Gandhi's lengthy memorandum of 21 July, complaining of various "breaches of truce" by the government, was ignored. He was most worried about the government's coercive acts in Bardoli and Borsad and appealed to the Viceroy for granting relief. As no relief was forthcoming despite his earnest appeals, he communicated to the Viceroy his decision not to attend the RTC and gave wide publicity to it. While endorsing this decision, the Working Committee hastened to clarify that this did not mean the repudiation of the Gandhi-Irwin agreement and asked Congress Committees and Congressmen to abide by it.(61)
Instead of feeling perturbed at the prospect of the Congress not attending the RTC, the Viceroy sent Gandhi curt replies. When Gandhi's announcement of his decision failed to put any pressure on the raj to make concessions, he sought the intervention of the two "sub-Viceroys" -- Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and M. R. Jayakar --to enable him to attend the RTC. Instead of "relief", he would be satisfied with an "impartial and public" inquiry. When "the negotiations that so many friends are carrying on with the Central Government" yielded no fruit, Gandhi gave up his demand not only for "relief" but also for a public inquiry and sent a telegram to the Viceroy seeking an interview with him. The Viceroy agreed to see him, "If you consider that a further discussion will help to remove your difficulties".(62)
A "satisfactory talk" produced a face-saving device, if it could save face, to help Gandhi to attend the RTC. The government agreed to hold an inquiry only in a few villages of Bardoli taluk and Valod Mahal, by a British civilian -- no "impartial and public" inquiry -- into the allegations that the revenue collectors had made the peasants there pay more with the assistance of the police than in other villages without such assistance. Gandhi had started with the demand for an impartial, public inquiry into all breaches of the pact by the government in different places -- Gujarat, U.P., etc., climbed down step by step and agreed at the end to no inquiry at all except by a British civilian into excess revenue payment by some peasants in a few villages in Gujarat.
As Gandhi prepared to rush to Bombay in a specially-arranged train to catch the last ship carrying delegates to London, he conveyed his regrets for causing "endless worry" to the Viceroy, begged the Vicereine's forgiveness for the same and sought their "joint blessings", which Willingdon, though stingy in other matters, readily gave. Gandhi beseeched the Viceroy to trust Patel and other members of the Working Committee and justly assured him that "your trust will not be misplaced". He requested U.P. Governor Malcolm Hailey to send for Nehru and affirmed "that the Congress may be trusted and all necessary help requisitioned from it". He added: "I am certain that the trust will not be misplaced if the cause is common as I take it is the case between us."(63)
Gandhi sailed from Bombay with G. D. Birla, Madan Mohan Malaviya and a few others on 29 August. As he embarked, a black flag demonstration was staged by workers led by communists.
Gandhi's aims were quite modest. He disliked "the Congress demands [which]", as he wrote to C.F. Andrews on 2 June, "are strung in a high pitch". The mahatma exuded faith in the British colonialists. In a statement he issued to the Associated Press before sailing, he hoped "that Provincial Governments, the Civil Service and English mercantile houses will help the Congress to realize the mission it has set before itself".(64)
On his part the Viceroy, appreciating Gandhi's role in Indian politics, expected the Secretary of State to make an ally of Gandhi in London. On 28 August he wrote to Secretary of State Samuel Hoare: "You will find him I think amenable and anxious to help, with a real desire to work out a satisfactory constitution.... Still, I feel that in his new surroundings.... he will be a help and not a hindrance."(65)
Interviewed at Marseilles on 11 September by the Associated Press, the sole plenipotentiary of the Congress stated: "we must have an effective dominion status, but that does not exclude India's partnership in or alliance with the Empire." And during his interview to the New York Times, he said : "It is open to the Muslims to block the way to a settlement of the future of India as it is equally open to the British Government to make their opposition an excuse for not granting India self-government." But he wished that the raj would "make a friendly settlement" with the Congress without taking "shelter behind the Muslims".(66) He seems to have written off the Muslims and pined for "a friendly settlement" with the British raj, ignoring his Muslim counterparts.
