[WarInEur] How the British went to war II
sgminfo
sgminfo at aol.com
Wed May 2 11:25:04 EDT 2007
.
Poaching is only a symptom; before discussing the palliatives that might
have alleviated it, there will be advantage in considering the remedies
that might have made it disappear. One remedy would have been to bring
about, so far as might be possible, an increase in the total supply of
skilled workers. The most direct contribution of the Government towards
this end would have been a rapid expansion in the numbers of men passing
through its training centres This needs was more than once emphasised in
War Cabinet discussion. Nevertheless, as late as April 1940, the
training centres were still more than half empty and the Ministry of
Labour was still regarding them as institutions for the rehabilitation
of such unemployed workers as could be inveigled into them. It was not
until the summer crisis had produced a new Government and a new national
mood that the Ministry set itself strenuously to develop the training
centres as instruments, not of a peace-time social policy, but of a
war-time production policy.
It still remained true that the demand for skilled workers must be met
in the main from within industry itself. Employers, labour leaders and
the Government were all agreed upon the need for hastening the processes
of dilution and substitution of labour, whereby existing skills could be
spread more widely and new 'semi-skills' could be employed in mass
production technique. To achieve this end, it was necessary to persuade
the trade unions to accept a
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relaxation of the customary practices whereby they protected the
market value of the skills their members possessed. Thanks largely
to the benevolent intervention of the Ministry of Labour, a
Relaxation of Customs Agreement had been negotiated in August 1939
between the Amalgamated Engineering Union and the Engineering and
Allied Employers' National Federation. However, the Ministry of
Labour was cautious about taking positive steps to bring into active
operation this agreement and any others that might subsequently be
modelled upon it. The Ministry declared itself willing to intervene
if it were invited to do so;^11
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#fn11>
but it was unwilling to jeopardise its good relations with employers
or workers by thrusting itself forward into the affairs of industry.
It considered that, if any department had to thrust itself forward,
it was the Ministry of Supply, which ought to take responsibility
for all production problems inside factories. But the Ministry of
Supply refused to take the responsibility. The consequence was that
until May 1940 no government authority had been found willing to
shoulder the duty of administering a policy which the War Cabinet
had explicitly adopted. Yet it was a duty which some authority would
have to undertake, sooner or later; for the experience of the
previous war had proved that a dilution policy would not work with
speed or efficiency unless it were supervised by pertinacious labour
inspectors exercising right of entry into the factories.^12
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#fn12>
Skilled labour needed to be redistributed, not only between the
factories, but between geographical areas. Here again there were
disputes between the Ministries of Labour and Supply; here again in
consequence, government action was irresolute. The Ministry of
Supply and the other war production departments called upon the
Ministry of Labour to institute a vigorous policy of transfer, to
shift skilled workers not only from factory to factory but from
region to region; in short, to bring the men to the jobs. But the
Ministry of Labour called upon the war production departments to
bring the jobs to the men. It maintained that transfers of labour on
a large scale would prove to be unnecessary if only the production
departments would make a serious attempt to do two things:
first—though it was rather late in the day—to locate the maximum
number of new factories in areas where labour was surplus; and
secondly, to make all possible use of sub-contracting and
contract-spreading. The Ministry of Labour wanted the Ministry of
Supply to use its Area Boards to seek out the little firms which, it
believed, would be able to make available for war production not
only a lot of useful plant but also a large aggregate supply of
skilled labour.
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In principle, there was a good deal to be said for these
suggestions; but in practice there was no chance of making them
effective on such a scale and at such a speed as to do away with the
need for a vigorous labour transfer policy. For reasons whose
explanation lies outside the scope of this book, the Ministry of
Supply was slow in getting the Area Boards to work (not one of them
was working effectively when France fell) and was concentrating most
of its orders upon the larger firms; it had, moreover, located some
of its new factories in districts where labour was scarce. But even
if the Ministry of Supply, the Air Ministry and the Admiralty had
all been willing to do all the things the Ministry of Labour wanted,
there still would have been need for energetic redistribution of
skilled labour. To consider one example: no action that the
Admiralty could have taken would have altered the location of the
shipyards and the manpower problems of the shipbuilding industry.
This industry had been particularly hard-hit during the depression.
