The Labour Leader
In 1886 Keir Hardie was appointed secretary of the Scottish Miners' Federation. The following year, Hardie began publishing a monthly newspaper called The Miner. Its first number appeared in January, 1887, and it was published for two years, with Hardie supplying about a third of its content: "It was a very remarkable paper, and to those who are fortunate enough to possess the two volumes, it mirrors in a very realistic way the social conditions of the collier folk of that time, and also throws considerable light on the many phases and aspects of the general Labour movement in the days when it was gropingly feeling its way through many experiments and experiences towards political self-reliance and self-knowledge". (1) The newspaper advocated a Scottish miners' federation and attacked the coal-owners for the bloody suppression of the Lanarkshire workers that took place that year. (2)
Hardie also attempted to use the newspaper to give the miners a political education. "So long as men are content to believe that Providence has sent into the world one class of men saddled and bridled, and another class booted and spurred to ride them, so long will they be ridden; but the moment the masses come to feel and act as if they were men, that moment the inequality ceases." (3) However, Hardie rejected the theories being advocated by communists . In one speech he pointed out "I reject what seems to be the crude notion of a class war, because class consciousness leads nowhere... The watchword of socialism is not class consciousness but community consciousness." (4)
In August 1888, Hardie resigned from the Liberal Party and helped to establish the Scottish Labour Party. He did not want a socialist party on the lines of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF). He wanted a party which would attract radicals, dissatisfied liberals, trade unionists and social reformers concerned about the plight of children. A programme was agreed that included the "prohibition of the liquor traffic, the abolition of the House of Lords, the nationalization of land, minerals, railways, waterways and tramways, free education, boards to provide food for children and taxes on incomes over £300." (5)
The Labour Leader
Hardie also changed the name of his newspaper from The Miner to The Labour Leader. He attended the inaugural Second International meetings in Paris in July, 1888, where he joined up again with Tom Mann, the leader of the Eight Hour League, that was influential in convincing the trade union movement to adopt the statutory eight-hour day as one of its core policies. Mann commented in his autobiography that "our relations were always harmonious". They joined forces in persuading the conference to allow anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin to address delegates. (6)
Keir Hardie, helped to establish the Independent Labour Party in 1893. It was decided that the main objective of the party would be "to secure the collective ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange". Leading figures in this new organisation included Robert Smillie, George Bernard Shaw, Tom Mann, George Barnes, Pete Curran, John Glasier, Katherine Glasier, H. H. Champion, Ben Tillett, Philip Snowden, Edward Carpenter and Ramsay Macdonald. He used The Labour Leader to develop policy, to give advice on how to conduct meetings, and how to organize groups such as Socialist church groups and Sunday School classes. (7)
Keir Hardie continued to publish and edit The Labour Leader until 1904, when he sold it to the Independent Labour Party "amid much argument over the financial settlement". (8) John Bruce Glasier, who replaced Hardie as chairman of the ILP, in 1900, became editor in January 1905. Glasier, an outstanding journalist who had previously worked for other socialist newspapers such as Commonweal and the Clarion, was able to take sales from 13,000 at the start of his editorship to 43,000 in 1908, but attracted criticism from some ILP members for consistently defending the increasing pragmatism of the party's leadership. (9) Stanley Pierson has commented that after 1900 Glasier's socialism "lost much of its inspirational quality and became apologetic" (10)
Fenner Brockway
In 1912 Fenner Brockway was appointed editor of The Labour Leader. (11) At this time Brockway met Lilla Harvey-Smith, a fellow member of the ILP. Lilla was active in the struggle for women's suffrage. Brockway used the newspaper to advocate votes for women. Brockway pointed out in his autobiography, Inside the Left (1942): "The women's suffrage movement still had my enthusiasm hardly less than the Socialist movement. When the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies threw in its lot with the Labour Party, and particularly with the ILP, I spoke at their meetings frequently and took part in a number of their by-election campaigns." (12)
