Welsh Journals

"An Able Administrator of Capitalism"? The Labour Party in the Rhondda, 1917-1921* Chris Williams Stuart Macintyre alleged, in his "A Proletarian Science" that "ideology practised in a material form within working-class communities remains largely unexplored."1 Certainly, there are few investigations of the ideology predominant this century amongst the British working class: that expressed in electoral support for the Labour Party. In terms of South Wales, little is known about the hegemonic politics of the coalfield, as developed and maintained in particular valleys and constituencies. Detailed study of the grass-roots Labour politics of that exemplar of social and industrial volatility, the Rhondda, might therefore begin to fill a gap in our historical comprehension. The limited purpose of this paper is to provide a snapshot of Rhondda's Labour politics during the years 1917-1921, a period of exciting political and industrial change in Britain and in Europe. Starting with the unexpected example of the Russian Revolutions, and ending with the defeat of the miners and the decontrol of the coal industry, these years have been viewed as a unique period of insurgent possibility: when the expectations of workers were expanding; when direct action was the weapon of the day; and when the British establishment was confusedly searching for a return to "normalcy".2 It might be expected, given the pre-war turbulence of Rhondda's industrial history, and given the leading role taken by British miners in pressing for nationalisation, in fighting against decontrol of the mines, that the Labour Party in the Rhondda would have been on a corresponding and complementary political crusade to transform the "capitalist Jericho" into the socialist "New Jerusalem". Initially it is necessary to realise the degree to which the Rhondda Labour Party, an organisation in little more than name, was dominated by the miners.4 The salaries of Rhondda's M.P.'s were paid by the Rhondda No.l District of the South Wales Miners' Federation, (the "Fed"), which also provided, from its Labour Representa- tion Fund, grants for each Trades and Labour Council, (T.L.C.), or supporting body that had a public representative, (a District Councillor, County Councillor, or Guardian), to maintain, providing that representative was a member of the "Fed" within the No.l District. There were T.L.C.'s, dominated by miners' delegates, in most of the Rhondda's local government Wards, but in No. 10 Ward, which included Ferndale and Mardy, there it was the two miners' lodges that supported Labour's public representatives.6 It was not to be until 1923 that the whole system was reorganised, and affiliation fees paid to a newly constituted Rhondda Borough Labour Party, which could then enforce the correct forms of Divisional and Ward organisation.7 Until that date the actions of Labour's public representatives were controlled by the Rhondda No.1 District itself. 8