st May, 1926.
A Royal Commission under Sir Herbert Samuel was set up to examine the state of the coal industry and to seek solutions for its ills. Meanwhile the Government divided the country into 10 regions, each with a Civil Commissioner and a team of civil servants to deal with any industrial unrest that might arise. The Royal Commission made its report on 26th March 1926 and it pleased neither side in the dispute. It condemned the mineowners and it also condemned the Government subsidy; and it decided that the miners MUST accept reduced wages. Both owners and miners rejected the report. All these events united the working class, as perhaps it has never been united since. The people had had enough and were determined to stand up for their rights.
In an attempt to diminish the strength of the rising tide of the workers' anger, in October, 1925, 12 leading Communists were arrested and tried; 5 of them were given a sentence of 12 months and 7 of them were given 6 months in jail. 167 miners were arrested and charged with 'riotous assembly'; 50 of them received sentences ranging from 14 days to 12 months. But all this intimidation merely served to strengthen the resolve of the workers.
Saklatvala was among 70 M.P.s who wrote to the Press demanding the immediate release of the prisoners.
The Sunday Worker of 27th December 1925, wrote: "Local Labour Parties, I.L.P. s and other bodies are holding protest meetings and demonstrations from one end of the country to the other and 'Release the Twelve!' has become the slogan of the whole Labour Movement." At a Labour Party Meeting in West Fulham, Saklatvala addressed the crowded hall saying he was not there to force them into the Communist Party, but the present political and economic situation would make Communists of them all within the next 12 months. It was the Government, he said, who were waging the class war by allowing any form of terrorism and force so long as it was directed against the working class. Herbert Smith, President of the Mine Workers' Federation wrote to the Sunday Worker in the same issue. "...I am sure the forthcoming year is going to be a big test for the whole movement. We are now faced with a united capitalist class. The means for conducting our struggle are being endangered every day. The Communist trial showed that very clearly. These lads who are now in prison are where they are because the right of free speech, together with other elementary civil liberties are being taken away. We must resist such attacks... and get the 12 Communists out of prison. Yes - we'll see things happen next year."
A body called the International Class War Prisoners' Aid collected over 300,000 signatures on a petition demanding the release of the communists and the miners. Saklatvala presented it to the Speaker in the House of Commons on the 24h February, 1926. The Sunday Worker wrote of the occasion: "Comrade Saklatvala really performed a feat of physical endurance as he carried the entire petition - in his arms, on his back and suspended from his shoulders."
Alas! Far from gaining the release of the prisoners, many, many more were to be imprisoned before that fateful year was out. Joynson-Hicks (Home Secretary) admitted to 1760 arrests but it was generally believed that the number was more like 2,500. (two and a half thousand).
Nor was it only the Communists who took up a courageous stand against the bullying tactics being used to crush the workers' defence of their livelihoods. George Lansbury said: "We call upon all soldiers, sailors and airmen to refuse under any circumstances to shoot down the workers of Britain, and we call upon working men to refuse to join the capitalist army. We further call upon the police to refuse to use their batons on strikers or locked-out workers during industrial disputes."
By the end of April,1926, it was clear that no agreement was going to be reached and that a strike of the miners and, almost certainly a General Strike, was inevitable.
May Day that year was of special significance for it was also the day when the Government subsidy came to an end. A multitude of workers assembled on the Embankment and the vast procession marched to Hyde Park where 9 public meetings were being held. On May 3rd, The Manchester Guardian reported under the headlines, , "LABOUR'S MAY DAY CELEBRATIONS" "Procession of unusually large scale."
"Saklatvala seemed to be the hero of the day. He was followed to his platform by a swirling wake of enthusiasts, and his meeting was much the biggest. He is, one imagines, the most powerful mob orator of his day. This sallow Indian, with a face worn by fanatical passion, dominated the whole scene as, with outstreched, claw-like hands, he harangued for a good half hour. With a sort of sombre joy, he acclaimed the General Strike as the definite rising of Labour against their oppressors, to a chorus of 'Good old Saklatvala!' ......."
It is interesting to note that the Manchester Guardian reporter gave no indication that the speech might be considered as seditious, or that it might be interpreted as an incitement to violence. He reported that there was no mischief in the crowd - which, while being enthusiastic, seems to have been orderly (as was the case with Saklatvala's meetings in general. He appears always to have had complete control of his audiences and there is no evidence of their being rowdy scenes at any of his meetings).
