Great Britain is threatened with a coal strike. The prospect was con templated at the Trade Union Congress in October at Brighton, when Str. J. R, Clynes and Mr. E. Shinwell who both have regained their seats In the House of Commons, championed the miners' contentions. Ag. the Fesult the Congress pledged its full support to the Mineworkers' Feder tion of Great Britain in the campaign launched and it appealed "to the Beneral public to realize the justice of the miners' demands". In the beginning of the present month the colliery owners of Lancashire and Cheshire intimated their readiness to discuss the subject with the representatives of the miners—"not as a result of the threat to strike but because their sales scheme is now launched and they have faith in the future, and because they sincerely wish fo make a sympathetic gesture to the miners". This conciliatory attitude did not And Aeceptance the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Federation felt that the proper course was to proceed by negotiation for national agreement, on the basis of an. advance of wages by 2s. shift, rather than by district settlement. Behind the controversy stands the plan for the public ownership and control the coal industry as conceived by the 'General Council of the Trade Union 'Congress, with the help of the Miners' Federation. The Trade Unionists urge that, as the wages bill of the industry has been reduced from £168 million In 1924 to £85 million in 1034, bringing the wages cost per ton of coal from 12s. 144d. to 86. 7d., the miners had, through their wages subsidized the' purchase of coal at reduced prices. 'The speeches at the Congress Jon the miners' behalf emphasized the seriousness of the position. The disfession now arranged with the Prime Minister brings that point forcibly to mind. It is to be hoped that reasoned argument will be sufficient to produce a compromise which may avert ruinous dispute.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.