On the eve of Gandhi's departure for England, a curious story appeared in the Free Press Journal, a Congress daily of Bombay, reproduced from the Evening Standard of London. It was by George Slocombe, the Daily Herald correspondent, who had interviewed Gandhi in prison in May 1930 and Motilal Nehru in June. According to Slocombe, during the visit of the Prince of Wales to India, when India was convulsed by the Non-Co-operation movement, Gandhi called informally one day at the Government House, New Delhi, to discuss some matter with an Indian member of the Government of India. When he was in the member's room, the door suddenly opened and the Prince of Wales, followed by an aide-de-camp, entered. To quote Slocombe, "Gandhi did an unexpected thing. He went swiftly forward, bent to the floor and with both hands embraced the feet of the Prince of Wales.... And, still crouching at the Prince's feet, he appealed to him, `Sir, be kind to India?'"
When Nehru inquired of Gandhi about the truth of the report, Gandhi denied it and asked Nehru to write to Slocombe and ask his "authority for the story". In a letter of 31 August Nehru requested Slocombe "to enlighten me on this point". In reply, the latter affirmed that he had got the story from a reliable source.
Nehru sent Gandhi two copies of his letter to Slocombe -- one by air mail and the other by ordinary mail.(67) Gandhi chose to remain silent. No denial by Gandhi appeared in any of his numerous press statements, speeches or letters, nor did he send any contradiction to Evening Standard or Free Press Journal, nor did Nehru or anybody else pursue the matter further. After the initial query and Slocombe's categorical statement, the matter was dropped.
One may recall that in late 1913 when, under Smuts' directions, Indian workers in South Africa, whose leadership Gandhi had assumed, were being arrested in large numbers, flogged, fired upon and killed, Gandhi sat in prison making a pair of sandals for the feet of Smuts.(68)
At the RTC Gandhi "tabled the Congress scheme for a settlement which was in the main a reproduction of the scheme of the Nehru Report".(69) While claiming dominion status -- "in fact, even less", as Nehru said -- the Nehru Report envisaged British control over defence and foreign affairs; the power of the British Government to override and set aside legislations passed by the Indian legislatures; special powers of the Governor-General and of the Governors appointed by the British Government, including their right to dissolve or extend the lives of the legislatures; protection and "special treatment" for British capital; federation between British India and the princely states, whose rulers would enjoy unfettered rights, and so on. Addressing the Federal Structure Committee of the RTC on 15 September, Gandhi stated: "I have aspired -- I still aspire -- to be a citizen, not of the Empire, but in a Commonwealth, in a partnership -- if God wills it, an indissoluble partnership." Gandhi wanted an India that would "conduce to the prosperity of Great Britain", become "an esteemed partner with Britain to share her sorrows" and "at her own will, fight [without offence to Gandhi's non-violence] side by side with Britain...." He promised that "the Congress will never think of repudiating a single claim or a burden that it should justly discharge" (though the Lahore resolution had stood for the repudiation of what was called India's "public debt" to Britain that was used by the imperialists as a means of India's continuous blood-letting). At another meeting Gandhi said with all emphasis that he did not ask for the withdrawal of British troops from India.(70)
Speaking at the plenary session of the RTC on 1 December, Gandhi sought to remove all misunderstanding and distrust. He made a fervent appeal to the British Government:
"It is friendship I crave. My business is not to throw overboard the slave-holder and tyrant.... I do not want to break the bond between England and India.... I am here to compromise.... I shall be here as long as I am required because I do not want to revive civil disobedience. I want to turn the truce that was arrived at, at Delhi, into a permanent settlement. But for heaven's sake give me, a frail man, 62 years gone, a little bit of a chance. Find a little corner for him and the organization that he represents ... and if you find me a place, if you trust me, I invite you to trust the Congress also.... If you will work the Congress for all it is worth, then you will say good-bye to terrorism; then you will not need terrorism."
Gandhi raised the spectre of revolutionary violence to convince the British imperialists of the expediency of making some concessions to him and the Congress. He asked them: "Will you not see the writing that these terrorists are writing with their blood?... I urge you then to read that writing on the wall."(71)
Gandhi agreed to "safeguards and reservations" which would ensure the continuity of British rule and protection for British capital and welcomed federation with the native states which was intended by the raj not to weaken but to consolidate its rule. (72)
The Indian big bourgeoisie were anxious that all, even satyagrahic, mass action should be abjured and that Indian politics should be directed along the constitutional or imperial channel, as Irwin had desired. They too agreed to "safeguards and reservations" but wanted a share of control over central finance. Addressing the plenary session of the RTC on 30 November, G. D. Birla, one of the FICCI delegates to the conference, stated: "If there was a genuine desire to do so, it is possible to arrive at an amicable solution." He argued that the civil disobedience movement would be neither in the interest of India nor in the interest of England, which, in that event, would have to pour unnecessarily its own money to govern India, though it could be governed in other ways better, cheaper, and really satisfactorily". G.D. Birla did not quarrel with British rule in India but advised the raj to co-opt Indians for the purpose.