Father made the speech on 1st May. On Monday,3rd May, he and my mother were sitting together in our billiard room at home when two men, in raincoats and trilby hats could be seen coming through the garden gate and approaching the house. Father said to my Mother: "Sehri, I think this means trouble, but don't worry." The two men were. of course, detectives. My brother opened the door to them and showed them in. They told Father they had come to arrest him and read out the charge. They then asked if they might use the telephone and put a call through to Bow Street Police Station; the telephone call informed them that they had arrested Father prematurely as the Emergency Powers Act, under which he was to be indicted, had not yet been passed. They then made the position clear to my parents and asked Father to make himself available later. My Father assured them he would either be at home or in the House of Commons and would be ready at any time to receive them.
The detectives were not the only ones to be a bit premature. Joynson-Hicks in the House of Commons, had said a week before Father had made his speech that he had to admit.' his hands itched to have Saklatvala arrested.'
Father conducted his own defence when he appeared in Bow Street Police Court on 6th May, the case having been adjourned for 2 days when he first appeared on Tuesday, 4th May.
After that first hearing and adjournment, he was certain that he would be sent to prison. He was afraid that I would be greatly distressed by the news and said he would explain everything to me himself. Which he did, at bewildering length and detail - (remember, I was not yet 7 years old). He explained to me about the miners being asked to accept less money, he explained what a strike was, and he explained his speech in Hyde Park and why he had made it. "So, you see, I think the Government will send me to prison for a little while and I may be away from home for quite some time." "O, good!", I exclaimed, jumping up and down and clapping my hands, "then I can sleep with Mummy!" I seemed to have inherited Mother's capacity for minimising the dramatic effects of any political calamity. I hope Father was more relieved than disappointed by my apparent indifference to his enforced absence - after all, he had wanted to save me from any distress.
The case was reported on 7th May. Saklatvala appeared before Sir Charles Biron and conducted his own defence, addressing the Court for nearly an hour. He said: " . .... I consider myself just as unnecessarily called upon to be bound over as our Prime Minister might be. It was never my intention either at this meeting or in any of my propaganda work to incite any sort of disorder or encourage any sort of breach of the peace." (The proof of the pudding was in the eating, for no breach of the peace and no disorder had in fact resulted from the speech.) Sir Charles Biron contended that there was no doubt that the speech in question was a seditious speech, calculated to provoke public disorder. He bound the defendant over to keep the peace for 12 months. The defendant said: "In my honour and conscience I cannot accept the decision to be bound over" (The report says that a voice in court cried, "Hear! Hear!" but that there was no further demonstration.) Saklatvala was sent to prison for 2 months. He served his sentence in Wormwood Scrubbs.
On the way to the prison the escorting detective offered Father a cigarette which he refused: the detective urged him to take it. "It's the last one you'll have for quite a while," he said. When Father explained that he did not smoke, the detective said, "Oh well, prison won't be such a hardship for you then - that's always what men miss most". When Father reached the prison, more kindly advice was proffered, this time from the Prison Officer who was registering him as an inmate. When Father was asked to state his religion, he replied, "None". But the Officer advised him to put down C.of.E., so that he would qualify for church services on Sunday mornings. "It makes a welcome break in the routine," he thoughtfully explained, "and gives you a chance to be with other prisoners." So he was admitted as a Church of England man! His visits to the Chapel gave him some comfort. When he got home he explained to Mummy that he joined in the prayers and hymns but always put HER name in place of the deity! (Although I was unaware of this until much later, whenever I was singing hymns in assembly at school, I invariably substituted 'Sak-lat-va-la!' for 'Halleluja!') I was recently told an apocryphal story which is amusing, even though I cannot vouch for its veracity. It is said that when Father made his first appearance in the chapel, one prisoner asked another, "Who's that bloke?" His neighbour whispered in reply, "He's a Parsee - he's in for sedition," This was whispered along the line until it had become, "He's a parson - he's in here for seduction"!
The voice that had cried out 'Hear! Hear!' in court so jubilantly was that of my Mother, overwhelmed on this one occasion, so that despite her usual quiet and retiring demeanour,she expressed publicly her wifely pride. She was to receive many letters from well wishers after Father's departure. One of them was from Mr H.A.Heath, Hon. Secretary of the National Union of Clerks. He told her that at a meeting of his Surrey Branch, there had been some discussion on the subject of Father's imprisonment, some members wishing to send their condolences and others to express admiration and congratulation; it had been left to Mr heath to decide on how to write. Her reply I find touching in its simplicity and directness. "Dear Mr Heath," she wrote, on 21st May,1926, "Very many thanks to you and your Branch for your message and kind feelings expressed by you all. I am afraid that my feelings, like your letter, are a little mixed, but on the whole, I think I am happy to receive your congratulations and not your sympathy. To tell you the truth, I have considered the many messages of sympathy rather out of place, because I was really very proud to see my husband make the firm stand he made, and to go to prison rather than go back on his word and pretend to be sorry for what he said. My husband's reply to the magistrate when he asked him to be bound over was the following: 'In my honour and conscience, I cannot accept your decision to be bound over but will go to prison for two months.' I could not help feeling proud; at the same time I felt sorry that he had to go to prison, but I would not have liked him to make any other decision. I shall keep your letter to show my husband when he comes home. Yours sincerely, Sehri Saklatvala."
