Welsh Journals

THE STRIKE OF 1898 by L. J. WILLIAMS EVEN at the time it was clear that the miners' strike1 of 1898 marked a watershed in the development of industrial relations in South Wales. But it was not clear then, and has not since been made clear, exactly why and in what ways this struggle marked a turning-point. It is part of the purpose of this article to examine this question. The point that has usually been made2 is that the substantial defeat of the Welsh miners in this struggle induced them to end their long semi-organised separatism in union affairs and throw in their lot with the youthful Miners' Federation of Great Britain,3 and that this move thereby sealed the fate of the sliding scale as a means of regulating wages in the coal-field. This is true enough so far as it goes, but it does somewhat distort the sequence of events. After their defeat the miners rushed "as penitent Welshmen" to enter the fold of the M.F.G.B.: this desire to become associated with the larger body was, however, in part merely symbolic of the more fundamental change which had taken place-the determination to have a strong organised union in South Wales itself. Moreover it was not because the Welsh miners joined the M.F.G.B. that the sliding scale was doomed; it is truer to say that the Welsh miners emerged from 1 For much of its course the 1898 stoppage had elements of a lock-out rather than a strike but this distinction is not important for the present purpose. 2 R. Page Arnot, The Miners, Vol. 1, (1949), pp. 280-8; Clegg, Fox and Thompson, A History of British Trade Unions since 1889, Vol. 1, pp. 124-5 Ness Edwards, History of the South Wales Miners, Chap. 1. 3 Hereinafter referred to as M.F.G.B.