On 20th August 1914, Fenner Brockway married Lilla Harvey-Smith. (13) They were both opposed to the First World War and over the first few weeks of the conflict exchanged letters through Sweden with Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin and Karl Liebknecht where they discussed the failure of the Second International to prevent a European war. (14)
Brockway feared the introduction of conscription. Lila Brockway suggested that a letter should be published in the newspaper suggesting an organisation that was opposed to conscription. On 12 November 1914 a letter appeared in the Labour Leader: "Although conscription may not be so imminent as the Press suggests, it would perhaps be well for men of enlistment age who are not prepared to take the part of a combatant in the war, whatever be the penalty for refusing to band themselves together as we may know our strength. As a preliminary, if men between the years of 18 and 38 who take this view will send their names and addresses to me at the addresses given below a useful record will be at our service." (15)
There was a great response to the letter and 150 people joined the organisation, the No-Conscription Fellowship (NCF) in the first six days. (16) A follow-up letter was published on 3rd December: "Whilst there may not be any immediate danger of conscription, nothing is more uncertain than the duration and development of the war, and it would, we think, be as well of men of enlistment age (19 to 38) who are not prepared to take a combatant's part, whatever the penalty for refusing, formed an organisation for mutual counsel and action. Already, in response to personal appeals, a large number of names have been forwarded for registration, and many correspondents have expressed a desire for knowledge of, and fellowship with others who have come to the same determination not to fight. To meet these needs 'The No-Conscription Fellowship' has been formed, and we invite men of recruitment age who have decided to refuse to take up arms to join. (17)
Fenner Brockway came under a lot of pressure as editor of The Labour Leader. Soon after the outbreak of the war the newspaper published a peace manifesto from the Independent Socialist Party (USPD), the authorities decided to intervene and closed it down. The evidence against them was unconvincing, the charges were withdrawn and within four weeks it was on the streets again. (18)
Brockway wrote an anti-war play, The Devil's Business (1915). In August 1915 the The Labour Leader office in Manchester was raided and Brockway was charged with publishing seditious material. The main objection was a short-story by Isabel Sloan, "which described how a British and German soldier killed each other in battle, but before dying realised that their experiences, their loves and ideals made them one." The government lost its case but soon afterwards bookshops in Manchester and London were raided and material produced by the Independent Labour Party were seized. (19)
In 1916 Fenner Brockway and Clifford Allen were arrested for distributing a leaflet criticizing the introduction of conscription. When they refused to pay their fines, they were sentenced to two months in Pentonville Prison. "We were taken to Pentonville in one of the old horse-drawn Black Marias. Tiny little boxes lined its sides, with larger boxes at the far end. We were all locked in, but we could see and hear each other through grilles. In the passage between the boxes a policeman sat. I served only ten days; the NCF Committee had decided that if Allen were arrested my fine would be paid so that I could direct the organisation." (20)
On the 17th May, 1916, Fenner Brockway and eight members of the National Committee were arrested and prosecuted under the Defence of the Realm Act. for publishing a leaflet criticizing conscription. "We were sentenced to fines of £100 each or two months' imprisonment. The Committee decided to pay the fines in the cases of Edward Grubb and Leyton Richards, but on the appointed day in July the rest of us gave ourselves up at the Mansion House to fulfil the two months' sentence at Pentonville Prison." (21)
In November 1916, Brockway was arrested under the Military Service Act. (22) Brockway had previously been granted exemption from military service on condition that he would do "work of national importance". His friend, Edmund Harvey, the Liberal Party MP for Leeds West and a member of the Society of Friends, defended Brockway by arguing that his work for peace was of "national importance". (23)
While Brockway was in prison, Violet Tillard was appointed General Secretary of the No-Conscription Fellowship, She would visit men in prison. Corder Catchpool later recalled that she was "of inspiration in personal contact, and of strong, quiet leadership in common counsel... Violet Tillard was the first, except one member of my own family, to greet me on my release from prison, and I shall never forget her welcome." (24)