It needed a high proportion of skilled men and under normal
conditions it secured them through the apprenticeship system; but
during the lean years its inflow of apprentices had dwindled. In
consequence, the industry in 1939 had in its skilled labour force an
exceptionally large number of very recent entrants, men in the
younger age groups which, under the Schedule of Reserved
Occupations, were par excellence the source of supply for the
fighting services. And while it thus stood to lose too many of the
skilled men already at work in the yards, the men whom it would need
to put in their places—the older skilled workers who had left the
shipbuilding districts during the depression and had for the most
part secured remunerative employment in the building industry or
elsewhere—would not be easily recoverable. The Admiralty and the
shipbuilding firms hoped that the Ministry of Labour, after tracing
them through the Employment Exchanges, would help to get them back
by paying their travelling expenses and giving them subsistence
allowances. The Ministry of Labour refused to give this help; it
would do what it could by way of persuasion,^13
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#fn13>
but it said that the shipbuilding firms ought themselves to supply
the incentives for getting the men back and carry any exceptional
costs arising from the process, recouping themselves if they could
from the Admiralty. Perhaps the ministry was afraid that small
concessions, such as the payment of railway fares,^14
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#fn14>
might lead later on to large demands. If it committed itself even
mildly to a government-promoted scheme of labour transfer, and the
scheme broke
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down, it might find itself called upon to apply compulsion. Neither
the Ministry of Labour nor the War Cabinet was ready for that.
It was because private incentive and public policy were achieving
too scant success in increasing the supply and improving the
distribution of skilled labour that departments and firms began
their competitive scramble against each other. Poaching, it was said
earlier, is only a symptom of the deeper sickness of labour
shortage; but perhaps it would be better, if the medical metaphor is
retained, to label it a 'complication', and one hardly less
troublesome than the original disease. Poaching is a national danger
because it encourages the inflationary spiral and creates anarchical
conditions in the industrial labour force. If mobility of labour is
necessary in time of war, so also is stability; it is important that
workers should be got into the right places but it is also important
that they should thereafter stay put. In the war of 1914-18,
excessive labour turnover had been if anything an even greater
menace than insufficient mobility had been to industrial
productivity. Departments and firms had poached on their neighbours
labour supply by much-advertised enticements of higher earning,
special bonuses and concessions, special amenities in the factories
and any other inducements that could be thought of. This game of
snatch did not always delight even the successful players, for the
triumphant poacher of today was always afraid that he would tomorrow
be poached upon himself. The Ministry of Munitions had attempted to
cure the anarchy by its system of 'leaving certificates', which
curtailed the freedom of workmen to sell their labour to the highest
and most unscrupulous bidder; but the attempt broke down under
pressure from the resentful workmen.^15
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#fn15>
From this unhappy experience two contradictory lessons had been
deduced: poaching was so great an evil that it must be prevented:
prevention was so unpopular that its cost in labour troubles might
be prohibitive.
The nearer the Second World War approached, the more did the
Ministry of Labour emphasise the second danger. In the middle
nineteen-thirties it had seemed ready to sponsor a fairly drastic
Control of Employment Bill; but the bill it brought forward in
September 1939 was a much milder measure. The Minister asked
Parliament to give him power to forbid employers to advertise for
labour or engage it without official consent; but he explained that
the power would be used only in special cases on a clear
demonstration of need.Even these gentle protestations failed to
placate Labour M.P.s and the trade unions—although the latter had
been consulted in advance. The Control of Employment Act which
finally emerged from a stormy debate contained additional clauses
which prevented
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the Ministry from instituting the control in any industry until it
had set going a cumbrous mechanism of consultation, to be followed,
in all probability, by a frustrating sequence of individual
guarantees, appeals and awards of compensation.^16
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#fn16>
The Ministry of Labour issued only one order under the Control of
Employment Act. This order referred to certain occupations in the
building industry, where the anarchic struggle for labour in the
new, and very often remote aerodromes, camps and munitions factories
had been recognised even before the war as an evil that would have
to be dealt with. The scramble for skilled engineering labour in the
munitions industries was not effectively dealt with at this time.^17
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#fn17>
The competitors who were coming out worst in the scramble called
upon the Ministry of Labour to take action under the Control of
Employment Act; but the Ministry's answer was once again to call
upon the supply departments to iron out the discrepancies in their
terms of contract and to press ahead the sub-contracting,
contract-spreading and all the other measures for bringing work to
labour.
Underlying all these departmental hesitations was the deeply rooted
fear of stirring up labour troubles of the kind that had been so
dangerous during the First World War. That is why responsibility for
the really urgent problems of poaching and dilution of labour
transfer was often passed from one department to another and was in
the end, more often than not, refused by all. That is why the
Ministry of Labour, which was more closely in touch than any other
department with the temper of organised labour, so stubbornly
resisted every proposal that seemed to tend even indirectly and
remotely in the direction of industrial conscription. The Ministry,
in its efforts to understand and to influence industrial opinion and
feeling, maintained close contact with the National Joint Advisory
Council set up early in the war. In this Council was enshrined the
principle of consultation between Government, employers and trade
unions—an excellent principle, if only the consultation had produced
policies adequate to the nation's need. Of that there were few signs
prior to the critical summer of 1940.
