Genoa will certainly not strength. en the Prime Minister's position, though his personality is always a factor to be reckoned with, and he may return and re-establish the damaged forces of the Coalition. The Coalition has, however, many other troubles, not the least of which is Ireland, where the Irish are still fighting like cats, and the situation could not be much worse, The loyalists in Southern Ireland are exposed to a state of affairs which, without exaggeration, is not very much better than the early months under Bolshevik rule, and the loyalists are apparently being treated much as were the Protestants at the time of the St. Bartho-Jomew massacre. We may regret the equally reprehensible atrocities in Ulster, but they are all by way of retaliation, and if, as now seems likely, there is an attack by the regulars of the I.R.A. on Ulster, there is certain to be some fighting of a very bitter nature. This will involve, of course, the British Army, which is responsible for the safeguarding of the North-eastern Provinces. The Irish Election is still promised, but no date has been fixed, and, although the country would seem to desire the Treaty, the nation is apparently terrorized by the military bodies who roam up and down its entire length and breadth.
Industrially, the Government is still faced with the continuance of the engineers' lock-out, though the shipyard men have fortunately gone back, as they have accepted a reduction in wages, and there is peace in the cotton trade, but, quite apart from a big struggle either on principles or on wages, there are a large number of perfectly stupid quarrels, which disgust any reasonable and intelligent man, This is the sort of thing which is happening, and it almost makes one desviair of the intelligence of one's fellow countrymen. More than 1,000 men and boys are idle at Kimblesworth Colliery, near Durham, in consequence of the colliery-house being occupied by a chauffeur instead of a miner. At Oakdale Navigation Colliery, near Blackwood, in Monmouthshire, between 1,560 and 2,000 men are now out on "trike. In this case, the reason is said to be that a workman had his lamp taken away because of a disturbance, and the men decided at a meeting not to resume work until his place had been returned to him.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.