The mining lock-out has ended the complete defeat of the miners. The owners have obtain ed everything they wanted and much that they hardly dared to expect. The miner's working hours fare to be longer than thoee anywhere ise in Euvope, excepting only Upper Silesia. The wages pai 3 to. be lower than those paid ldtled or unskilled "Inbour any: where else in this country. This increase in hours will enable the owners. to eliminate from. the in-Gustry every man who took an. factive part in resisting their demands, for it will enable them to Gispense with the services of 250,- '000 men. In some districts the ers will not even recognize the miner's distr nations, but wally after scrutinizing their politi-
The jubilation of the owners at their victory is only paralleled by that of the Communists. For the success of their tactics in widening the field: of Communist. activities has exceeded Mr, Pollitt's wildest dreams. Hating " any reformist measures that might tend towards the establishing of a period of industrial peace in Great Britain, and working deliberately for the accentuating of class hatred and proletarian misery these unsleeping propagandists have found in the coal-owners the best of allies. Their party has numerically doubled it-the outbreak of the di pute and is now so snugly entrenched in the mining and other affected Industrial districts that it will be difficult to eradicate it, One of their local leaders explained to us a few days ago thi party theory of the dispute's aftermath. They anticipate that the mine-owners in other countries wil now be economically forced to fight their workers down to lower Jovelo in a great effort to meet the new competition from Great tain, with the result that Communist theories will make headway in such countries, "Than," he said, "the British coalowners—who are most dull and reactionary in th" workd—will fight again" to still further reduce their employes standard of living." Whatever one: may think of this ingenious theory it is undeniable that destitution and misery azo the most powerful allies df the Communist. propagandists all over the world. And with a few more disputes of the kind we have just experienced here there should be no more flourishing soil for it in all the world than Great Britain, The history of the coal lock-out throws an illuminating flood ight on the reason why the Soviet government concentrates on Great Britain as the likeliest soil among western nations for the dissemination of their political theories. Yo the very end of this dispute a majority of the miners refused to admit defeat or abate a jot of their original demands. The slow starvation of their -families drove thousands of them back into the pits, and, as might be expected, the dour press represented these tions as so much active opto the uncompromising Policy of the Mincr's Federation.
In a few isolated instances. this may have been correct but in many more it is well known that the ¢o-called "blacklegs" received no little sympathy from their comrades still out on strike. "We don't count Bill a seab, his wife and kids were just clemmed to death, the kind of excuse that we have often heard in mining villages ting the last three months. Ati even when the redoubtable Cook, ani his dour colleague Herbert Smith, were eager to call the style Off the last ballot recorded a rank. and file majority too stebkern apt defeat a Many men went back' to the! pits for a week or two and_ then fame out again to resume the trugele with the few pounds they id earned by their Icbour. fovbitul whether' the Bolsher: iks uld have found anywhere: else in the world sueb..a body of discip-
}ined_and dogged opponents to the capitalist theory that the wages of every country must logically come down to the level of the one with) the lowest standards.
At the other end of the scale the Communists had their task made easy by a body of employers who seem constitutionally incapable.of fever looking farther ahead ix months at the outs victory over the mi only made possible because the Government held the victim down, while they starved him into surrender. And having beaten him! they are now indulging to the too of their bent in gratuitously humitating him and robbing him of eon-cessions he has slowly won through years of uphill struggle. Add to this a mentality that despises all research work having for its object the more scientific use of coal as a valuable raw product, being vague ly apprehensive that fts more econoical use will restrict ite present [wholesale consumption in' open [Mividuatism that forcely opposes al crates: Join it to a. grasping
schemes of unification for the industry, and one has a fairly accurate picture of those Bourbons of industrial—-England—the mineowners Coal, we are constantly told, is our key industry. Ts it any wonder that "with a mining population blessed with such British qualities of stubbornness and courage, employing class that has bar emerged from that loisser faire epoch of British industry which reached its apex somewhere about 1820, that the hand which turns ithe Key stretches out from Moscow?
One of the curious effects of the! dispute has been to sharpen the Political predilections of both rural and industrial constituencies. Labour, of every shade of red, has strengthened its position in the industrial [districts But in the rural arcas it has, if anything, lost ground For the one large class of Labour that wes more ill paid in monetary wages than the miners were the iericultural workers. 'They have' shown little sympathy for the }miners during any period Jock out. So while Labour fairly confident of a large number} victories in industrial con. stituencies at the next General lection it is anticipated that the {rural areas will remain faithful 20 heir present Conservative. representatives. Last week, at Howdenthe Labour candidate failed poll a sufficient number of votes to ensure the return of his depas But during the recent municipal lections Labour achieved a nett gain of more than 160 seats, mos: jof which in industrial areas; and in some towns—inchuding Sheficl—they now have a majority on the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.