UNPOPULAR POLICIES PARALYSED ISLAND

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

This year?s celebrations of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland got underway today in Dublin.

However what is not always realised is that 1916 was also a radical year for the Isle of Man with a protest at Tynwald on 5th July which so alarmed the government it caused the colonial authorities to see that the honour guard of troops were issued with ammunition

It was also the precursor to later even more dramatic events when in July 1918 when there was the little-known Manx general strike.

The Isle of Man’s first and only general strike its immediate cause was the withdrawal of the subsidy to the flour industry, resulting in rising bread prices. This sparked unprecedented mass strike action across the island, bringing it to a complete standstill for the next two days and under effective control of the strike committee. The strike was only called off after it had forced the government to continue the subsidy.

The Manx government and the Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man, Lord Raglan, were very unpopular because of their resistance to reform. Manx workers and poor farmers were angered that the government had repeatedly postponed the introduction of direct taxation of wealth (this was seen as more fair than indirect taxation), old age pensions, national insurance and workmen’s compensation. All of which had already been introduced in the rest of Britain.

Two years earlier at the 1916 Tynwald day ceremony Lord Raglan who wielded enormous powers in those days was met with shouts of ‘resign’. When the Manx parliament, the House of Keys was mentioned, there were shouts of ‘dissolve’. Demonstrators carried signs saying ‘no food taxes’, ‘direct taxation’ and calling for old age pensions. Speakers were met with boos and jeers and at one point someone threw a clump of mud and grass which hit Lord Raglan in the face. Indeed you could say the government of the day was about as popular as our present one!

The catalyst for the General strike occurred in April 1918 when the Laxey miners went on strike for better wages, but were ordered back to work by the minister of munitions pending a decision on their case. Manx workers were then further angered by the raising of indirect taxation in April, the raising of the military age to 51 in May and the announcement of a government surplus of over