The Miners' Federation at its annual conference this week has
discussed the question of ending the wages agreement made after the long and disastrous strike of 1921. When we go to press no decision has been reached, but it is clear that the • districts are sharply divided on the matter. Lancashire, where the miners are affected by the depression in the cotton trade, and South Wales, where advanced politicians control the miners' unions, want to break the agreement. The other districts, led by Mr. Herbert Smith, the president, and by Mr. Frank Hodges, the secretary, would gladly give the agreement a further trial. It seems clear to the outsider that, if the agreement is broken, many of the poorer pits will have to be closed and there will be widespread unemployment. The coalowners as a body have not received anything like their minimum for " standard " profits, while the miners have had a great deal more than their minimum wages. The truth is that the miners are suffering, like the rest of us, from the world-wide depression in trade. They might earn more if they cared to revert to the nominal eight-hour (or actual six and a-half hour) day, but that they will not do.
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