Miners saw the Sankey proposals as constitutionally formal yet truly revolutionary

Evidence

According to Vernon Hartshorn, a leader among Welsh miners who had given witness during the Sankey proceedings, the miners had unearthed a constitutional mechanism by which structural change could take place in Great Britain. Commenting on the proposals of the second report, Hartshorn wrote: “Th ey go to the very roots of the capitalist system. Th e recommendations comply with all the forms of constitutional procedure, though they foreshadow change which is truly revolutionary” (South Wales News, June 30, 1919, reprinted in Ives 2016, 208). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 407

Categorization

• XREF: Contrast with modern austerity’s hostility to constitutional procedure for structural change; this passage sets up the defeat to come. — connects to: Britain’s 1919 coal shortage gave striking miners genuine revolutionary leverage.; The Sankey episode forced workers’ challenge into the heart of the British establishment — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 392