Birla concluded his speech with a warning as well as an appeal:
"I know the youth of my country. It is quite possible that a few years hence you will not have to deal with men like Mr Gandhi who has proved in many respects a greater Conservative than many of you; you may not have to deal with Princes; you may not have to deal with capitalists like myself; you may have to deal with new men, new conditions, new ideas and new ambitions. Beware of that."There are two clear paths: one of them will lead to ruin, destruction, strife and anarchy; another to peace, contentment and prosperity.... I hope, Sir, that the statesmanship of England will rise to the occasion and choose the path of goodwill, contentment and prosperity."(73)
Concluding his speech at the same session of the RTC, another FICCI delegate and outstanding leader of the Indian big bourgeoisie, Sir Purshotamdas Thakurdas, made the appeal:
"May Great Britain look at the problem which faces her Prime Minister tomorrow, which we have faced here and which we have come to help her to solve, in a manner which will reflect credit and glory on all her statesmen of the past, who by their utterances in the House of Commons gave us hope that Great Britain was prepared to lead India on the path of liberty and freedom."(74)
The Indian big bourgeosie fervently hoped that imperialist Britain would lead them to "liberty and freedom" -- of course, of their conception.
What was Gandhi's conception of independent India? As he said in London, the King of England might continue as the king of `independent' India; a `British Agent' called `a Viceroy or a Governor-General' might remain; and the British troops might stay on "to protect India against foreign aggression, and even against internal insurrection" with the British Commander-in-Chief in India becoming Gandhi's "technical adviser on military matters". And there would be `safeguards' as "a guarantee for the safety of every British interest to which India pledges her honour".(75)
In Gandhi's future India, capitalism would be abolished but not capital; the capitalists would remain owners of their wealth but act as "trustees", and the princes and the landlords would retain their possessions. As he stated, the Congress was "trying to serve" the landlords, millowners and millionaires and the princes, besides, of course, the peasants. "There is a States People's Conference", he said, "and it is held back under my iron rule. I have been holding them back.... I have asked them to be satisfied with their present position."(76)
Gandhi was "most anxious" that the princes should join the proposed Federation. "So far as it lies in me", he declared, in a statement to the press, "I should make every effort to induce the Princes to join Federation."(77) In this respect his policy was complementary to that of the colonial rulers. They too wanted the princes, their puppets, whom they could manipulate according to their desires, to join the proposed federation for, besides the special powers of the Viceroy and Governors, and other "reservations and safeguards", the princes' participation would be another very important `safeguard' ensuring protection of British rule.
Obviously, the corollary to this policy was to help the raj to put down those who tried to rise against the imperial order, against the status quo, and for the people and national freedom. In London Gandhi refused to put his signature on a mass petition -- sent him by Fenner Brockway -- protesting against the arrest and detention of the Meerut prisoners and demanding their release as well as the release of the Garhwali prisoners who had refused to fire on an unarmed gathering of their fellow-countrymen at Peshawar. He refused to do anything for Lester Hutchinson, Meerut prisoner, who, he knew, was then seriously ill, as he would "do nothing for the Meerut prisoners". He did not think it advisable to start then a campaign for the release of political prisoners in India. The day he reached London he condemned the young men who belonged to the "school of violence". He prided himself on the fact that "the Congress creed of non-violence" had "kept the forces of terrorism in check" and declared that Irwin had "opened up" a "course of co-operation" between him and the raj for fighting terrorism or revolutionary violence on the part of the youth,(78)
Gandhi repeatedly claimed at the RTC that he and the Congress represented all classes -- from princes to landless peasants --and all communities -- Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and so on.(79) He questioned the representative character of the delegates who claimed to speak on behalf of their respective minorities. Interestingly, referring to Gandhi's claim to the sole right to represent the depressed classes and other minorities, Dr B.R. Ambedkar remarked at a meeting of the Minorities Committee of the RTC: "to that claim, I can only say that it is one of the many false claims which irresponsible people keep on making although the persons concerned with regard to these claims have been invariably denying them."(80)
The Congress had recognized the representative character of other organizations, especially of the Muslim League, in earlier years. In 1916 the Congress had entered into what is called the Lucknow Pact with the League and in the twenties Congress leaders convened several All Parties Conferences and Conventions. But with the growing alienation of the Congress from the Muslims from the beginning of the thirties and with the British raj drafting a new constitution for India, Gandhi staked the claim that the Congress represented the entire people of India and should be recognized as such in any future constitutional settlement. During his interview with British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald on 30 September 1931, Gandhi claimed that "he could represent the Muslims and the Depressed classes better than those who purported to do so", and urged the British Government to "settle the whole question" with him alone.(81) At the plenary session of the RTC on 1 December 1931, Gandhi, while insisting that the Congress represented "the whole of India, all interests" and "all the minorities", wished that he "could convince all the British public men, the British Ministers, that the Congress is capable of delivering the goods".(82) As it will be seen, these were no casual utterances but represented the deliberate policy of the Congress. This resolve to arrogate to themselves a monopoly of power as the sole heir to the British colonial rulers further widened the gulf between the Congress and the Muslim community.