During Father's sojourn in prison, which he found very interesting and stimulating, (and which proved very restful for him physically) we received many visits from ex-prisoners, all bearing messages for my Mother from Father. When the first one arrived, looking rather like a character out of a who-dunnit, Mother was a bit nervous and asked my eldest brother, Dorab, to remsain with her in the room. But, whatever their erstwhile crimes had been, they were all happy to bear glad and loving tidings from Father - they were all very kindly towards us and all spoke warmly of their unusual fellow-prisoner. My Mother asked one of them what he had been sent to prison for - he seemed so quiet and reserved; in reply he showed her a scar across his throat - he had been imprisoned for attempted suicide (a crime in those days). Mother felt deeply embarrassed and grieved and never again enquired about the reasons for their incarceration. One of them brought a piece of prison bread for Mother to taste, baked in the prison - a sort of 'specialite de maison.' Another one complained bitterly of the meagre prison diet and said sarcastically in a gruff voice, "...and anuvver fing, they boil yer-reggs too 'ard!" (meaning, of course, that they got no eggs). My innocent and ingenuous sister said blithely, "O, Daddy won't mind that - he loves hard boiled eggs!"
One of our unusual visitors smuggled a written message from Father out of the prison; he apologised for not coming immediately upon his release, but he had smuggled the note out under his tongue and had to wait for it to dry . He explained to Mummy, "There are other places I could have put it, begging your pardon!" Father had used the tissue paper that covered photographs he had been allowed to keep with him. He received copies of Hansard, as a Member of Parliament, and also he was permitted special visits from his solicitor because he was conducting a court case against his cousin, Dorabji and Tata's at the time.
I celebrated my 7th birthday while Father was in prison - it was the only birthday I ever spent without him during his lifetime. Wherever he was and whatever he was doing, even when it meant travelling all night to come and all night to go back to his work, he always celebrated my birthday at home. (I think this was true of all other family birthdays but childhood memories tend to be self-centred). But Mother gave me a gabardine raincoat and told me it was Father's birthday present to me. I just assumed that he had been especially taken out of the prison to the shop to buy it for me! It seemed a very important present indeed. An even more important birthday present came from Mother's Aunt in Tansley in the shape of a little black puppy. We called him Binky and he was my faithful, loving and loved companion till his death when I was at college. Although Father was fond of animals he had never allowed any of us to have a dog, because it would add to my Mother's already gruelling work-load. But when he came home and found Binky already installed he raised no objections. Binky was always absolutely obedient to Father; when visiting the bank, Father would tell Binky to wait outside and he did so, docilely, and all the bank staff were very impressed; he had never been punished by Father - the most he would do was to flick his handkerchief at him.
Soon after the beginning of his sentence a rather spiteful girl at my convent school put her tongue out at me as she passed me in a corridor and said, mouthing and emphasising each cruel syllable, "Your Daddy's in prison, for saying nasty things about the King!" and I said with an air of knowledgeable superiority, "O, no he isn't. He's in prison for SEDITION!" All in all, 1926 was an eventful year for me as well as for the nation!
The authorities were afraid that there might be demonstrations in support of Father on his release from prison. So they sent him out a day early, but would not tell him in advance of the exact time. Father sent a message to Mother through his solicitor, asking her to be outside the prison gates as early as possible on the morning in question; he said she should bring flowers for the chapel with her name on them; he would go to the chapel and would thus know when she had arrived. He explained when he got home that he just wanted to know Mother was near him and he wanted hers to be the first face he saw when he came out into the world again.
All these years after both of them are gone, I went, in the course of my research, to Wormwood Scrubbs. Although I have no belief in an after-life, I have often wished I had, for I feel sure that if Father's consciousness exists anywhere, what I am doing would please him. So, sentimentally, I thought I would send flowers to Wormwood Scrubbs Chapel when I went - just in case, somehow, somewhere, there might be an awareness of MY presence; but since it was a boiling hot day and the journey from home in the tube would cause me, let alone a bunch of fragile flowers, to wilt, I decided against it. I was received in the prison with such kindness and courtesy, and was given so many mementoes, a copy of a menu, photographs of the chapel, a copy of the entry of Father's name, a history of the prison, that I did send some plants for the chapel, as a small token of my great appreciation.
