8. The Great Unrest¶
Core Argument¶
The imperialist epoch, with its intensified rivalry for colonies and markets, had by 1913 placed 86 per cent of colonial territory under the control of six Great Powers, who extracted vast tribute and raw materials. In Britain, this system produced an increasingly stark class polarisation. Chiozza Money’s 1905 study categorised 38 million of 43 million people as poor, while real wages fell by 4 per cent between 1896 and 1910—or possibly 10 per cent between 1900 and 1912—even as profits and interest rose by 55 per cent between 1899 and 1913. This economic squeeze drove an explosive wave of labour militancy.
From 1910, strikes erupted across Britain and Ireland. The South Wales Cambrian strike, lasting from November 1910 to August 1911, saw miners demand a minimum wage; a miner was shot dead by troops sent by Home Secretary Winston Churchill. The Liverpool transport strike of 1911 assumed general strike proportions, prompting the government to deploy warships and 7,000 troops. A national rail strike involving 200,000 workers saw troops kill strikers in Liverpool and Llanelli. The 1912 national miners’ strike, involving nearly one million workers, forced a Minimum Wage Bill. The 1913 Dublin lockout, led by James Connolly and Jim Larkin, saw 25,000 workers locked out; police killed two and wounded 400. In response, workers formed the Irish Citizen Army, the world’s first Red Army, to defend themselves from employers and state violence. Trade union membership rose from 2.5 million in 1910 to 4 million by 1914, and working days lost in strikes exceeded 10 million annually.
The Dublin lockout shook British labour. The Co-operative movement sent food, and the TUC voted £5,000, but rejected James Larkin’s call for sympathetic strike action, failing to translate sympathy into a boycott of Irish trade. Workers were starved back to work by February 1914, though the union remained intact. The Irish Trade Union Congress subsequently adopted the view that labour unrest could only be ended by abolishing capitalism. Syndicalism gained influence, rejecting class collaboration, parliamentary action, and official leadership—as articulated in The Miners’ Next Step (1911)—though its weakness was a lack of understanding of the party’s role in conquering political power. The Triple Alliance of miners, railworkers, and transport unions embraced 1.5 million workers. By summer 1914, Britain faced intertwined labour and Irish insurrections; Lloyd George described the situation as the gravest for centuries. The outbreak of world war cut across this impending social explosion.