ERNEST BEVIN

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 62, Issue 4429, 23 May 1941, Page 7

ERNEST BEVIN

f MINISTER WITH A MASTER 5 BRAIN. • TREMENDOUS ENERGY. (By Allan A. Michie, in the Readers’ Digest.) One morning in May, a few days after the Churchill - Labour Government took office, the bearlike figure of Ernest Bevin, newly appointed Minister of Labour and National Service, litmbered through the sacred portals of the Treasury. ■J “Here comes Ernie,” said one Treasury guard to another. “I’ll wager that in two minutes he’ll get another £10,000,000 out of Sir Kingsley Wood.” A personal call by one member of the Cabinet on another simply wasn’t done in the old red-tape days of office memos and official requisitions. But the spectacle of burly Ernest Bevin, the leader of British Labour and secretary of the country’s largest trade union (Transport and General Workers), barging into the office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was * more than an indication that a new government had taken over Britain’s war effort at a critical' moment. It was symbolic of the beginning of a new era of British history. “A PEACEFUL REVOLUTION.” The determination of Chamberlain and associates to fight the World Wai over again had almost brought Britain to defeat. At the eleventh hour a democratic people rebelled at the which was leading them to destruction. Their rebellion did not stop with a new line-up around the Cabinet table at 10 Downing Street Almost imperceptibly it produced a peaceful revolution which by June had swept the country. Social standcards by which Britons had measured each other for generations became insignificant in the face of an enemy only 20 miles from England’s shores. Britain’s under-paid factory workers became the most important people in the country, and the whole nation prayed that their hands could produce in time the war material needed to re-arm the army back from Dunkirk. Overalls became the nation’s battledress. City stockbrokers and middleclass housewives went into the munition factories to give the workers a week-end rest. The schoolboys of Eton volunteered to do manual labour in aircraft factories. And Ernest Bevin—a self-educated trade unionist whose formal schooling had stopped at the age of 11 symbolises more than any other member of the Government these revolutionary social changes. GREAT POWERS CONFESSED. After the terrific material losses of

the retreat from Flanders, the British people gave powers to Bevin never before given to any man in a democratic government. He was made controlling director of Britain’s industry and dictator of every worker, male and female, in the nation. He has the power to walk into any London club and ask any member, “Just what are you doing to win the war?” If the answer is not satisfactory, he can say, “Report to your local employment exchange to-morrow morning at seven for a pick-and-shovel job on the Hyde Park trenches.” Bevin has not let the British people down. In the five months since the fall of France he has pleaded, bullied and blustered his way through official red tape and industrial bottlenecks until to-day British factory production has reached 99 per cent, of its capacity. Being charged with readying the British Isles with adequate war material in an incredibly short time meant a terrific sacrifice for Bevin. He had to enforce decrees wiping out advantages which he, as a trade unionist, had struggled for since the turn of the century. “FOR THE DURATION.” The ceaseless fighter for the 40hour week had to ask fellow-work-man, whom he still calls his “mates,” to carry on at their machines seven days a week. It is an indication of Bevin’s popularity with the workers that all he had to do was ask. His pet scheme, paid holidays for all workers, had to be abandoned as he asked war workers tb postpone all vacations until the crisis had passed. An ardent trade unionist, he made the great concession of opening unionised factories to unskilled labour. He who had organised the General Strike of 1926 was now called upon to bar all strikes over wages while the war is on. Having asked these sacrifices from Labour, he told employers that there could be no wage-cutting for the duration. As a young man, Bevin was persuaded by trade union cronies in Bristol to stand for an election to the city council against a burly longshoreman. Driving a cart for a ginger-beer firm, young Bevin one night came upon his opponent making a speech. “Bevin’s no damn good!” the longshoreman was shouting. Bevin, who ‘even then had the build of a beer barrel, shoved through the crowd and, without a word, picked his opponent up and tossed him in the river. He lost the election, but ever since then Bevin has gone on the theory that the best way to tackle a job is by direct action. DIRECT ACTION. Old-time civil servants are still somewhat horrified by the direct action which Bevin has introduced for the necessary colaboration with the Ministries of Supply and Aircraft Production. Every morning Bevin picks up the telephone, calls Herbert

Morrison direct, and the two of them go down the list of “musts” for the day until every point is cleared up. And any time of the day or night Lord Beaverbrook will get Bevin on the phone: “Ernie, I must have 10 scientific instrument makers this afternoon.” Bevin himself telephones the labour exchanges until the men have been found.

