Poplar: a Council That Defied the

Scan page 5

ment by a scheme to improve Labour councillors was to show roads and sewers with a govern- that they • could administer ment grant. The grant was capitalism more efficiently than refused but the scheme went the Tories. The right wing ahead. claimed that Poplar's irresponWages were not cut. In fact sible and extremist attitude Poplar established equal pay for would lose votes.

PART From 1919 to 1925 the Labour council of Poplar in East London defied government pressure and refused to carry out cuts in services, jobs and wages.

In spite of being sent to jail for six weeks, and surcharged the equivalent of £2 million at today's prices, the council was almost totally victorious.

Noreen Branson's. book is therefore of great relevance when many of the same problems face councils under attack from the Tories at present.

How did Poplar achieve so much? And what are the lessons for us today?

Poplarism answers some of these questions and suggests where further research and discussion is needed.

Firstly Noreen Branson correctly stresses the political history and roots of the councillors in the Poplar labour movement. Almost all of them had a central involvement in the building of trade unions in the borough, particularly on the docks and railways.

Many had been members of Marxist organisations such as the Social Democratic Federation and had opposed the First World War.

Mass response

Others had been leaders of the Suffragette movement and of the struggle against British intervention in Russia after the So when the counciliors gave a lead and fought for their proposals in the labour movement they received a mass response and there was a confidence that they would stick to their decisions.

The councillors always started from the needs of the working class. The way in which the cost of the economic crisis was imposed on the working class in the 1920s was naturally different from today.

For instance, unlike present social security payments which are nationally administered, poor law relief payments were the responsibility of local authorities.

This meant that working class areas which bore the brunt of unemployment had to make the highest poor law payments, and had the lowest rateable value on which to do it.

The "viable alternatives" were to cut the rate of poor law relief, to cut services, to massively increase rates, or to cut the wages of counci employees.

The Poplar Council rejected all these alternatives. They increased the rates of poor ielief above the levels in surrounding boroughs and held them there even when average wages declined.

No cuts At one stage they even fixed scales higher than those demanded by Wal Hannington's National Unemployed Workers Movement-although this may have been a tactical mistake. Even after the government issued a maximum scale it was still defied for four years.

Poplar did not cut services. Indeed new services were started. New baths were opened. Free milk for expectant mothers was given. A house-building programme was started. And the council tried to ease unemploywomen (meaning a 70% rise for POPLAR CHING TO THE AND PO CaRLY TO councillors march to the some) and a minimum rate which was soon well above other local wages.

Finally they cut rates. On top of their own local rates, local authorities in London also had to raise a police rate which went to the Metropolitan Police and a county rate which went to the London County Council for services centrally provided for the whole of London.

As a protest against the refusal of ministers to consider special assistance • to poor boroughs, the Poplar Council declared it would refuse to raise the rates for the police or county.

Every one of these measures was met with disbelief and then hysteria by the Tory press. The attitude of the Labour Party rist wing led by Herbert Morrison was hardly more friendly.

All sides were convinced that the only result of Poplar's actions would be that Poplar ratepayers would have to pay up in the end for the council's overspending and pay huge legal expenses as well.

More efficient In Morrison's view the job of In fact the opposite was the SON RATES High Court, July 1921 case. Popiar was the only London borough where Labour's vote went consistently upwards.

The government and the press saw Poplar withholding rates as just a stunt. But when they began legal proceedings they discovered that far from suggesting a compromise, the Councillors began to muster the support of the trade unions, the tenants, and the unemployed for a struggle.

The LCC were invited to send in auditors to sell off the council's assets. But they couldn't see much use for a fleet of outdated dustcarts, bath houses, etc. So they obtained a court order for the councillors to pay the rate, and they were held guilty of contempt of court when they were unable to pay.

25 men were sent to Brixton and five women to Holloway for an indefinite period.

Some of the arrests were only made with difficulty. Minnie Lansbury was chairman of the War Pensions Committee. For days the streets around her home were patrolled by exservicemen.

Eventually the Sheriff had to make an appointment to arrest her and the four other women councillors at the Town Hall. Naturally a crowd of 10,000 gathered outside.

Only after a speech in which they called for calm and for the preparation of a rent strike if outside attempts were made to levy the rates was the sheriff allowed to drive them away, still accompanied by the demonstration all down the Mile End Road.

While they were in prison demonstrations continued. The largest was organised by the National Unemployed Workers Movement. 40,000 people fought a pitched battle with police after being refused permission to enter Trafalgar Square.

One result of this pressure was that conditions for the prisoners were steadily improved.

On the grounds that they were political prisoners the councillors demanded they should be let off prison work. The authorities eventually gave into this.

Formal meetings

The male councillors won the right to meet together daily and to have daily visits from the town clerk and later the acting mayor. They started having formal meetings each day-with minutes which were eventually incorporated in the counci minutes.

George Lansbury won the right to continue writing for the Daily Herald of which he was editor. The biggest concession was the release of Nellie Cressall who was seven months pregnant at the time of her arrest.

After massive pressure the mysterious official solicitor Lansbury leaves the Law Courts-1922 intervened to order her release (and promptly went to sleep for another fifty years). She refused to leave Holloway without the others but was forcibly removed.

Herbert Morrison meanwhile applied pressure on them to compromise. He suggested that d conterence of London boroughs should be held to draw up proposals and that Poplar should be allowed to send a small delegation from prison.

Lansbury and the others totally rejected this as it would méan negotiating from a position of weakness. They demanded release first and negotiations afterwards. Their firm position was rewarded by the decision of Stepney and Bethnal Green councils to follow their lead and withhold the LCC rates!

policies Socialist Press pamphlet outlining programme of action against the Tory offensive.

Price from 450 including PS21 London WCIN 3XX. published by Lawrence and Wishart.

Faced with a growing breakdown of local government and mass demonstrations the determination of the government collapsed. All the councillors were released without conditions or promises so that a settlement could be negotiated.

The settlement was that the cost of poor relief should be paid out of common pool to which boroughs would pay in proportion to their rateable value.

Poplar gained far more than the value of the rates it had been withholding, so that its rates could be kept at the same low level in succeeding years as well.

The only condition was that payments from the pool would be on the basis of a scale of relief decided by the Minister of Health. This set the scene for future conflicts.

Scan page 6

SOCIALI

----- pull-quotes -----

BOROUGH COUNCIL POPLAR HIGH COURT $450 PRISON ATELU

IEQUALNECURE POOR BOHUS