Treated as a traitor, Brockway was held for one night in the Tower of London. He was later transferred to a dungeon at Chester Castle and finally served his sentence in Walton Prison in Liverpool. Brockway continued to write, and after meeting a soldier imprisoned for desertion, wrote an account of the Battle of Passchendaele. The article was discovered and Brockway was sentenced to six days on bread and water. (25) Brockway was released but in July 1917 he was sentenced to two years' hard labour. Brockway, like most other conscientious objectors, was not released from prison until six months after the First World War came to an end. When released in April 1919, he had served a total of twenty-eight months, the last eight in solitary confinement. (26)
With Fenner Brockway in prison in 1916 Katharine Glasier was appointed as editor of the The Labour Leader. In 1917 the government prohibited the export of the newspaper. By 1918 Glasier had increased circulation to 62,000, but she disagreed with the newspaper prominent columnist Philip Snowden, about his attitude towards the Russian Revolution. The strains of the editorship plus the stress of nursing her terminally ill husband, John Bruce Glasier, led to a nervous breakdown in April 1921 and her resignation as editor. (27)
New Leader
Clifford Allen, and Ramsay MacDonald, two senior figures in the Independent Labour Party, decided that a new approach was necessary. In a letter written by MacDonald to Allen he wrote: "A very catholic paper but organ of the ILP thus not a mere partisan dogmatic sheet but a definitely coloured one... General conception of handling: Not too much fixed feature and mortgaged pages. Every issue should be varied and interesting to a type that has intellectual interests of what may be called a gentlemanly, democratic and the whole, amateur kind... A club running a movement: genial; confident; cultured; gallant; attractive: knowing the type which it wants to get hold of and keep, and speaking to it, instructing it, amusing it, making it fruitful all the time." (28)
Allen told MacDonald he was considering employing Henry Noel Brailsford as editor. MacDonald rejected the idea: "I hope you will think over very carefully the question of Brailsford's editorship. A friend of his talked to me last night and began by remarking upon how tremendously prosperous and successful he was. I cannot see him editor of an ILP paper." (29)
The National Administrative Council of the Independent Labour Party agreed with Allen and Brailsford was appointed as editor. To appease MacDonald one of his close friends, Mary Agnes Hamilton, was appointed assistant editor. (30) Leslie Plummer, then on the staff of the Daily Herald, was recruited as business manager. It was Plummer who suggested that the newspaper should be called the New Leader. MacDonald wrote to Allen complaining about this new name. (31)
Primary Sources
(1) Fenner Brockway, Labour Leader (12 November 1914)
Although conscription may not be so imminent as the Press suggests, it would perhaps be well for men of enlistment age who are not prepared to take the part of a combatant in the war, whatever be the penalty for refusing to band themselves together as we may know our strength. As a preliminary, if men between the years of 18 and 38 who take this view will send their names and addresses to me at the addresses given below a useful record will be at our service.
(2) Fenner Brockway and Clifford Allen, Labour Leader (3 December 1914)
Whilst there may not be any immediate danger of conscription, nothing is more uncertain than the duration and development of the war, and it would, we think, be as well of men of enlistment age (19 to 38) who are not prepared to take a combatant's part, whatever the penalty for refusing, formed an organisation for mutual counsel and action. Already, in response to personal appeals, a large number of names have been forwarded for registration, and many correspondents have expressed a desire for knowledge of, and fellowship with others who have come to the same determination not to fight. To meet these needs 'The No-Conscription Fellowship' has been formed, and we invite men of recruitment age who have decided to refuse to take up arms to join.
(3) Isabella Ford, The Labour Leader (30th September, 1915)
His (Keir Hardie) extraordinary sympathy with the women's movement, his complete understanding of what it stands for, were what first made me understand the finest side of his character. In the days when Labour men neglected and slighted the women's cause or ridiculed it, Hardie never once failed us, never once faltered in his work for us. We women can never forget what we owe him.