But MY appreciation came many, many years too late. Father expressed his as soon as he was released. The Workers' Weekly wrote: "By far the most dramatic incident in the House of Commons this week was the sudden and unexpected appearance of Saklatvala, straight from Wormwood Scrubbs. At 10.30 he was in prison; at noon he was sailing merrily into the Tories." Here are extracts from his speech on that day:
"I hope the House will pardon me for any slips on this occasion, because I have only just returned to this House from a semi-socialistic institution in which I have been taken care of on a much better scale than the poor miners. I also beg at this juncture to express my gratitude for the many considerations which have been shown to me, and also for the happy impressions I carry away of some of the brighter sides of British character in regard to the treatment meted out to me by British prison officials, which I have reason to admire. ... I have been permitted through the courtesy of Mr Speaker and the Home Secretary to follow the Debates that have taken place from day to day during my absence and I understand from a study of those Debates that this morning's special subject for discussion is the question of the money which has been sent to the miners from Russia in aid of the miners' families who at the present moment are in dire distress......We are apt to forget that it is the right of all those possessing money to spend it as they like, and in whatever country they like. This has been done by the British nation and by British individuals in the past and they are still doing it in other countries. When these facts are borne in mind, we soon see how mad we are in trying to differentiate between our own actions in this respect and similar actions by other nations when we are blinded by prejudice. ... I ask hon. Members to be good enough to remember how a short time ago a very keen interest was taken by a number of French citizens in the Parliamentary elections in this country, where a campaign was being run by free-traders, and these Frenchmen sent subscriptions to help the Free Trade movement in this country. I was right in the middle of research into this subject when I was forced to take a rest. Again, I ask the House to make quite sure whether one or even two Liberal Members of this House, who are honourably associated with the history of this House, were not enthusiastically financed, quite honourably, of course, by that well-known American citizen, Andrew Carnegie.
"I would ask the House whether this nation, individually as well as nationally, has not poured forth British gold into Armenia on humanitarian motives? Do they never think what suspicions the Turkish Government has been casting upon that? Have you not been pouring out money to help the abolition of slavery? How would those people who sincerely believed in the benefit of the slave system at that time think about your action then? How about temperance associations? Travellers come from America, France, Germany or Belgium, look at various institutions here, and subscribe five, twenty, thirty or fifty pounds to any institution which appeals to them, merely from humanitarian motives. What is wrong? Do you want to undermine the whole of that? Do you want to say to the world that money shall only be subscribed geographically? Look at your Christian missions; look at the millions of pounds that you are sending out of this country to China. It may be a very noble act from your point of view, but it might be quite the contrary from the point of view of the Chinaman or the Mohammedan or the Buddhist in other countries. You want this country to forget its past, present and future proclivities, and to be ruled by blind prejudice against Russia. Let us look at the facts. There has been a strike - a general strike or a sectional strike - it doesn't matter which. One thing which does matter, and which no human being can deny, is the economic and material hardship and distress that follows during the period of a strike. ...There is no denying that, in all sincerity, ... the present people of Russia believe that the supremest good in this world is to assist the struggling and starving workers and their children, in whichever part of the world they may be. That is their new standard. They do not make a secret of it. There is no conspiracy whatever about it. To them, the supremest standard of philanthropy, the highest standard of human good, is not temperance, is not religious institutions, is not the question of legal slavery or its opposite, is not Socialism. To them, at the present moment, honestly and in all sincerity, the highest standard of human good is the assistance of workers in other countries in their moments of distress.
...... I myself announced a few weeks ago, when there was a strike of mill operatives in Bombay, that I had been instrumental in remitting to Bombay £1,054, which I honestly believe was subscribed by the textile workers of Russia.... We were permitted to listen to news from the outside world in the church on Saturday mornings in the Wormwood Scrubs Socialist institution where I was. .... I heard there that miners and their children were still starving, that this is the 6th week of the strike, and so on, that trade union funds have become exhausted and then it was impressed upon us that a sinful and criminal action was being carried on when some human beings were sending £100,000 to assist these starving, human children. At the same time, we were told that a certain gentleman had offered the sum of £100,000 as a prize for some race horse. We are told to believe that this last action was a glorious, patriotic, righteous action, when miners and their families are starving owing to the action of those who came to possess that surplus of £100,000 for race horses........"
There was jubilation and celebration at Saklatvala's release. A big meeting and social was held in Battersea and he was, perhaps even more than before, in demand as a speaker. Even before the strike, a meeting addressed by Saklatvala was a great event in many of the mining and industrial areas of the provinces. It is recorded that on one occassion, miners were brought in from far and wide in buses and coaches, and 70 miners actually walked 7 miles and back again, to hear Saklatvala speak. There was never any disorder or breach of the peace at any of these meetings, attended as they were by hundreds of people, indeed, often by more than a thousand when the halls were big enough, or meetings were held in the open air.
