Rent Strikes: Clydeside &

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Ernie Stubbins takes a look at the historical experiences of the working class in fighting the imposition of rent increases. He begins this week with, Clydeside and Leeds. Next week, The First World War led to a massive increase in the demand for shipbuilders and munitions workers especially in the Clyde Valley region where these industries were traditionally centred.

Naturally a great influx of workers into the area meant that , a shortage of housing developed, and local landlords and estate agents were quick to take advantage of this by raising rent levels.

Resentment to these increases was widespread, but the success of the campaign depended on an initial local breakthrough showing that the workers could beat the landlords by their organisation and strength.

The breakthrough came in the Govan area, where it was led by Mrs Barbour, who was described by Willie Gallacher as 'an ordinary Govan housewife'.

Trained

In fact, as John Maclean makes clear in his articles written after the Rent Strike Mrs Barbour had been trained as a public speaker and organiser by Henry McBride, the secretary of the Labour Party Housing Committee, which had been active in the Clydeside region for some ten years, fighting for improved conditions and for the provision of council housing for the working class.

In the Govan area, Barbour and McBride organised a successful rent strike, persuading many working class households to refuse to pay the increases.

At this stage the landlords involved backed down and withdrew the increases. However, the Govan victory caused widespread interest among the workers, and soon similar rent strikes were breaking out all over Clydeside.

Two factors John Maclean makes it clear that there were two important factors in the successful spread of the rent strikes throughout the Clydeside region.

The first of these was a campaign of factory gate meetings called by the various left groups in the area, reporting the success of the Govan action and explaining its tactics.

The second factor was the strength of the Women's Housing Committee in involving large numbers of working class women in the physical defence of their homes against the bailiffs and the police during the course of the strike.

In the early stages of the campaign the workers brought pressure on the local council to use its powers to reduce rent levels, but this had no effect on the Glasgow bourgeoisie.

Legal tactic

Meanwhile the landlords, having failed to recover possession of the rent-struck dwellings found a new legal tactic.

They applied to the Courts for writs to have the striking workers' wages stopped at source for the outstanding debts. Before these cases could be heard the government intervened by appointing a Commission of Enquiry, consisting , of two professors, to look into the problem of rents in the region.

By now the landlords were acting together effectively and aggressively. Almost all of them issued notices of substantial rent increases.

The Commission eventually granted increases of about half of the level claimed by the landlords.

Demonstrations

This had the unforseen effect of bringing into the struggle all the other workers of Clydeside, who now found their rents increased viciously.

Because of this broadening of the struggle, when a number of rent strikers were arrested, there were mass demonstrations and these were backed up by total stoppages of work in the shipyards.

Under this pressure the Sheriff of Glasgow gave way and rejected the landlords' cases. It has sometimes been suggested that this decision was taken on secret instructions from the Cabinet who could not afford to allow any losses to the rate of production in the shipyards.

Obviously the situation was reaching a crisis and government action would be needed if an outbreak of revolutionary activity was to be avoided.

Taking timely advantage of this turning point, Maclean telegrammed Asquith. the Prime Minister of the whole Clydeside region if no permanent solution was made available.

Rent Act The Cabinet gave way to the workers' demands and Lloyd George drew up a Rent Act which held all rents at prewar levels.

This Act began the system of legal limitations over private sector rents, which became a permanent feature of housing policy in Britain and has often been the centre of furious debate.

At the time it was undeniably lably an enormous victory for the working class and one of the best examples of reforms being forced on the British ruling class by direct action by the workers.

However, rent controls alone were not the main concern of the political leaders of the action.

They had been campaigning for many years for the introduction of council housing as the provider of rented accommodation for the working class.

High point

One of the leaders, Wheatley, was to become Minister of Health in the 1924 MacDonald government, and brought in the 1924 Housing Act which made possible the great expansion of council house building in the 1920s.

The rent strike of 1915 was the high point of the militancy of the housing campaigns in the Clydeside.

There was a further one day general strike against rent increases introduced in 1920, but by the time of Chamberlain's 1923 Housing Act, which lifted the controls over many rents, there was little or no active resistance.

Rent strikes were not to be an important feature of the political scene again until the early 1930s. ALL „UTTO• PEPIE'