The Miners in Crisis and War

First published in 1961, The Miners in Crisis and War: A History of Miners’ Federation of Great Britain from 1930 Onwards tells the story of two sharply contrasting periods, of world crisis and of world war. The story begins with the Miners’ Federation fallen upon evil days, diminished in numbers, shorn of its former powers of national wage negotiation, divided in counsel and almost whelmed beneath the seismic waves of world economic crisis. Unemployment prevailed, greater than at any time before. The sudden collapse of the cabinet, the formation of the four-party coalition, and the rout of the Labour Party in 1931 shattered these hopes. The climb from the economic abyss of the early thirties is made against a sombre background of the spread of fascism and the approach of war. Then, during the war, the British coal industry and its workers encounter a series of rapid changes, both for better and for worse. The whole main purpose of their trade unions, to maintain and improve the standard of life, is conditioned by the six-year war to such an extent that all come to be merged in a single national union a few months before victory. Thus, in circumstances utterly unforeseen, the old Miners’ Federation, now once more built up in its numbers and in its powers comes to an end after an existence of fifty-five years. This book will be of interest to students of history, sociology, economics and political science.