Although some historians' retrospective accounts (for example, Mowat 1955, 30– 36; Kirby 1977, 37) have tended to view the episode of the Sankey Committee as an event that, by buying time, killed the revolutionary potential of the miners, it is certainly the case that the workers had produced a historical breakthrough. Th eir challenge to the pillars of capitalism entered the foyer of the capitalist fortress. Th e threat of direct action and its paralyzing eff ect sparked a political debate that shook the heart of the British establishment, intimately involving the parliament and the national press.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 392