Born in 1880 in a country hamlet, Bevin lost both his parents when he was eight. At 11 he got a job on a farm at sixpence a week. The old farmer was troubled with poor eyesight, so every night young Bevin squatted by the kitchen fire and read aloud newspaper accounts of the proceedings in Parliament. Almost 50 years later, when Bevin took his seat in the Commons as M.P. for a London district, his colleagues marvelled at his knowledge of Parliamentary procedure. While doing odd jobs in Bristol—page boy for a restaurant, van man, tramcar conductor he studied on Saturday afternoons ai Bristol’s famed Adult School. He read omnivorously every book bn economics and sociology he could get his hands on. It was while driving his gingerbeer cart that he made the acquaintance of Ben Tillet, now the grand old man of British Labour. Tillet, a product of Bristol’s slums, was then head of the Dockers’ Union. He took a fancy to the sturdy lad and admired the forthright way in which he expressed himself on political matters. At Tillet’s recommendation Bevin was made a minor official of the Dockers’ Union. It was an unpaid job and Bevin says he often had to steal his food while walking the streets looking for work. “THE DOCKERS’ K.C.” Just before the World War, Bevin assisted Tillet in forming the National Transport Workers’ Federation, and became its salaried national organiser. In 1920, when British workers were striving to make their meagre wages stretch over post-war inflationary prices, a Government court of inquiry was set up to decide the claims of London dock workers for 16s per day and a 44-hour week. Bevin argued the dockers’ case against a smooth K.C., ending with an 11-hour plea for the right of British labour to enjoy a higher standard of living. He not only won the wage increase but several additional advantages. The newspapers lauded Bevin as “the dockers’ K.C.” But Bevin already had his eye on bigger things. “I’m not the dockers’ K.C.,” he said. “I am Ernest Bevin, P.C. — Council for the Proletariat!” The kudos which came to Bevin after his success established him as the first trade unionist in the country, and in 1922 he was elected general secretary of the huge new Transport and General Workers’ Union—a post which he held continuously until he joined the Cabinet. In addition, Bevin is directing brain of the Trades Union Congress (5,800,000 members), the body which

formulates the main policies of British trade unionism. As such, he is No. 1 man of the Labour Party. Bevin has been careful in the use of his power. Strikes were never called for political ends. And once the majority decides, he sticks to the decision as the law. CROSSING SWORDS. The careers of Winston Churchill and Ernest Bevin have often crossed, but the two men have seldom been in agreement. It was during the General Strike of 1926 that they had their first direct clash. Churchill was at the Treasury; Bevin was directing the strike. Churchill prevailed upon the Cabinet to issue an ultimatum which ended the strike, but only after Bevin had declared hotly: “It will be a godsend for this country if Mr Churchill is out of office for ever.” But political differences did not lead to personal bitterness. The Prime Minister has long considered Ernest Bevin the ablest figure in British industry. And since Bevin joined Churchill’s Cabinet he has given the Prime Minister his stamp of approval: he calls him “mate.” “WORK LIKE HELL.” Bevin held his tongue against the Chamberlain Government from the start of the war until the spring of 1940. Then on May Day he declared his conviction that Chamberlain had to go: “The British working class want this w!ar won. They know their liberty is at stake.” His acceptance speech as Minister of Labour and National Service was straight from the shoulder: “I hope the War Cabinet will not allow vested interests, profits or anything else to stand in the way of maximum production. If that is the policy of the Government, I will ask my people to work like hell.” As usual Bevin set the example. “Ernie works at home until midnight, but if he sleeps later than 4.30 in the morning he thinks he has wasted half a day,” says Mrs Bevin. In the morning the Minister works at home until nine, gets to the office at 9.30, and seldom leaves for home again until nine in the evening, his arms piled with work. “LIFE IS ERNEST.” Black-coated civil servants who have coasted along under successive political misfits in the Ministerial chair are now groaning, “The Ministry of Labour is no longer a Government office—it’s a foundry!” Fav ourite quip in the corridors is, “Life is grim: Life is Ernest.” Bevin lives a deliberately simple life in an old-fashioned flat. He hates .all social functions and his greatest delight is to have some of his mates drop in for a cold English supper on Sunday nights. His speech is as simple as his life. He has .three times refused a peerage. “I’d look silly with a peerage,” he snorts. “I’d have to call myself Lord Bevin of Bermondsey.” Underneath Bevin’s rough exterior is a rich vein of humour. One summer while touring the battlefield of Waterloo he stood admiring the monument, which is surmounted by a British lion facing towards France An American tripper cracked, “Why don’t they face this lion toward Germany ? ” “My dear sir,” came back Bevin, “as a student of recent history, don’t you think they should mount the lion on a swivel?” HIS DESTINY. The dingy offices of the Ministry of Labour have long been regarded as the cemetery of political hopes. Not for Ernie Bevin. Britain’s Colonel Blimps are already complaining: “He’s going to be dangerous if he gets any more popular.” His friends predict that he will be Prime Minister after the war is over. Not before; both he and his backers have too much confidence in Mr Churchill’s directing ability.