During this Conference there arose a fresh opportunity of forging an elite-level agreement between the Hindu and Muslim elites. The Muslim leaders, including Sir Muhammad Shafi of Punjab, were prepared to accept joint electorates if Muslims were assured of a majority of seats in Bengal and Punjab. Gandhi first agreed and then surrendered, as usual, to the pressure of the arch Hindu communalists, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Jayakar and Moonje, and refused to conclude an agreement with the Muslim leaders.(83) G. D. Birla, who was a member of the Minorities Committee of the Conference, wrote: "Mr Jayakar and others ought to thank themselves for the [Communal] Award. Had they a little more grace to settle things with Muslims things would have been different." The main responsibility for the failure was indeed Gandhi's for the Muslim leaders were prepared to conclude an agreement with him, that is, the Congress. In a letter to Gandhi Jinnah complained that, after accepting "provisionally certain terms", Gandhi backed out on the ground that the other Hindus did not accept them.(84)
Muslim leaders had proposed joint electorate in 1927 and in 1930 (at the first RTC), and Hindu communalists and Congress leaders claiming to be nationalists refused to accept their proposals which were reasonable under the circumstances prevailing then. (85)
Gandhi's failure to reach an agreement with the Muslims in 1931 had disastrous consequences. It was this that invited the Communal Award of the British Prime Minister MacDonald, which did incalculable harm. Instead of coming to a settlement with their counterparts of other religious communities, the Gandhis preferred to rely on the Irwins and MacDonalds for a settlement of this problem.
While Gandhi went on claiming that he represented all the communities and all the classes, the delegates who claimed to represent the Muslims, the depressed classes, the Indian Christians and the Anglo-Indians, combined with the representatives of the European expatriates in India, who too claimed the status of a minority, and entered into what is known as the Minorities Pact. This pact sought separate electorates and weightage for all the minorities, even the European expatriates, and upheld the Muslim demands including the demand for their statutory majority in Bengal and Punjab. (86)
When the Indian delegates found that they were unable to reconcile their respective claims to what the British imperialists might dole out, they asked the British Prime Minister to arbitrate. Gandhi was not a signatory to the joint letter but he persuaded Moonje to sign it.(87) He himself wrote a separate letter to MacDonald assuring him that he had no objection to MacDonald's playing the role of the sole arbitrator and that "the Congress cannot object to your award". (Earlier, Gandhi was quite willing if Viceroy Irwin would play the same role.) He wrote that separate electorates for the Muslims and the Sikhs would be acceptable to him, but "the position regarding the other minorities is different.... In any case, the Congress will never be reconciled to any further extension of the principle of separate or special statutory reservation". In an interview to the press he spoke on this question in the same vein. (88)
As it will be seen, Gandhi and the Congress leaders easily reconciled themselves without a murmur of protest to the "further extension of the principle of separate electorate or special statutory reservation" to the other minorities, even to the European expatriates, when the British Prime Minister's Award was announced. Gandhi's only objection was to what had been awarded to the depressed classes. More of it later.
