One wishes that Reuter could be much more explicit about the Miners Federation Conference or cut it out altogether. The subject' is important enough to demand better treatment. Apparently they are going to ask for an increase of 2/6, 1/-, and 9d. per day according to the grade of worker. Simultaneously they will deuiand that the Government shall remove the 14/2 increase in the price per ton of domestic coal. This is a point to which attention should be directed. Our trade union correspondent, in a more than usually interesting article, recently pointed out that the coal miners, unlike other artisans, are genuinely concerned that their own demands should not spell higher prices to consumers. They have always persisted that with proper management the cost of coal could be lowered and their own wages improved. We are not fighting the battle of nationalization. But when one learns that the British coal output for the first quarter of the year was 62,000,000 tons and the profits £14,250,000, there seems to be something in the argument.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.