But throughout 1926, the Home Secretary kept extending the Emergency Powers Act and, under this Act, again and again, the police, under instructions from Joynson_Hicks, cancelled at the last minute, any meeting that was to be addressed by Saklatvala; often the cancellation came after the audience was assembled, many of them having come from miles away, and they were told to go home and that no meeting could take place after all. If the authorities really wanted to avoid a breach of the peace, this was surely a strange way to go about it. I cannot help but think that they would have welcomed rowdy scenes from these bitterly disappointed audiences. But nothing of the kind happened. But Saklatvala himself was frustrated and unable to carry on the propaganda that had become his all-important work. He could still, of course, speak in the House of Commons and this he continued to do, forcefully and to great effect.
Whenever the Emergency Powers Act was brought up for further extension, Saklatvala vigorously opposed it. In July, he contended, "...It is from that point of view, that I, as a representative of the workers, should always oppose the Emergency Powers, because according to a confession of a supporter of the Government this measure is required, not because any real or genuine emergency exists, but because we want to neutralise the rights of the workers as organised in their trade unions. That is the argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman, who perhaps was more clever than he required to be on this occasion."
He went on to say, "...The crisis came as a dispute between the employers and the employees. The armour of the employees is the trade union organisation, trade union legislation and trade union practice, and in order to make the fight unequal, the master class, through its puppet Government, wants to deprive the working class of that legitimate and constitutional armour .... We oppose this Emergency Powers Act exactly on this ground, and it is an Act which really does not enable the officials to meet some emergency ... but it is an Act produced with the deliberate object of abusing it, as we have seen the present Government abuse it every day of the last 2 months with the deliberate object of using it as a class intrument of the basest type, and the deliberate object not of using it against Lord Hunsden and others, but of using it against certain representatives of the working class, ..... The existing crisis is not only a money crisis....It does not simply mean that over a million men are out, with the families, facing all the dangers and hardships of life, and saying that they would rather starve than surrender......We who are responsible as representing the organised workers of this country ... are responsible to them for carrying on a progressive fight to demand and obtain for them their social, political and constitutional advantages and rights. ....The Emergency Powers Act prevents us from carrying on that fight. Some of our speakers have a perfect right in such a crisis to speak to the men and women of the nation and to show to them the dangers of the indiscriminate use of the Army and the police. We have a right to demand for these men their rights in the managerial control of their own industry. ...The Emergency Powers Act permits the masters and the capitalist newspapers complete freedom to advance their rights, ... to put forward their claims, demands and criticisms, and to indulge in their vehement, unjust and unpardonable abuse of Cook and other persons fighting for the miners; while on the other side, those who are fighting the great battles of the working classes are deprived of the right of speaking and fighting for their political, social and other privileges.
"We are now asked to renew the Emergency Powers Act for the 3rd time. I think we could have pardoned the Government for the first time as they thought an emergency existed...and they sought to protct themselves behind the Emergency Powers Act. ... but if in 2 months the Government fail to bring about a settled condition ... the Government ought to resign and give up the job. ... Honest men and women with clear and logical views, have definitely come to the conclusion, ...that the Government and the Ministers of the Crown, have ceased from yesterday to be the impartial and trusted Ministers of the nation. From yesterday they are merely the hired agents of the coal owners. There is not the slightest doubt about it. Legislatively, officially, definitely, technically, they are the hired agents of the coal owners of this country. They have ceased to be Ministers of the Crown, and it is a falsehood to describe them as Ministers of the Crown, passing an Address to His Majesty. From today, under the Emergency Powers Act, they are going to use the police, the Army and other forces of the Crown, and even the Civil Servants, in a class war to fight their friends' battle, .... It is a great strain upon the loyalty of the policemen, the soldiers and the Civil Servants ....Nevertheless, the Government resent it when we go to these people and say, 'The Government are using you for a purpose which is immoral, unconstitutional and illegal.' Every policeman, every soldier and every Civil Servant who is a man of honour and conscience, should either chuck his job or act against the Government, rather than lend himself to be a tool in their fight against the nation."
So he continued to make good use of the House to put forward views that the Home Secretary prevented him from putting directly to the people. He also drew the attention of the House to the prejudicial use of the Emergency Powers Act to suppress even the routine meetings that he always held in his consituency, and to the suppression of his meetings in general.