The sole plenipotentiary of the Congress who, in terms of the Karachi Congress resolution, was to fight at the RTC for complete independence including "control over the army, external affairs, finance and fiscal economic policy" and so on, ditched the fight and authorized the British Prime Minister to decide how many seats in the legislatures the different communities would be entitled to under a constitution for India to be framed by the British rulers. One may note that like the Lahore resolution on complete independence, the Karachi resolution and many other Congress resolutions and statements were "for show purposes only" (to quote S. Satyamurthi's expression), for the consumption of the trusting people -- never acted upon and never intended to be so.
Though Gandhi was eager to accept any settlement that would save face for the Congress, if possible -- "such that I can make much of it" -- it eluded him. On 1 December, before the conference broke up, he told the plenary session : "I am here to compromise; I am here to consider every formula that British ingenuity can prepare, every formula that the ingenuity of such constitutionalists as Mr Sastri, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Mr Jayakar, Mr Jinnah, Sir Muhammed Shafi, and a host of other constitutionalists can weave into being." He said that he would "negotiate" and "plead" with them and "go down on bended knees" before he would "take the final leap and the final plunge".(89)
The British Government was neither taken in by his talk of "the final leap and the final plunge" nor did it heed the appeals of Gandhi. It was resolved to give him no longer the importance that Irwin had given him by entering into an agreement with him. The imperialist caravan refused to be diverted by Gandhi's earnest entreaties. While closing the second RTC on 1 December, the Prime Minister re-affirmed the government's policy as formulated in his statement of January at the close of the first RTC. He specifically pointed out that Britain would "recognize the principle of responsibility of the Executive to the Legislature if both were constituted on an All-India Federal basis" and that "Defence and External Affairs must be reserved to the Governor-General, and that, in regard to Finance such conditions must apply as would ensure the fulfilment of the obligations incurred under the authority of the Secretary of State, and the maintenance unimpaired of the financial stability and credit of India. Finally, it is our view that the Governor-General must be granted the necessary powers to enable him to fulfil his responsibility for securing the observance of the constitutional rights of Minorities, and for ultimately maintaining the tranquillity of the state." The Prime Minister added that the British Government "intend to pursue this plan unswervingly..."(90)
Gandhi's participation in the RTC did not advance India even by a single step. Instead, it allowed the British Government sufficient time to perfect its machinery of repression. All the struggles and sufferings of innumerable people were frittered away by the Congress leadership's negotiation, consultation and conference with the colonial rulers.
In the typical Gandhian way the mahatma, before the actual collapse of the conference, was diversifying his fervent appeals to the raj with threats that the failure of the conference would lead to the revival of civil disobedience. But after it actually failed, his talk of "the final leap and the final plunge", of the resumption of civil disobedience, was no longer heard. Instead, he went on assuring, before and after he left the shores of England, that he was "determined to make every effort to continue co-operation..."(91)
On reaching India Gandhi told a meeting held at Majestic Hotel, Bombay on 28 December with Sir Stanley Reed as president : "I am dying for co-operation.... I appeal to you, Englishmen and women, to ponder over the facts I have placed before you tonight and do your bit for creating an atmosphere of love and peace in this country."(92)
When Gandhi was preaching love and peace, he knew that Nehru, Abdul Ghaffar Khan and a number of other Congress leaders were under arrest; that drastic ordinances had been issued not only in Bengal but also in the North-West Frontier Province and U.P.; that troops had been sent into some rural areas of not only Bengal but also of the NWFP and firings had taken place at Peshawar. A veiled form of martial law had been introduced in Chittagong in November 1931.(93) Indeed, the "truce" had been scrupulously observed by the Congress leaders but not by the raj. War had already been declared by the British imperialists against the people and the Congress.
