AJ Cook: the limitations of a

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'The greatest leader the miners ever had" is a judgement often passed — and passed by ordinary miners, on Arthur James Cook, secretary of the Miners Federation of Great Britain between 1924-31.

Cook is frequently bracketed with Larkin and Tom Mann as the very model of a socialist union leader. As the miners today face their greatest trial since 1926, it is important to look at the lessons of past struggles and the career of the man whose portrait in the Northumberland Miners Headquarters is rightly inscribed, "With never a thought of self he served the miners' cause."

Wookey, Somerset, is an unlikely birthplace for a militant workers' leader. But in his mid-teens, like many fellow Somerset farm labourers, Cook sought work in the expanding coalfield of the Rhondda Valley. South Wales was booming. A quarter of • a million miners toiled in its collieries, under conditions of the most ruthless exploitation.

During the forty years to 1914 production in the Welsh mines trebled. When Cook arrived at the turn of the century, workers pouring into the mining districts lived in overcrowded shanty housing, in poverty, malnutrition and disease. Confronted by the powerful mining combines, trade unionism was - in the words of one militant -just emerging from 'the bow and arrow stage' In competition with company unions, , the South Wales Miners Federation was established in 1898. Soon it contained three-quarters of the workforce. But its leaders were old fashioned Lib-Lab men, they held back the young proletariat. Lib-Labism was personified in Wales by an infamous scoundrel named William Abraham.

'Mabon' as he was known, commanded at the height of his career £700 per annum at a time when Cook and his working miner comrades earned around John Mcllroy £100. He was also a direcand landlord. Small wonder tor, company shareholder that. George Askwith, the government conciliator.

could comment: official leaders could maintain their authority. Often there was more difference between the men and their leaders than between the latter and the employers.

Like many other colliers, Cook's main concern before 1905 was religion. Disillusioned with its inability to change the atrocious social conditions, he joined the Independent Labour Party and for the first time became active in the union.

The spectre now haunting the valleys was the spectre of syndicalism. Violent struggles erupted, such as the eleven month long Cambrian Combine Strike in 1910-11 when the troops at Tonypandy shot down strikers. The 1912 national struggle for minimum wage was the biggest single strike the British Isles had yet seen. The influence of syndicalism increased.

The Marxist Plebs League had been established after the students of Ruskin, the trade union college in Oxford, revolted in 1909 and established a Marxist education movement. Soon it was running classes in South Wales, where its most vigorous supporter was Noah Ablett.

and trade union history, Cook lectured on economics spending some time in 1911 at the Cadre Central Labour College in London.

The conflict between ranks and leaders produced in 1912 the miners' Unofficial Reform Committee of which Cook was a staunch supporter and which published the famous pamphlet — The Miners' Next Step.

This pamphlet expounded the leading syndicalist ideas of this period when South Wales was in the cockpit of class struggle. It called for a minimum wage, a seven hour day and a policy of remorseless struggle against the employers. The Miners Federation was to be transformed into an industrial union which would eventually bleed the masters, and itself take over the running of the industry.

The pamphlet, analysing graphically the weaknesses carding the idea of leadership itself. It put forward no idea of political leadership: the democratised industrial union was sufficient to overturn capitalism and build socialism.

Cook, who spent two decades underground, was finally shaped and formed in these years fighting in the van of intense class battles. And that formation, with all its strengths and all its inadequacies, was to endure.

The war failed to still the struggle. Cook was involved in numerous disputes and he helped found the Sivialist Society of Wales. FeE lovember 1910 he ==5 =05% = Vii Dise = 6 500 2 0 51 DEA Roe be Dear 25 2 00 30%5 ÷÷ 1 20E: **2.2 5 TE E SE 006: 35E s D.C259 A founder member of the Communist Party he was chosen in 1921 as the South Wales delegate for the MFGB Executive.

But Cook's lack of any deep political foundation now began to show. When the Triple Alliance collapsed on Black Friday, 1921, the miners were left to fight alone. Cook and Ablett recommended a settlement which the members threw ganda and to organise. out. They were criticised by the Communist Party.

Cook resignea, claiming that he had 'no major differences" with the Party policy. He continued organise into the TUC to work in the CP-led trade Moreover, the miners had union rank and file Minor- the illusion that the General ity Movement and as late as Council would back them to 1925 he described himself the hilt. In short, Cook as 'a humble follower of had no strategy. Lenin'. • But his grasp of Lenin was limited.

1926 General Strike, the In the next two years TUC were looking for a way Cook toiled tirelessly to out. Cook relied on diplorevive militancy and macy at the top of the TUC, regroup in the 'back to rather than taking a fight the Unions" campaign.

against them to the ranks.

When, in 1924, Frank Indeed before the TUC Hodges. the Miners' betrayal, he privately Federation secretary, stated that concessions in resigned to enter Parlia- the form of wage reductions Eer: Cook narrowly would have to be made to beezed Ablet for the the bosses.

S:= Wales nomination Site National miners chair, Herbert Smith. represented better !: == ize of 4i be mas than Cook the intransi. == =i5: azerful union gence of the rank and file side = ÷= 5xcD. His Cook had inspired. "If it be were not for the mule-like Smitha 4 J. Cook erber obstinacy of Herbert ===== jezzaded a • = Lice seas settle on ant terms"

Beatrice Webb commenmates price mee ted. The cabinet secretary, Thomas Jones believed tha: Coot would accep reducions but 'Smith had the dat his feet on Coot's neck"

In July 1926 the miners' executive, now deserted by the TUC and fighting on alone, accepted proposals from a group of Bishops to return to work. Several area executives immediately condemned this as undemocratic, lacking the required conference authority. The special conference called for a district vote and sharply criticised the executive who lost the consequent ballot.

The ranks were more determined than their leaders.

In July 1926 Cook was again involved in secret negotiations for a return to work with a group of Liberals and actually signed a memorandum of agreement for which he was later rebuked by the executive. As the Times said on Cook's death, 'The public speeches for the most part showed an inflexible resolve to fight it to the end, but in secret he was accessible to mediation."

He was also not prepared to fight the General Council to the end. Left and right, they were not even prepared to levy affiliates for the miners, let alone black coal imports. Cook Troops in Liverpool, 1911 did criticise these misOn Red Friday 1925, the leaders for their sell-out in government backed down his pamphlet "Nine Days" from a head-on clash with He then agreed to withdraw the miners. There was to be the pamphlet and backed a subsidy to the coalowners Citrine and Thomas to stop for nine months to enable an inquiry into the role of them to maintain the wage the General Council in May. Instead of strengthstatus quo. It was clearly a tactical withdrawal to gain ening and crystalising the time - a pause before widespread bitterness in battle. The Tories and the the rank and file over the owners used every second General Council's behavof the time to make propa- iour, Cook at the September Congress stuck to the Cook's fighting oratory agreement made with inspired the rank and file. Citrine and stood out But the TUC did nothing against the militants. and the miners failed to As the coalowners and take the fight to prepare to the Tories progressively worsened the terms of surrender from wage cuts to extended hours, to district agreements, the miners remained firm, voting down proposals in both From the start of the October and November 1926 before being driven back to work. As the Times obituary again remarked about 'Not a penny off the day...' 'Cook himself had abandoned the slogan but it swayed the miners to the last."

By the end of 1926 Cook was burnt out. He had The Broad Now the moderate Lefts they are and they must become Socialist Organiser 35 p 35p plus postage from Socialist Organiser, c/o 214 Sickert Court London N1 2SY.

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Socialist Organiser no.172 March 29 1984 Page 9

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of the miners' leadership, ended denouncing and dis-