For instance, he explained to the House that "there is a democratic understanding as far as I am concerned - it is a definite pledge which I have observed and kept - to at least once a month render an account of what has gone on in Parliament. I do not see why
suddenly all such meetings of a general character - which in the past in no single instance have put any strain upon the police - should be prohibited." He had been informed by the local police that they were going to prohibit and suppress any meeting that he might try to address in his Constituency, although he was the representative of that constituency in Parliament and he was democratically answerable to the electorate there; yet he was to be prevented from communicating with them. What price civil rights? What price democracy? What price the relationship between the people and their elected representative in Parliament? Saklatvala claimed in the House that these Emergency Powers were being used, not to control any real national emergency, not on a nation-wide and impartial manner, but were being abused merely to further the interests of the Tory Party.
When, in July, the Home Secretary asked the House to extend the Emergency Powers Act for the 4th time, Saklatvala again vehemently voiced his opposition. "I want the Home Secretary to note that his coming back to the House for the 4th time for these special Regulations is an epoch-making event. Here is a strong Government, or one presumably strong, with a large majority in the House, armed with laws which are quite sufficient for carrying on the administration of the country, but it comes to the House for the 4th time when as a Government it is only 2 years old, and says that it is incapable of carrying on the administration of the country unless it is armed with most extraordinary and despotic powers. .... and I say that the only honest course for the Government to take is to throw up the sponge, to admit that it is incapable of finding a solution to the present industrial problem, and to tell the country to find persons capable of administering the country with ordinary law."
I am writing this on November 21st 1989 having seen the Debate in the House of Commons televised for the first time. One of the most interesting aspects of these pictures was the sight of large numbers of Conservative Members leaving the Chamber as soon as their Leader, the Prime Minister, had recited her little piece. These televised reports will undoubtedly show the British public how badly attended the Debates are. It is not a new phenomenon, On 4th August, 1926, during the Adjournment Debate, it was claimed that a very long recess was needed for over-worked Members of the House. Saklatvala intervened to say, "The present condition of the House shows about 9 members of the Conservative Party present. That has been the maximum attendance on the Opposite Benches since the Foreign Secretary spoke. It has been known to us that out of the 400 Conservative Mambers, for more than three fourths of the time, scarcely 20 members attend to their duties. To describe them to the country as an overworked, exhausted band of hard-working men who deserve a three months' holiday, is a grossly misleading statement." Let us hope that the present restriction on showing pictures of the Chamber as a whole will soon be lifted so that the general public can see how sparsely populated are the benches in that great Chamber, seat of the Mother of Parliaments. Such absenteeism in our workshops and factories would leave the nation bankrupt and, no doubt, would bring down the wrath of M.P.s on the heads of the offending workers. It would add greatly to the interest of the TV viewers if pictures could be extended to include the bars and dining room in the House so that we could see our Members at play as well as at work. It is frequently emphasised that Members have exacting duties to perform behind the scenes in Committee; perhaps the public could be informed in the Press of the time-table for the various Committee meetings and the names of the Members attending them.
On the 27th September, 1926, Saklatvala spoke upholding the miners' claims for which they were still on strike, in spite of terrible hardship and want for themselves and their families. In the course of a long and detailed speech Saklatvala contended: "We of the Communist Party, the Cookites or whatever our opponents call us, will continue our education of the miners until they realise that so long as this slave labour exists in the Empire, so long the economic position of the British miner will be one of continual danger, and that a permanent peace can be established only when that scandalous part of British Imperialism is ended once and for all. The miners must live. Their children must be fed and clothed and medically treated, and they are entitled to certain joys of life. If the economic fact is continually proved, generation after generation, that the mining industry is not capable of producing the complete economic requirements of the miner, and at the same time producing royalties, dividends, commissions, large salaries and all kinds of camouflaged dishonest profits for the mine-owners, that clearly indicates to the miner that the time has arrived when, in defence of his wife and children, he must demand the complete abolition of shareholders and royalties, and profits and commissions and individual control. Until that time, there will not be a permanent settlement of the dispute.
"Even if the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Liberal Party in the House became a triumvirate to deal with the problem, it is moonshine to say that they would bring about a permanent peace so long as the economic fact brought about by competition between country and country continually demands a raising of hours and a lowering of wages. .... Our appeal to the miners is quite clear. If they want permanent peace .... we ask them to rely on their own internal strength and to demand immediately an embargo on foreign coal ... The only salvation for the miners is to appeal to their brethren in the trade union movement. They should appeal to every man who stokes a boiler or a locomotive to say that he would not touch foreign coal, and to tell his employer, 'If you want coal, get British coal and come to terms with the British miner.' ".....
