1900 - 1928: The TUC is consulted
by Ministers and begins to

take part in public
administration

A set second phase in the develop-
ment of the Trades Union Congress
really begins with the crippling House of
Lords Taff Vale decision in 1901 and ends:
with the General Strike in 1926.

During the early years of the century
the TUC was still anxious to influence the
Government with a view to protecting
trade unions and the individual worker.
The most important success at that time
was the passing into law of the Trade
Disputes Bill — “the main Charter of
Trade Unionism.”’ In the following years,
the T.U.C. began to be called into con-
sultation by Cabinet Ministers about
provecied government legislation. The

.C. was consulted by Winston
een about the establishment of a
system of Labour Exchanges, and by
Lloyd George about his scheme for social
insurance. And the T.U.C. was not only
consulted; it was also invited to par-
ticipate in the administration of
government by nominating men to help
operate both these schemes.

But alongside these developments in
the T.U.C.’s functions there also
developed in the trade union. Movement,
during the middle years of this period,
the growth of the challenging syndicalist
idea that it could be the destined eventual
role of trade unions (and of the T.U.C. or
some alternative leadership) to take over
and embody in themselves the key

- political powers of government. The
success of national strikes before the
First World War, and the rise of the shop
stewards’ movement during it, seemed

at first to lend some substance to this _

shadowy vision of ultimate workers’ con-
trol of both industry and the State.

Back in 1901, however, the urgent need
for legislation to reverse the Taff Vale
Judgement and its brutal threat to trade
union funds seemed to many trade
unionists to demand above all the im-
mediate formation and support of an
independent political party, representing
the interests of the whole working class
movement, whose elected Members of
Parliament would spur on the House of
Commons to pass this crucial piece of
legislation.

Such a party had been advocated by
Keir Hardie on his first appearance at a
Trades Union Congress, in 1887. Six years
later, the project received a resounding
boost from Sidney Webb and Bernard
Shaw who, in an historia article, ‘‘To
your tents, O Israel,’’ argued that trade
unionists would never get things done

through the Liberal Members of Parlia- ©

ment, whom they were at this time
supporting, since the Liberal Govern-
ment had proved itself unwilling to meet
the fair claims and grievances even of its
own employees.

But it took the menacing potentialities

of the Taff Vale Judgement to persuade
the trade unions to accord to this idea,
and to its current incarnation, the
“Labour Representation Committee,”
some measure of active support.

In fact, the L.R.C. had itself stemmed
from the persistently frustrating Parlia-
mentary situation, which had been des-
cribed thus to the 1899 Congress by the
Parliamentary Committee: — ‘Your
Committee again wish to point out that
with the present mode of procedure of the
House of Commons it is almost impossi-
ble to get any useful Bill through the
House, unless the Government allow it to
pass by withdrawing its opposition; and,
in their opinion, if any remedy is to be
effected, it must be done by the working
class at the polls.”

At the 1906 general election, the work-
ing classes at the polls gave the House of
Commons a refreshingly new look. Com-
mittee M.P.’s together with Members
sponsored by the Parliamentary Com-
mittee, were able to apply enough pres-
sure to induce the Liberal Government to
base its Trade Disputes Bill on the princi-
ples which the Parliamentary Com-
mittee of the T.U.C. had itself laid down,
for the purpose of reversing the situation
arising out of the Taff Vale Judgement.

Even during the difficult last months of
the previous Conservative government
the Parliamentary Committee had pro-
moted — and intensively lobbied M.P.s
for — a whole series of “‘useful Bills,”
dealing with such things as workmen’s
compensation, traffic regulations,
compulsory weighing where workers
were paid by the ton, and ‘‘textile wor-

~ kers” weekend holidays. But the Trades

Disputes Act of 1906 was the Parlia-
mentary Committee’s culminating
achievement at this time.

The drafting and promotion of these
Bills involved a great deal of work for the
Parliamentary Committee’s legal ad-
viser, Mr. Edmond Browne, who had
been appointed in 1900; and particularly
for the Secretary of the T.U.C. and his

one clerk. So much so that, in 1904, when

Sam Woods of the Miners’ Federation
(who had been elected Secretary of the
T.U.C. annually in each of the previous 10
years) was forced to resign through ill-
health and was succeeded by W. C.
Steadman of the Barge Builders’ Union,
Congress at last took the view that the
post of Secretary should be both a per-
manent and a full-time one.

With this re-inforced support behind
them, the L.R.C. M.P.’s and those spon-
sored by the Parliamentary Committee,
now all known as ‘‘The Labour Party”’
were able between 1906 and 1911 to press
the Liberal Government to pass several
Acts dealing with subjects which had