Aug. 31.
Our Manchester correspondent's letter on the mining dispute home contains much food for thought. It is true that the cliff culty has been solved since the letter was written but the settlement is only of a temporary nature, The Treasury is to find] £10,000,000 as a subsidy for the industry and the whole question, is to be reopened in a year's, time. It is plain to everyone] that an industry which can only] live if it is subsidised at the expense of the taxpayer is a business that is scarcely worth preserving. But coal-mining is} scarcely on a level with an ordinary trade, If a shipyard, for instance, is closed in a period of temporary depression it can be reopened without much trouble when basines revives. But if coal mine is closed for a pro-Jonged period the workings are! flooded and the expense of reopening {s often so great that the mine may be abandoned. If this were to happen on a large scale in Britain the result would be a national calamity of the first magnitude, As an emergency measure, therefore, the government subsidy may in this instance bbe justified, How very serious the situation' was is evident from the speech of Mr. Hartshorn in the House of Commons on July 8. Mr. Hartshorn, who was Postmaster General in-the Labour Cabinet in 1924, showed that unemployment in mining had risen from 81,000 in February, 1924, to 801,000 at the time he was speaking. A depression of this kind, so sudden in its onslaught and so far-reaching in its effects, must be almost unprecedented in the history of industry in Britain. The most sinister aspect of the situation is that the crisis in the mining trade is symptomatic of a change that seems to be passing over the whole industrial situation at] home. Coal is not in demand because the great iron and steel] manufactories are idle or working part time, They in their turn are dependent on shipbuild: ing, engineering and allied trades for the orders that keep the mill wheels turning and the melting, furnaces in full blast. So the balance sheet. Before the war our home exports were some £160,000,000 less than our foreign imports; they are now £300,- 000,000 ess than those imports. It is true that financiers tell us that we have an income from "invisible exports." In other words, we have money coming in to us from investments in foreign stocks and industries that, in some measure, redressed the adverse balance of imports. But even taking this into considera-_ tion the whole outlook calls for serious thought on the part of! those who have charge of the! nation's destinies.
One of the first needs is that! the nation should be aroused to see that the plight of the country is a call to every Briton to ex-excise the old-fashioned virtues of thrift and hard work. It must! be confessed that this generation appears lacking in these characteristics. It jazzes away the ennui of idleness and lives on doles and the hope that something, will turn up. A glance at the map will show that the British Empire has undeveloped resources greater than those of any other! nation, not excepting China or the United States. But these resources can be of value only to virile and industrious peopl Ages ago Mencius taught the! Chinese that "prosperity is born in adversity. and perishes through pleasure." This is true if the heart of the nation be sound but: there is nothing but perdition awaiting us if our moral fibre is sapped, for nature ruthlessly destroys the unfit and it is adversity that tests our fitness to survive. Let us turn to the poet of Empire! again lest we forget that the Empire that was won by, the hardy virtues of our forefathers cannot be maintained! by "such boastings asthe! Gentiles use" but by mutual goodwill and ce-operation on a tion-wide basis. It may be difficult to win back the leading. position we once held as. the world's emporium, but if we ean-not, for the time being, increase our exports it might be possible to decrease our necessity to import 80 per cent. of our food. Denmark and Belgium are not more fertile than England and. their climate is no more congenial but, by a system of intensive farming, they not only have no need to import food, but have a surplus to export. It is cheering, too, to think of certain collieries that were to be closed but, by! an arrangement between " the masters and men, are working on a ce-operative basis, are paying their way and both sides are satisfied. If we have tha grit and the will to triumph there no doubt but that we shall find a way out of our difficulties. mining output may be taken as barometer that indicates the rising or falling of our national wealth.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.