A Sick Industry

Gloom. Gloom. Gloom. Ahead, rapidly drawing closer, was the spectre of an unparalleled industrial crisis. On Aug. 1 the coal miners would strike, unless a last-minute agreement were made. With the striking miners would be the transport workers and railwaymen, who decided not to handle any coal once the strike began. Numerous other workers would surely walk out in sympathy while, owing to a shortage of coal, many industries would be forced to shut down and discharge their employes. The Times struck the keynote of pessimism:

“The country is threatened with a disaster wholly unprecedented in its history, and one from which it would not recover for a generation, if ever.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury issued a solemn appeal:

“It is not seldom in the past 50 years that the people of this country have been confronted by the prospect of widespread industrial strife. But never, so far as I can judge, has the danger been so grave and so urgent as today. The wisest thinkers warn us that at this moment there is an almost unparalleled crisis in our national life.”

Near Durham, Bishop Welldon, Dean of Durham Cathedral, was roughly handled when he attended a miners’ fete. Apparently, the miners resented his trying to give both sides to the dispute; for, the moment his presence was noticed, horny hands seized him and raucous voices yelled: “Throw him in the river.” The 77-year-old begaitered and silk-hatted gentleman was rushed toward the river. Cooler heads, however, came to his rescue, after which the Bishop merely commented: “I lost my new hat and umbrella.”

This gloomy situation was engendered last week when the mine owners had bills pasted at the pitheads announcing their irrevocable decision to end the present wage agreement (TIME, July 27) on the last day of July. Employment for most grades would be at the same rates of pay for a longer working day. As a countermove, the Miners’ Federation instructed the miners to cease work on July 31. Preparations to this effect were made and compromise arrangements were made to safeguard the mines from flooding. In the background the objects of a proposed Labor alliance, embracing 3,000,000 miners, railwaymen and workers in the shipbuilding, transport and engineering trades, were stated to be:

“To create by means of an alliance among the specified organizations the means of mutual support, to assist any of the allied organizations in defending hours of labor, wage standards, in securing advancement of the standards of living or to take action to secure acceptance of and defend any principle of an industrial character which may be deemed vital by the allied organizations.”

The Times blamed both sides: “The remedy for the present state of the industry proposed by the owners is longer hours and lower wages and the miners will not hear of either. They have made no proposals of their own and their attitude is purely negative. They simply will not listen to the terms put forward by the owners who decline to offer any others. This means that both sides are marching steadily and deliberately to battle.”

At the last moment the miners, who had previously declined to meet the owners, agreed to do so. This meeting and the publication of the finding of the Government’s Court of inquiry remained the only portents of a peaceful issue of the dispute. The King, from Buckingham Palace, asked for the fullest information concerning the crisis.

Miners of South Wales did their best toward solving the complex problem by suggesting that wages should be regulated, in the lower ranks of the coal industry, by the size of a man’s family. An example: If a worl.er gets 5s per diem and has a wife, he would draw an additional shilling and 3d; 5d for the first child, 4d for the second, 3d for the third and 2d for the fourth.