The Miners and Nationalisation, 1931–36

Bibliographic Data

ID9967701
AuthorsAndrew J Taylor (0000-0001-7309-6347, corresponding author)
Year1983
Volume28
Issue2
Pages176-199
Publication date1983-08-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Review of Social History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-8590 • E-ISSN: 1469-512X
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0020859000007628
OpenAlexW2052866068
LanguageEN
References cited8

For nearly one hundred years miners and nationalisation have been synonymous. The miners supported a nationalisation resolution at the 1892 Trades Union Congress, and in 1893 Keir Hardie presented a brief bill to the House of Commons. This abortive excercise was repeated in 1907 and 1913. The 1914–18 war marks the demise of that form of nationalisation which sought to place the mines under a Government Department. The pre-1914 industrial unrest and the experience of the war radicalised the miners' conception of nationalisation. The ideas of The Miners' Next Step , of the debates within the Miners' Federation of Great Britain after 1906 and of Guild Socialism permeated official MFGB thinking on nationalisation. By 1919 and the Sankey Commission the MFGB was committed to a model of nationalisation which placed considerable emphasis upon workers' control. This model had two aims: first, to emancipate the coal industry from the wasteful exploitation of the coal-owners; and second, to emancipate the miner as a worker from his bondage. The present paper seeks to answer the question: why was this model of nationalisation abandoned by the MFGB in favour of the technocratic model of nationalisation formulated by Herbert Morrison

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