ABSTRACT
At midnight on 3 May 1926, the General Strike began. Literally at the eleventh hour, last-minute negotiations were attempted on the basis of a new formula devised by Ernest Bevin, but not made public, even though he asked Ramsay MacDonald to do so in the Commons that evening. The Baldwin Government had been right after all in seeing a General Strike as a threat to society. The mass support given to the T.U.C. during the first days of May 1926 revealed how alienated from the governing and employing classes the organized workers of the country had become. The initiative in accepting his offer came from J. H. Thomas, the member of the T.U.C. General Council who disliked the General Strike most and who wanted it ended as soon as possible, whatever the objections of the miners.