On 28th September 1926, the Home Secretary again asked the House to extend the Emergency Powers Act. Again Saklatvala opposed the continuance of the Act. In the course of a long argument, he told the following anecdote, illustrating the muddled and arbitrary way in which these Emergency Powers were being applied. A large procession and a meeting to be addressed by Saklatvala had been advertised ten days or so before they were to take place, under the auspices of the South Wales Miners' Federation, on 8th September. Late on 7th September, the Superintendent of Police informed the local agent of the Miners' Federation verbally that the meeting at Hoelycue and procession were to be cancelled. It was not until the morning of the 8th that police notices appeared prohibiting the procession and adding:-"The holding of any meeting at or in the vicinity of Hoelycue is also prohibited." Saklatvala asked the House: "What is 'the vicinity of Hoelycue'? Does it reach as far as London, Bristol or even Moscow? ..... So the Miners' agent ...again telephoned to the Superintendent pointing out that they had another meeting, on which considerable expense had been incurred, at a place a few miles from Hoelycue. He (the Superintendent) said, 'I cannot tell you whether that also comes within the word vicinity or not.' .... Seeing the indefiniteness of it, I wired to the Home Secretary, asking for clarification of the term 'in the vicinity '. I also wired to the Chief Constable, 'With reference to the circular, should you not define vicinity of Hoelycue in actual mileage radius, if you do not desire unnecessary harrassment of Labour speakers?' .... I had to keep running about in order to avoid the so-called area, and the Government agent had to go about on a motor cycle to find out where I was. At about 3.30 he found me about 12 miles away, because the South Wales Miners' Federation was determined to have that meeting and had it, but we had no desire to walk into the provocative trap of the constable, or to clash with anybody."
Mr HARNEY: "A good meeting?"
Mr SAKLATVALA: A very good meeting. ... The other method adopted was this: the authorities had a notice of the particular meeting and the procession a few days before. But the police did not give us 5 minutes to inform the public that the meeting was cancelled. They rushed the people hither and thither and sent out of the area even the charabancs in which some of the people arrived - [Hon. Member: "Charabancs?"] - Yes, the miners have as much right to sit in a char-a-banc as you have to sit in Rolls Royces. .... If that was the way in which Regulation 22 was used, it was a wrong way politically. I think the hon. and gallant Member for Leith, (Captain Benn) told us that one of the ambitions of the Home Secretary, as proclaimed by his own followers, is that 'Jix is the lad to keep the reds away', and if he is simply making use of that Regulation to keep up that reputation, he is making a gross abuse of his position in Parliament."
In October, the Emergency Powers were again on the Parliamentary agenda and again Saklatvala spoke on behalf of the miners; yet once more he emphasised that the cheap production of coal within the British Empire was putting unfair competition against the miners of Great Britain. He accused the Government: "There are 50 million tons of coal now raised in the Empire under conditions which are a disgrace to anyone who calls himself a civilised human being. Not only do the present Government permit this, but Members of the Government take a share in the profits, and as long as this game is allowed to go on the state of affairs cannot be regarded as a mere accident of the trade, but as a weapon of the class war. ........ There is not a particle of truth in the suggestion that the economic position of the coal industry is such that it will not produce sufficient wages for the miners. It will do so if only the Government will see to it that the unfair competition created by exploited labour , by their own colleagues and friends, is checked instead of being helped on by exploiters whose names appear every year in the Honours List...."
In the following month of November, Saklatvala drew the attention of the House to yet another case of the abuse of the Emergency Powers Act by the Chief Constable of Derbyshire, who had verbally told the organisers of two meetings in the County that, if they would prevent Saklatvala from speaking, the meetings could go ahead; but that if Saklatvala were allowed to address the meetings or to take the Chair, the meetings would be banned. His protest was supported by a Labour Member, Mr Morgan Jones, who stressed that he had no sympathy with the Communist Party but he maintained that the issue was of interest to 'everyone who likes freedom of expression of political opinions.' He agreed with Saklatvala that the Emergency Powers were being abused and misused, suppressing any political discussions if they happened to relate to the Communist Party.
Two days later, the question of banned meetings was again up for discussion. The Home Secretary made it claer that Chief Constables had the right to ban any meeting which, IN THEIR OPINION, was LIKELY TO CAUSE A BREACH OF THE PEACE. In the course of that debate Saklatvala argued thus: "... If I, or any of my Communist colleagues, had had a notorious career in the past, if event after event had happened, and that as a result of addressing meetings, riots and brawls had taken place, I can understood that it would give a prima facie cause for anyone honestly to suspect that whenever I addressed a meeting, it would end in a brawl. I have addressed a few thousand meetings throughout the country and there never has been in any instance, any occasion for anyone to be turned out, such as is often the case at meetings held by friends of the Hon. Gentleman. Nothing of that sort has ever happened."
