July 23, 1915.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

173

and it is thought that prices may shortly advance.
The approaching holiday has given an impetus to
trade in west Scotland, but in the east the conditions
are none too brisk.

It has been necessary to omit from the present
issue the further instalment of Mr. James Lomax’s
paper on “ The Microscopical Examination of Coal,”
which, however, will be resumed next week.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department
gives notice that he has made an Order under
section 33 of the Coal Mines Act, 1911, entitled “ The
Safety Lamps Order of the 9th July, 1915,” approving
three brands of safety lamp glasses, until further
Order, for use in any flame safety lamp of approved
type.

In the House of Commons on Tuesday, Mr.
Pretyman stated that it was not proposed at present
to introduce legislation for the purpose of regulating
the coastwise trade.

Judgment was delivered in the Court of Appeal on
Tuesday in the case of Hooley v. the Butterley Iron
and Coal Company Limited, which involved the
question as to whether the company were liable to
pay minimum wages to a person employed under the
“ butty ” system. The company were the appellants,
and the decision of the Court was given in their
favour.

Mr. J. B. Atkinson, late H.M. inspector of mines,
has accepted the position of chairman to the Joint
Committee of the Northumberland Coal Trade, in
room of Mr. E. Shortt, K.C., M.P., resigned.

It has been announced in Berlin that the German
Government has decided to assume control of the
coal industry. It has since been stated that such
action will not be taken if the old syndicate can be
renewed before the end of the year.

The Price of Coal (Limitation) Bill was read a
second time on Monday, Sir Joseph Walton with-
drawing his motion for rejection. The Bill was
considered in Committee last night, progress being
reported. No amendments were carried.

An Order, dated July 3, has been issued by the
Home Secretary, amending the Explosives in Coal
Mines Order of September 1, 1913, by the addition
of certain new explosives.

Several resolutions urging remedial measures for
the retail coal supply of London were passed at a
conference of the Metropolitan Borough Councils on
Wednesday.

On the intervention of the Minister of Munitions,
the miners’ strike in South Wales has been settled
on terms representing a compromise between the
men’s original demands and Mr. Kunciman’s
proposals. Work has now been resumed.

It is now announced that the national conference
of representatives of the mining industry, convened
by the Government, will be held on Friday next, the
30th inst., at the London Opera House.

The strike in South Wales has ended

The and the men have gone back to the
Government pits, but the stink remains. Mr.
and the Lloyd George went down to Cardiff
Syndicalist, and told the Welsh miners what a
fine lot of fellows they were, and they
fervently acquiesced ; yet how far is this from being
the true reflection of the facts. By their action they
have irretrievably injured the prestige of their
country; they have gambled with the blood of their
comrades in the trenches, destroyed the confidence of
our allies, and dealt the Government a blow from
which it will with the utmost difficulty recover.

For the Minister of Munitions we have no word
of blame; he had to save something from the wreck,
and he succeeded as well as the wit of man could
conceive ; but for the perverted and sordid democracy
that can stoop to wrest these spoils from the necessity
of its fatherland, we have nothing but loathing ; and
for those who have abetted and excused, nothing but
amazement. What must be the future of those who
can with complacency witness a compromise at such
a cost ?

Let us look at the consequences. The miners have
succeeded in obtaining practically the whole of their
demands ; and they have done this, to use the word
of the Ministers who visited Cardiff, “by the

public-spirited action of the coal owners, who placed
themselves unreservedly in the Government’s hands
for the purpose of securing a peaceful and reasonable
settlement immediately.” To measure the justice of
the cause by the results obtained under these con-
ditions, and to say, as do some of our agile
contemporaries of the daily Press, that by their
failure to agree to these terms in the first instance,
the mine owners have shown their guilt, is evidence
of a warped judgment; it is to presuppose the
justice and reasonableness of the terms that have
been extorted. If the mine owners are guilty, is not
the Government equally guilty ? For the owners
from the outset placed themselves unreservedly in
the hands of the Cabinet, and the terms that have
been flouted have not been the terms of the
employers, but those formulated by the President
of the Board of Trade.

Under other circumstances, we might fairly say
that the employers’ trust has been abused; we
prefer to say that, by their self-sacrifice, they have
saved the face of the Government, so far as it was
possible to save it. For let us be under no delusion,
this strike has shaken the authority of the State to
its foundations. The Munitions Act, which the
Government passed in so masterful a spirit, has been
proved to be a thing of clay. . It is useless to contend
that the Act was never intended to apply to cases of
the magnitude of that of South Wales; this would
simply mean that the Government is unable to
coerce or mould to its will any but the weak, and
if the Act was only aimed at an occasional votary
of “ St. Monday,” surely the talk that heralded it
was only bombinans in vacuo, and the machinery
outlined in the Act altogether too elaborate. Now
the Munitions Act may take its place, with the
“ Black List,” the Defence of the Kealm Act and other
“ frightful ” legislative enactments, which have been
passed to “ dress the window,” and have no further
practical significance.