In reply to Gandhi's wire of 29 December seeking an interview and guidance, the Viceroy agreed to grant it, if Gandhi did not approve of recent Congress activities. But the Viceroy refused to discuss the official measures of repression already enforced. Meeting from 29 December 1931 to 1 January 1932, the Working Committee passed a resolution which first deplored the assassination of a notorious British official by two school girls in Comilla in Bengal and then called upon the people to resume civil disobedience under conditions of strict non-violence "in the event of a satisfactory response from the government not forthcoming". The Committee enjoined the people to observe non-violence "in thought, word and deed in the face of the gravest provocation" and not to undertake "social boycott" of Government officers, police or anti-nationalists. The zamindars were assured that the Congress had "no design upon any interest legitimately acquired".(94)
On 1 January 1932 Gandhi sent a long cable to the Viceroy's private secretary, clarifying that the Congress had not the slightest desire to promote disorder in any shape or form. On the contrary, he assured the Viceroy that "As to Bengal, the Congress is at one with the Government in condemning assassinations and should heartily co-operate with the Government in measures that may be found necessary to stamp out such crimes". He also asserted that civil disobedience was "an effective substitute for violence or armed rebellion". While enclosing a copy of the Working Committee's resolution, he again made a request for an interview and stated that " pending our discussion operation of the resolution will be suspended in (the) hope (that) it may result in (the) resolution being finally given up".(95) There would be no revival of the civil disobedience movement if he had a good discussion with the Viceroy.
Among those who had discussions with Gandhi before his arrest were Sir Homi Mody (Chairman, of the Bombay Millowners' Association); F. E. Dinshaw (the leading financier of Bombay); mill magnates like Sir Ness Wadia, Sir Cowasji Jehangir, Sir Phiroze Sethna, Lalji Naranji, Sir Edward Benthall; cloth and bullion merchants and other members of the Indian Merchants' Chamber. They advised him not to resume civil disobedience.(96)
Gandhi, too, was unsparing in his efforts to avoid any conflict. He wanted M. R. Jayakar and Sir T. B. Sapru to intercede with the government and sent a cable on 3 January, assuring Lord Irwin that he would "retain the spirit which you believed actuated me during that sacred week in Delhi" and would not "belie your certificate".(97) In another cable to the Viceroy on the same day, Gandhi pleaded for the third time for an interview, assuring him that he was still out for co-operation.
But Willingdon, who, on his own admission, was emerging as a second Mussolini,(98) refused to grant him any interview, and in the early hours of 4 January, Gandhi and most other members of the Working Committee were clapped in prison. A pre-emptive strike was launched against the people by the British raj. The engine of repression was set working. It was for this moment that the British imperialists and their men in India had prepared for several months. When Gandhi was enjoining the people to follow the path of "disciplined obedience", the raj was completing all preparations to deal a knock-out blow to the Congress as soon as the occasion would arise. As D. A. Low writes, "If Gandhi had carried out his threat not to attend the Round Table Conference...the full force of `civil martial law' [the draconian measures] would there and then have been applied. As it was, his stay in London gave the raj three more months to perfect its arrangements for its subsequent introduction, which its officials evidently employed to considerable effect."(99)
On the other hand, as Subhas Bose wrote, "...the movement of 1932 was not planned and organized by the leaders, as it should have been but that they were dragged into it." Not only had Emerson, the Home Secretary, warned Gandhi more than once that the government would "hit hard and hit at once", but proofs that the Emergency ordinances had been prepared by October 1931 were received by Dr Ansari and passed on to Patel, then Congress president. To the Congress leaders the question of preparing for a fight did not arise; they were concerned with how best to escape from it. Dr Syed Mahmud, a member of the Working Committee, said to the India League delegation: "The Mahatma was bent on co-operation.... The Government did not want co-operation. From my inside knowledge I can say that the Congress was not prepared for the conflict."(100)
Why did the British raj drag the Congress leaders into battle from which they tried hard to escape?
As noted in Chapter One, British imperialism was then beset with many problems, economic and political, both at home and abroad. Long before the world economic crisis had its devastating impact on the economy of British and other countries of the capitalist world, Britain's economy was far from healthy. Rather, from about the end of World War I, it entered into a long-time decline. Unable to compete with other industrial countries, she had remained content with being, until World War I, "the greatest commercial power" and "the greatest source of international capital" -- the advantages she enjoyed mainly because of her political control over a large empire. But that pre-eminence, too, was lost after the war. As Hobsbawm writes, "The Victorian economy of Britain crashed in ruins between the two world wars." She became a debtor country while the USA changed from a debtor to a creditor country. Britain's external commerce began to decline. Her traditional industries like cotton textiles were in the doldrums. To quote Hobsbawm again, "In human terms the ruin of the traditional industries of Britain was the ruin of millions of men and women through mass unemployment, and it was this which stamped the years between the wars indelibly with the mark of bitterness and poverty."(101)