Clifford's proposed anti-strike policy

Clifford Chatterley's proposed anti-strike policy is presented as part of his campaign to revive the mines, but its central principle is the removal of workers' ability to strike. He proposes to make strikes effectively impossible without consulting the miners, on the grounds that industry must come before the individual. The policy's importance lies in the tension between its language of protection and its method: workers' dependence on the industry becomes the justification for unilateral control over them.

Economic and Industrial Background

The proposal takes shape against a fragile local mining economy. Tevershall and New London are the two collieries described as still operating, but neither offers security. Tevershall was once a celebrated and profitable mine, while New London had generally managed only a modest living; in hard times, it is the less prosperous workings that are most vulnerable. The account of their decline makes the question of strikes inseparable from a larger fear: that work itself may disappear.

The comparison with Stacks Gate sharpens that fear. Its postwar works combine mining with chemical production, and the by-products are said to earn more than the coal. Tevershall's coal, by contrast, is said not to yield the same chemicals, although the two places are less than three miles apart. Miners have moved to the newer works, while other workers and girls leave the area to find employment elsewhere. These conditions give Clifford a genuine industrial problem to address, but they also make the workers' reliance on continued production a source of leverage for management.

Clifford's Return to the Mines

Clifford's policy follows a personal and professional revival. Under Mrs Bolton's influence, he begins to feel that he belongs to the mines and to see himself as the real authority in Tevershall. He returns underground in a tub, carried into the workings, where a manager shows him the coal seam by the light of a powerful torch. Knowledge from before the war returns to him, and he resumes studying technical works, government reports, and research on coal, shale, and their chemical possibilities.

He then subjects the general, overhead, and underground managers, along with the engineers, to intense scrutiny. His growing command of technical detail becomes a new experience of power over the officials and the many colliers working under the mining system. This context matters to the anti-strike proposal: Clifford's renewed confidence comes from the capacity to organize and direct production. The account does not specify a particular legal measure or practical mechanism for preventing strikes; it shows instead the governing principle he draws from this managerial authority.

How the Proposed Policy Would Work

On a bright morning, as Clifford and Connie move through the park, the distant pit is visible beyond the valley and the houses of Tevershall. Clifford first asserts that there will be no more strikes if the industry is properly managed. When challenged on whether the men would allow this, he answers that management will act without asking them, doing so while they are unaware and claiming it is for their own good and for the industry's survival. His proposal is therefore not a negotiated settlement or a mutual agreement. It makes the workers' consent unnecessary by treating managerial judgment as sufficient authority.

Clifford acknowledges that the policy also serves his interests, but he argues that miners have more to lose because they cannot live without the pits, whereas he has other resources. He presents their dependence as a reason to accept his direction: if the mines fail, he says, the men will starve. Connie asks whether the terms can be dictated and whether there might instead be mutual understanding. Clifford maintains that the workers will have to accept the terms if management imposes them gently, and that agreement is possible when they recognize the industry's priority over individual claims.

Authority, Class, and the Policy's Limits

Clifford connects industrial management to ownership. He argues that property should be used to sustain industry and provide work, rather than simply given away, because production is necessary to feed and clothe people. He calls poverty ugly and rejects universal deprivation as a desirable outcome. This reasoning makes his position more than a demand for obedience: he represents continued production as a social obligation. Yet his proposed means remain hierarchical. The workers' lives, and the conditions that make them dependent on the mines, are not placed under their own control; their security is made contingent on decisions taken above them.

The conflict becomes explicit when Connie points out that the miners work for Clifford and live the life of his coal mine. Clifford answers that no man is forced to work for him and compares each person to a beetle finding its own food. The contrast between formal choice and economic dependence is central to the scene: the possibility of leaving a job does not resolve the question of what happens to people when local industries close. Clifford further argues that the masses must always be ruled, and that rulers should use whips rather than swords. He regards his own mind and will as unimpaired despite his paralysis, and imagines a son continuing his share of rule after him.

The policy is thus an ambition, not a demonstrated outcome. The evidence establishes Clifford's intention to make strikes impossible through managed, unilateral control, but does not show that he puts a specific anti-strike system into effect or that the miners accept it. Its unresolved contradiction is that Clifford presents authority as care for workers while excluding them from decisions over their labor. The worsening condition of Tevershall makes his promise of security urgent; his answer to that insecurity, however, is to place industrial survival above workers' consent.