John
Muir
was
born in Maryhill, Scotland in 1879. After
leaving school he became an engineer. He also joined the Independent
Labour Party and
began working closely with other socialists in Glasgow
including John
Wheatley, Emanuel
Shinwell, James
Maxton, David
Kirkwood,
Campbell Stephen, William
Gallacher,
Tom
Johnston, Jimmie
Stewart, Neil Maclean, George
Hardie, George Buchanan and James
Welsh.
Muir was opposed to Britain
becoming involved in the First World War and
was a member of Clyde Workers' Committee and organisation that had
been formed to campaign against the Munitions Act, which forbade engineers
from leaving the works where they were employed. Muir was also editor
of the Clyde Workers' Committee journal, The
Worker.
In 1916 The
Worker, was prosecuted under the Defence
of the Realm Act for
an article criticizing the war. Muir and William
Gallacher
were both found guilty and
sent to prison. Gallacher for six months and Muir for a year.
In the 1922
General Election Muir was elected to the House
of Commons for Maryhill. Also successful were several other militant
socialists based in Glasgow including
David
Kirkwood, John
Wheatley, Campbell
Stephen, Emanuel
Shinwell, James
Maxton, Tom
Johnston, Campbell
Stephen, Jimmie Stewart, Neil
Maclean, George Hardie, George
Buchanan and James Welsh.
In January 1924 Ramsay
MacDonald appointed
Muir as Minister of Pensions. However, he lost office when he was
defeated in the 1924 General Election.
John
Muir,
who was Secretary
of the Workers' Educational Association (1928-31), died on 10th January
1931.
(1)
David
Kirkwood,
My Life of Revolt (1935)
The Worker, the
organ of the Clyde Workers' Committee, came out with an article against
those violent extremists who proposed to use force to stop the War.
It ridiculed the idea.
The military people, who
by this time had gone daft, read the article as an incitement to the
use of force. My old friend, John W. Muir, the editor; Walter Bell,
the, printer; and William Gallacher, the President of the Committee,
were arrested.
John Muir was charged with
having written the article. He did not write it nor did either of
the other two arrested men. The man who wrote the article was married
and had a family of five children. John Muir was unmarried. He accepted
the responsibility. There were only three persons who knew the author
- John Wheatley, Rosslyn Mitchell, and myself. It was suggested that
Muir should reveal the secret. He refused, saying : " Some one
is going to jail for this because the Military has read it the wrong
way. If ---- goes, there will be seven sufferers. If I go, there is
only one, so I am going."
The trial was fought to
the last word. But there had been found in the office of the paper
copies of an Irish paper containing a foolish and flaming article
by the Countess Markowitz. Great play was made of these papers. "
You see what sort of literature this man harbours." The jury
returned a verdict of Guilty. John Muir was sent to prison for twelve
months, Gallacher for six, and Walter Bell for three.
Many years later John
Muir was elected to Parliament
and became Under-Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions. To the day
of his death he never by word or suggestion went back on his word,
nor did the others who knew his secret.
(2)
David
Kirkwood
described
his election to the House of Commons in
his autobiography My Life of Revolt (1935)
From the outside circumference
of the city to its very heart, Glasgow was ringing with the message
of Socialism. Within a week of the election day, it seemed likely
that the whole team of eleven would win, that Bonar Law would be defeated,
and that Socialism would be triumphant. Such energy, enthusiasm, and
earnestness had not been known in Glasgow for generations. There we
were, men who a few years before had been scorned, some of us in jail
and many more of us
very near it, now being the men to whom the people pinned their faith.
When, at last, the results
were announced, every member of the team was elected - except our
champion of the Central Division. What a troop we were! John Wheatley,
cool and calculating and fearless ; James Maxton, whose wooing speaking
and utter selflessness made people regard him as a saint and martyr
; wee Jimmie Stewart, so small, so sober, and yet so determined ;
Neil MacLean, full of fire without fury; Thomas Johnston, with a head
as full of facts as an egg's full o' meat ; George Hardie, engineer
and chemist and brother of Keir Hardie; George Buchanan, patternmaker,
who knew the human side of poverty better than any of us; James Welsh,
miner and poet from Coatbridge, John W. Muir, an heroic and gallant
gentleman; and old Bob Smillie, returned for an English constituency
though he was born in Ireland and reared in Scotland.
We believed that this people,
this British folk, could and were willing to make friends with all
other peoples. We were ready to abandon all indemnities and all reparations,
to remove all harassing restrictions imposed by the Peace Treaties.
We were all Puritans. We were all abstainers. Most of us did not smoke.
We were the stuff of which reform is made.
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