May 10.
There is one point in the present labour dispute in Great] Britain on which all parties are agreed. That is that "there is something rotten in the state of Denmark." The coal-mining industry has come to a crisis in which it is evident that it is impossible to go on on the old jes, Something has to be done to reorganize the whole business of getting and selling coal and tthe question in dispute is merely what that something The miners say it is nationalization. Make the production of coal a national, government-controlled industry, so that the profits obtained from working the rich mines would go into a pool with the losses incurred in working the poor ones and it would be! possible to continue working the coal deposits of Great Britain' and to pay the workers a living' wage, Everyone agrees that the arduous Jabour of the miner should command not only living wage but a good wage. He risks his life every time he descends the pit shaft. He toils at his task in darkness illumined by the flickering light of his safety lamp. He is always cramped under the low roof at the coal face and is frequently compelled to sit, or lie, on a wet bottom while hewing his daily output of coal. He deserves: sympathy and it is certain, that in spite of the discomfort which they are suffering from the, strike, the community earnestly desire that the miner's hard lot should be bettered and not made worte as a result of the present agitation, There are many reasons why the Government opposes nationalization of the mines. The tremendous cost of buying out the mine-owners is one and the fact that a new bureaucracy would have to" be set up to manage the mines is another. The ordinary man is quite certain in his own mind that in any bargain made with the coal barons the country would be a loser. In commercial slang the country would be left "holding dhe baby." Moreover, the miners have an unhappy reputation for, triking on very Little provocation and it is by no means certain that they would ba any more conciliatory as Government servants than they are under the present regime. The country has no guarantee that after it has nationalized the mines, at a cost of some hundreds of millions of pounds, it would be any nearer industrial peace than it is now. Hence the present unfortunate deadlock which, by common content, is only one degree less disastrous than another great war.
A book has recently been issued by two British engineer: Mr. Bertram Austin and Mr. W.
Francis Lloyd, called "The secret of high wages." The theory! these two young men set out to maintain is that high wages, paid to the workman, is real economy. They argue that high wages do not necessarily mean high prices; that it is better to aim at a big output at a low price than at a limited output] and Jarge profits. If these propositions are sound, they seem to offer a solution of a great many of our labour troubles. If accepted by employers and' workers they would certainly put an instant end to the present strike, but the question that at once occurs is how it can be possible to reconcile the two apparently incompatibilities of high wages and low prices. The answer is in two words "increased output."
This is what the coal masters ask for now.
They demand that the miners shall work longer hours so that the output of the mines may be increased, overhead charges reduced and mining again made a profitable The miners reply that the mine owners have consistently cut wages down to the lowest possible level.
That as as their output is increased Jand earnings thereby raised, the rate per ton is immediately reduced and they find that they have to work longer for less) wages than before.
That there is truth in this contention is borne out by a paragraph in the foreword of the book we have referred to above.
It is stated Council is supposed to have had jit moulding Feng's views, we Ihave fallen out sharply-enough with the N.C.C's policy in recent times, but really we think "Jonathan Blunt" is rather hard on it. We observe that he says nothing of Feng—Vu-hsiang's treaty with the Soviet, by which he was to get munitions and military instructors, and the /Soviet were to build railways in Mongolia. The terms of this treaty were published all over China, by Chinese and foreign journals, last December. They must have come to Feng's notice; Jand they were never denied. Also we learn to-day that Fe Ihas arrived in Moscow. All this means much more than anything for which the N.C.C. can be held Tt is not, perhaps, too much to think that "Jonathan Blunt" believes in Feng because he professes and calls himself a Christian. Mr. Gilbert tries to test his professions by results. Which of the two, we ask, should that "any impartial observer|then be called "a pure sub-must admit that the traditional|jectivist policy of employers in|theme?" on this particular) But we wish to leave many British industries is largely to blame for the opposition to payment by results, and for the fact that the wage-eaner con-Jcentrates more attention on the standard rate of his d rather than on the prosperity of firm, or on the hope of rising to higher, position. history would have been different if more industries had realized the economic importance of a wage system which provided big prizes for the wage lout of consideration altogether Feng Vu-hsiang's Christianity, the mere mention: of which, as in Jonathan Blunt's camer: bound to produce distortion: colour, in contrasts, in perspec: tive." Let us try to judge him simply by results. Last December we published a leading, article defending Marshal Feng. against the charge of being a. Bolshevik; we accepted his statement that he was not pro-this or anti-that, but only pro-China. we allowed that his successive The adoption of a system of payment by results would assuredly make for peace in the industrial world.
The only real objection to it is the men's deep-rooted distrust of the employers' fairness in apportioning the just share of profits earned to the Both parties to the present dispute in the 1 trade have carried their disagreement to a point where the settlement has passed out of their hands and become a national affair. It seems as though the Government were in a peculiarly favourable position to act as middle-Iman and offer a guarantee to the miners that if they accepted the principle of increased output, their wages should not be cut down without the Government's consent,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.