Reflecting upon this first period of the war, the historian finds
himself oppressed by a feeling of lost opportunity. The training and
dilution of labour, for example: how much easier it should have been
to find the men and the time for those tasks in the early months of
military inaction and sluggish industrial expansion than in the
hectic months after Dunkirk, when the B.E.F. had lost all its
equipment in France and the R.A.F. was fighting sky battles with its
aircraft straight from
--149--
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the factories! Yet the tasks were shirked when they were easy and
tackled after they had become hard. So it would seem—but perhaps
there is something wrong with the implied definitions of difficulty
and opportunity? The consciousness of a million workers still
unemployed remained an incubus upon the will to undertake radical
action involving co-operation between organised labour, the
employers and Government. Problems that seemed easy so long as they
were stated merely in material terms proved too difficult for
solution when the will to attack them was still lacking. A few
months later Mr. Ernest Bevin, as Minister of Labour and National
Service in Mr. Churchill's Government of national unity, had the
opportunity to do things which his predecessor in the Chamberlain
Government, Mr. Ernest Brown, dared not attempt—if only for fear of
Mr. Ernest Bevin, the trade union leader. In that first period of
the war, Government and people were out of tune with each other, the
nation was divided within itself, men and women were divided within
their own minds. The nation did not as yet understand its own danger
and need.
To these simple reflections the historian finds himself continually
returning. If he were to attempt a purely economic interpretation of
British economic history in this decisive year, it would break down.
By May, when the new Government took office, the graphs of material
progress had already become more encouraging: this was important but
it was not the most important thing. It was the lifting up of hearts
among the people, the miracle of resurgent patriotism and the magic
of inspired leadership that made everything different.
The Ministry of Labour now took with both hands all the specific
responsibilities which hitherto it had been trying to fob off upon
other departments. And on 22nd May 1940 it received, by Act of
Parliament and by will of the people, the ultimate, all-embracing
power of industrial conscription. The Emergency Powers Act passed on
that day entrusted to the Government unrestricted power 'for
requiring persons to place themselves, their services and their
property at the disposal of His Majesty'.
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Contents
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/index.html#contents>
* Previous Chapter
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-4.html>
(IV) * Next Chapter
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-6.html>
(VI)
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Footnotes
^1
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn1>
In the case of the Army, men locally enlisted abroad are included
before December 1941.
^2
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn2>
Including merchant seamen serving on commissioned ships, formerly
merchant ships, prisoners of war and missing.
^3
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn3>
Net intake=gross intake minus gross outflow. Gross outflow='total'
casualties, i.e., dead, prisoners and missing (except for the Navy),
plus men discharged for unfitness, plus men returned to industry.
The men returned at the beginning of the war chiefly comprised
skilled men who had volunteered before January 1939, the month when
volunteering was subject to the Schedule of Reserved Occupations.
^4
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn4>
This figure includes recruits to the armed forces from Ireland, etc.
^5
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn5>
In the early months of the war these Groups were inaccurately called
'munitions', 'more essential' and 'less essential' industries.
^6
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn6>
See Table 2(b)
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-Stats-1.html#table2b>
of Statistical Summary on p. 78
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-Stats-1.html#page78>.
^7
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn7>
Commonly called the Humbert Wolfe Committee.
^8
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn8>
In June 1939, men born between 4th June 1918 and 3rd June 1919 had
been registered under the Military Training Act, passed in the
previous month: registrations of men in the other age-groups were
made after the war broke out under the National Service (Armed
Forces) Act, passed on 3rd September 1939. The substantial
contribution made to Service strength during the first year of war
by volunteers, anticipating their compulsory registration or
call-up, should not be forgotten.
^9
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn9>
See above, p. 61
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-2.html#page61>,
for a statement by a Ministry of Labour official to the Stamp Survey
and for the Survey's very critical comments.
^10
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn10>
The critical analysis of this bundle of problems falls within the
scope of Professor Postan's War Production History
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarProduction/index.html>.
^11
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn11>
M. of L. Circular of 6th October 1939.
^12
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn12>
In the previous war, the Munitions Labour Inspectorate had been
under the Ministry of Munitions.
^13
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn13>
A.M. of L. Circular of 9th October 1939 instructed the Employment
Exchanges to give priority to vacancies in work covered by priority
certificates for materials.
^14
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn14>
There were however one notable exception: namely, the agreement
negotiated in October 1939 between the Ministry, the employers and
the union, for the transfer of dock workers from port to port. The
Ministry agreed in advance fares and subsistence allowances.
^15
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn15>
See p. 27
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-1.html#page27>
above.
^16
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn16>
H. of C. Deb. Vol. 351. Cols. 507-530, 755-798, 907-916. See also 2
and 3 Geo. 6, c. 104.
^17
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-5.html#cn17>
For the effective policy initiated by the Undertakings (Restriction
on Engagement) Order of June 1940, see p. 305
<http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-12.html#page12>
below.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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