TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE COAL STRIKE. THE men have won, and the public have lost, in Lord Rosebery's settlement of the coal strike. We are heartily glad it is settled, because its continuance through the winter would have involved extremities of suffering for the poorer class of our city populations ; but it is of no use to disguise from ourselves the meaning of the settle- ment. That the men have paid a heavy price for their victory in the suffering of sixteen weeks, in the ruin of their Union treasuries, and in the injury done to their children's constitutions, is true enough ; but we cannot see bow reasonable men can deny that they have won it, and that it will have great results. They have not ruined the masters, because prices have gone up ; but their con- tention from the first has been that prices ought to be forced up rather than their wages be reduced. They struck against reduction, and they go back with un- diminished rates of pay. It is true that from Feb- ruary 1st, 1894, if a Board of Conciliation in which they seat half the representatives chooses, they are liable to be asked to accept lower rates ; but who believes that the Board of Conciliation will choose to recommence a fight which threatens not only coal-miners, but the whole prosperity of the Empire P The masters will rather organise a strike of their own against the freeholders, or if that is too absurd, the royalties really pressing but lightly on the trade, they will revise their contracts with the great buyers, establish a minimum scale among themselves—that is really the Coal Trust idea—and tax the buyers of house-coal, who are an anarchic lot, and practically powerless, an extra half. crown a ton. The men have in practice secured the recognition of their old wage as the lining wage, and will not be deprived of it except under the pressure of necessities so severe that the masters, rather than go on, will ask the intervention of the State.
It is this, and one other result mentioned below, which seem to us such serious features in the recent settlement. Whether the old rates really left the men nothing but a living *age or a rate of pay easily susceptible of reduction, we confess ourselves totally unable to decide. In spite of the apparently clear statements of the owners, the broad facts seem to indicate that, owing to some cause still not clearly explained, the men, though highly paid by the day, did not earn high wages by the week or month, and in fighting against reduction were really fighting for their homes. Not only did they bear " clemming " for sixteen weeks with a dogged endurance which suggests among Englishmen the genuineness of a grievance, but their wives, who are generally against strikes, and who suffered more than their husbands, were passionately earnest against surrender. Moreover, the heavy " levies " paid in support of the strikers by men still at work indicate a sympathy not often felt with unreasonable demands, while an incident like that at Hucknall, where the wives of miners still at work " took in " children by whole trains- ful, points to an excitement of opinion which must have had some basis, Whatever the truth, however, it is clear that the men stuck to their text until they compelled the Government to intervene. No doubt the intervention was wisely managed. The Government committed itself as little as it could, and it possessed, as it happened, exactly the right man to manage a great bit of social diplomacy ; but still the Government did acknowledge that a strike had affected the State, and had there- fore become its business to settle. In compelling that avowal the men, it seems evident, gained a great point for the view of the collectivists. One hardly sees how, if the Conference had failed, the Government could have drawn back, leaving industry and the revenue to become more and more embarrassed ; or how, if they had not drawn back, they could have gone forward except by leasing or buying the mines from the owners, and managing them themselves. Nor do we see how, if the Government intervenes in miners' quarrels, it is to avoid intervening in any other quarrels large enough to affect the general interest. Suppose the merchant seamen, who have many grievances, were to strike, or the agricul- tural labourers, who are so underpaid, were to throw them- selves in great bodies and over whole districts on the rates, could the Government abstain' from intervention ? In other words, the State has already become supreme adviser in labour questions, and the step from that to supreme arbitration is not a long one. We quite admit that the English people are fortunately not logical, and that in this country one event does not necessarily or immedi- ately flow out of another ; but still the drift of this entire transaction is one way, and that way the way in which most things are going. The very essence of collec- tivism, as held by sane collectivists, is that the State ought to be the grand employer of labour, and the Glad- stone Government acted just as if it saw that prospect; straight ahead. If it is true, as reported, that Lord Rosebery asked the masters, as one measure of concilia- tion, to fix a minimum wage, the State is far advanced on the path ; but even if he did not, it is on the path, which is a totally new one, and leads terribly far, the fixing, of a minimum wage—which the London County Council has just done—being a mere milestone on the road. This first step has been taken, too, unconsciously, as a merely humanitarian measure, and with applause not merely from the men, who think " t'owd man" has shortened their period of short commons, and from the masters, who are relieved from a huge embarrassment, but from the general community, which will have in the end, or indeed at once, to pay the piper. That is the second result to which we have alluded.
It is self-evident that it is the rise of price which has enabled the masters to yield, and though that rise will soon be lost, it will not be lost completely. Already the talk is that coal will be dearer by half-a-crown a ton " for good ; " that is, the community, if the rise extends over all coal, will be forced to pay £28,000,000 a year more for an article of the first necessity. No doubt, as a matter of fact, the rise will be much less, the great buyers, the railway companies, the steam companies, the gas companies, and, the ironfounders extorting, under pressure of competition, better terms ; but suppose the rise is only a half of that amount ? That is fourteen millions a year taken from the community for an article which is destroyed like bread in the using. The community can pay, no doubt, and has. often paid for bread much more serious demands ; but this demand on behalf of coal is only one among many. The tendency is to higher wages, higher taxes, higher rentals, higher charges—a fact often forgotten—for the up-keep of everything, from the roads to the houses and the horses necessary to civilisation. The total is a very heavy burden upon the general fortune, and one the effect of which will speedily be felt, not so much in a decrease of the supply for each family of the necessaries of life as in a decrease of its amenities. The high municipal rates, for instance, rendered inevitable by high wages, do not compel citizens to go without houses, but to live in houses less pleasant than they desire or have been accustomed to inhabit. They put up with fewer or smaller rooms, less ventilation„ and more noise. We do not say that is entirely an injurious process. Much of it may be remedied by harder work on the part of those who distribute instead of receiving wages ; much more by greater simplicity of life, and some by what we may call better management, which means avoidance of waste. Moreover, if the wage- earning class really benefit by the change, that of itself is great compensation, for any true benefit to them makes civilisation and good order more secure. But still, the burden increases perceptibly, and rather rapidly, everything, except bread, growing dearer ; and what we want is that this should be seen and recog- nised fully by those who argue. At present their disposi- tion is to believe that all increases of wages come out of the pockets of employers, and are a deduction from their overgrown fortunes. They are not. The capitalist will not work without his return any more than the shop- keeper will sell, and he has, if the return becomes too small, only two alternatives to choose between. Either he retires fro ii the trade, as has happened to the ship- building trade of London, or he secures, by increasing. price or lowering quality, a better profit on his goods. The latter is his general course ; and it is, therefore, out of the pockets of the community that rises of wages come. So be it if that is to the general advantage, and up to the point at which trade is crippled by the cost of material we do not deny that it may in but let us at least see it, and .not throw up our caps in ignorance. We have no objection to hurrah for Lord Rosebery, who managed a difficult work very ably, and quite deserves the reward Sir John Tenniel has given him in this week's Punch, but what he has done is to settle a dangerous internal quarrel at the cost of a 10 per cent. tax, taken roughly, on the consumers of coal. There was no other way out of the dilemma that we know of, if both masters and men told the truth, but still—
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