On 29th November, 1926, the Home Secretary asked for the eightth time for an extension of the Emergency Powers. Saklatvala reiterated the view that, if a Home Secretary could not keep order in the country under the longstanding, ordinary laws of the land, he proved himself to be an incompetent Home Secretary. He again stressed that the powers were not being used to prevent disturbances and riots but rather they were used exclusively against the Communist Party, the opponents of the Party represented by the Home Secretary. He mentioned the case of a speech by a Colonel Leather, in which he spoke openly of 'bloodshed', yet there was to be no prosecution under the Emergency Powers. ... "The excuse given was the flimsey excuse that that speech was not delivered in a mining area.", said Saklatvala. He continued: "The Home Secretary pursued me from the first day of the Regulations, when I had spoken in Hyde Park, and I think the nearest coal mine was much further away from Hyde Park than from where Col. Leather spoke. Hundreds of persons who were arrested and tried, were not arrested and tried because they had spoken so many yards nearer or further away from a coal mine, but because they belonged to the working class movement and were against the coal owners; and whoever has spoken of bloodshed and riot and shooting, so long as he was a coal owner himself or in favour of the coal owners, is not tried under the Regulations. ... I want to draw his attention to the fact ... that his own colleague, the Minister of Labour, has delivered a speech which is not only contemptible but is criminal under the Regulations, in which he said, 'It is Cook's folly and cowardice that are ruining the miners.' Just imagine it. A member of the Cabinet, whose family has flourished on the starvation, under-payment and over-production of the miners, whose family has made money out of the blood of the miners, and are today crushing the miners that their future dividends may be higher than they ought to be under a just administration - that Minister has the audacity to refer to Cook as carrying on a policy of folly and cowardice. Cook is fighting as a hero against the family of the Minister of Labour, who is one of the worst inhuman exploiters, living on the blood-money and the sweat-money of the miners. ... What I want to point out is that Regulations of this sort...are quite handy weapons ... in the hands of one who has always shown himself to be a party man above everything else. I honour him for being so zealous a Member of his party; I do not blame him for it; but I suggest that it is this over-zealousness which induces him to ask for these regulations, rather than his impartial judgement on public peace and public affairs. ..." The speech is a long and powerful one. When it was all over, the Home Secretary, Sir W.Joynson-Hicks, felt constrained to say: "I feel that I should apologise to the House for being the unwitting cause of letting loose the torrent of eloquence which we have just heard from the hon. Gentleman. But he has, if I may say so, one point for which I admire him very much, and it is that he never loses his temper. He is always courteous in whatever he says." I think that this observation says much for the character of Saklatvala and also for the then Home Secretary, the one for being always courteous, the other for acknowledging it.
This was to be the last time the Home Secretary appealed to the House for an extension of the Emergency Powers because the miners were forced at last to capitulate to the coal owners, accepting longer working hours and reduced wages. There is a limit to everyone's endurance. The hardest thing for strikers to endure is the knowledge that their fight, however justfied and however much it may in the end benefit their families, is, in the short term, causing their wives and children to go short of food and warmth and clothing and is even putting their homes in jeopardy; it is all too easy for strikers to be starved into submission in any prolonged fight. The threat of starvation is just as much an act of terrorism as the threat of death by quicker and more direct means. It is nonsense for Governments all over the world to claim that they will not negotiate with terrorists - all Governments, both capitalist and communist, ARE themselves terrorists; for their ultimate sanction is force, wielded by the army or by the police or by the withholding of the means of livelihood. When they speak of 'deterrents' in law or by their standing armies, the deterrent is always the threat of violence, the instilling of fear, the instilling of terror. It is not only Governments but individuals too who exert their power over each other to induce their fellow-beings to conform to their standards - the parent threatens the child, the teacher threatens the pupil, the Manager threatens the worker, the law threatens the citizen, with some sort of punishment against non-conformity. It is inevitable. Terror is necessary to an orderly life - and a disorderly life is a terror in itself. But the hypocrisy in denying the use of terror is NOT inevitable and is shameful, as any hypocrisy must be.
For a man whose primary political function was the conduct of propaganda for his party, this all but total suppression of his meetings from May to November in 1926 was frustrating, both for Saklatvala himself as well as for the Communist Party whose cause his oratory normally served so ardently and effectively. This mutual irritation may well have been the spur for the Comintern to arrange for Saklatvala to visit India and to conduct Communist propaganda there. Whatever the immediate reason, Saklatvala sailed for India at the end of December 1926,arriving in January, 1927. The rapturous welcome he received from multitudes of the Indian people must have done much to assuage his recent frustrations in the U.K.; for the three-month tour could only be described as a great personal triumph for him, and of infiniite benefit to the Communist movement.