But the trouble, which broke into open eruption
in South Wales last week, is still there; the foliage
has been mown down but the roots of the weeds are
still alive below the surface. What has happened
in the Khondda Valley, may to-morrow happen in
South Yorkshire, at Elswick, or on the Clyde, and
the damage may be greater next time. When the
Munitions Act was introduced, Mr. Lloyd George
said he would require guarantees from the coal
trade; if he gets them, what are they worth ?
The unions cannot give them ; even when the execu-
tive of the South Wales Miners’ Federation, the
Government and the coal owners had reached agree-
ment, the pact had still to be ratified by the dele-
gates ; if it had been deemed politic to the caucus,
the decision of the delegates might in its turn have
been conditional upon its acceptance by the rank and
file, although the latter, from first to last, were never
consulted through the ballot on the question of
striking, as they should have been.

Under these circumstances, from whom can Mr.
Lloyd George obtain his guarantees, and where is
his security ? Only in the igoodwill and patriotism
of the people ; and, in that case, why have a Govern-
ment at all ? In another column we examine the
“ terms of settlement ” ; we refuse to discuss them
here, because any such digression would obscure the
paramount fact that nothing can be really settled if the
methods adopted in South Wales be sanctified by
approval. The only consolation we have is that
those who engineered this disgraceful strike have
not quite succeeded in their real object, which was
the nationalisation of the mines. The chief argument
against nationalisation is that it is less economical
and less efficient than private enterprise; but, if
private enterprise be hampered by unfair and
impossible conditions, the argument is sensibly
weakened. Some of us frequently overlook the fact
that the Syndicalist, unlike his more honest prototype
the Socialist, who at least would buy out the
employer, aims at obtaining possession of mines and
workshops by the, to him, cheaper method of ruining
the present owner and so acquiring his business at a
knock-out price. ’The ostensible strike for exorbitant
conditions is one of the means to an end, and the
Government that weakly yields to such pressure has
begun to dig a grave for itself.

The Price of Coal (Limitation) Bill
The Price Of was read a second time in the House

Coal Bill, of Commons on Monday. Owing to
the wide difference of opinion mani-
fested in regard to this typical emergency measure,
and to members the opportunity to draft amendments,
the Committee stage was not reached until last
night, and this will be continued to-day. It is
improbable, however, that the passage of the Bill
will be long delayed.

Two points were made clear by Mr. Kunciman on
Monday; firstly, that the Bill does not apply to
existing contracts; and, secondly, that the Govern-
ment have no intention of permitting any material
amendment of the Bill in the direction of bringing
unexpired contracts under itsu operation. He
stated, however, that the Government were prepared
to meet the case of local authorities and of public
utility companies, and it must be confessed that the
plea for consideration in this instance is a strong one,
because it is clear that bodies that are under
certain statutory obligations to maintain their ser-
vices have had little opportunity to exercise
‘ i shrewdness ” which the President of the Board of
Trade commended, and that they have actually been
instigated by the State to make provision for future
emergencies by the accumulation of stocks and long-
term contracts. Furthermore, there is not the
objection in this case that applies to the contract
with the middleman, for, as Mr. Kunciman quickly
discerned, to allow the merchant to waive his con-
tract would not appreciably affect the price of coal
to the consumer, and would simply mean that the
middleman would receive a gift of a shilling or two
at the expense of the producer and miner.

At the same time the objection on moral grounds
against interfering with existing contracts is
unanswerable; Mr. Kunciman said that many bold
things have been done during the war, but he knew
of none as bold as the tearing up of commercial
undertakings that had been deliberately entered into,
many of these being the base of numerous derivative
sub-contracts between merchants, dealers and con-
sumers ; further, it would be grossly unfair to vary
existing contracts in favour of the buyer, unless the
long-termed contracts, which are still operating to
the disadvantage of the collieries, were also modified.

As regards the standard price fixed by the Bill,
and the method of applying the same, there undoubt-
edly would be considerable advantages if the basis of
calculation proposed by Sir Arthur Markham
were adopted—namely, by taking the average
price realised for each class of coal at each colliery
during the previous twelve months. It would tend
to simplicity in the result, but it may well be that
there are departmental difficulties in the way, and it
would certainly be difficult in some instances to
arrive at a true and representative average; but we
believe that the difficulties that will be experienced
by Mr. Kunciman’s officials in settling the multi-
tudinous questions that must arise under the basis of
calculation that has been adopted will be equally as
great, if not greater.

As to the 4s. standard, it is gratifying that the
President of the Board of Trade should have
satisfied himself that the estimate of increased cost
recklessly assumed by the Retail Coal Prices Com-
mittee is completely in error. Anyone reading the
evidence tendered before the Committee must have
seen how flimsy were the grounds for the figure put
forward by them. Mr. Kunciman, apparently, has
not been content with it, and has made a more
careful investigation, but the weighty pronounce-
ments of the Committee still stick in the minds of
some who are only too anxious to believe them. Mr.
Anderson would have reduced the standard to 3s..
and Mr. J. Samuel to 2s. These figures would have
been ridiculous, and would have justified the
suspicion that prevails in many quarters, unreason-
ably, we think, that this Bill is a punitive measure.

Other points that have arisen in the debate may
be deferred. It seems, however, that some declara-
tion from the Government is needed as to their
policy in regard to future advances in wages, and
the position in regard to exports should be cleared
up. It is manifestly impossible to make this Bill
square with our normal conceptions of commercial