London, July 29.
Parliament is carrying on until Wednesday next, August 4, though may be recalled towards the end of the month to re-affirm the lid ity of the Emergency Regula. tions should the coal strike not have been settled by then. Most of us think the coal dispute will have been settled because there are signs now that the men are drifting back and it is quite clear that the Government do not intend to take any further action for the moment than they are at present. In that case tthe whole long drawn out dispute will have served no useful purpose ecause the miners could have got far better terms in April than they are likely to get now. Even if they go back now it will take them some years to recover what they have ost in wages and to meet the credit which has been extended to them by shopkeepers. The coal industry of course lik lost millions while Mr, A. M.S: uch, the Parliament ary Secretay to the Department of Overseas Trade, reckons that the Joss through unemployment in industries other than coal may estimated at not less than £100,-
000,000 sterling. If you add to this amount the unavoidable reduction in the activity of those regarded employed, the total loss in the period since April 30 may reach 160,000,000 or even a larger sum. These figures include the losses suf fered by the coal mining industry Which, may be estimated at about ££40,000,000 sterling and also those caused by the general strike.
The truth is that the miners have been very badly led throughout and if they had had any other leaders than Mr. Cook and Mr, Herbert Smith—the latter of whom merged his personality in that of the younger man—the result would have been very different.
Still, If we do get to work I do not view the outlook very pessimis tically because we shall not have many large scale troubles for some time to come although there may bbe some resentment among the miners at their moral defeat, We all realize, however, that we have now got to work very hard and very Tong and T think in the interests of the community this effort will forthcoming. In any case it satisfactory that the cosl_stoppa has caused very little suffering, All children have been very well fed and in some cases better fed by the local authorities than they are normally in their own homes, The Fall of the Frane There are no other troubles of vital urgency before the nation except the question of the slump in the French franc which has made us all very uneasy and which may be chronicled as follows:—
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.