Description

Meet Stanley Baldwin, Conservative Prime Minister of Britain during the General Strike of May 1926, depicted sympathetically by Punch magazine as envious of Atlas. Atlas can concentrate on holding up the sky, whereas Baldwin is under constant pressure to find new funds to ‘appease’ the miners. The cartoon exemplifies the almost universal vilification of the strikers, especially the miners, in the mainstream press. The owners of the mines wanted to cut the miners’ pay and increase their working hours. To delay the crisis, Baldwin had responded by offering to subsidise the miners’ pay for nine months and set up a Royal Commission. This cartoon marks what was seen by the middle class as a capitulation by Baldwin. But it was not; in March the Commission recommended, among other things, the reduction of miners’ wages by 13.5 per cent. In May the nine-day strike was broken by middle-class volunteers, including many university students, who regarded it as great fun to spend a few days driving buses, delivering groceries, and working in factories.