TOPICS OF THE DAY
THE COAL STOPPAGE
THEREis a phrase embedded by long use in the English language which expresses the normal Englishman's despair when he recognizes that some trouble flows from pure unreasonableness on the part of the two principals in a dispute. He says that they ought to have "their, heads knocked together." Everybody knows what that means. The onlooker who calls the phrase in aid to sum up the dispute, and who is probably speaking with personal bitterness because indirectly he is himself a sufferer, signifies that ,he does not know what to make of such people. He knows that the dispute could be settled by reason and good will, but he does not know whether he can fairly blame one of the disputants more than the other. He is inclined to give them both -up- as hopeless, and he does not think, it worth the time and the trouble to try to deliver an exact judgment. All he wisheS is that they might be made to suffer in a summary way for making other people suffer.
A great many people are feeling this about the mine- owners and the miners, and perhaps some of them are using the consecrated phrase. For our part we should like to give the feeling a precise- application and to say that we do not see much prospect of reasonableness so long as the Mining Association and the Miners' Federation are represented by their' present chief officials. It is not necessary to examine their respective demerits or merits ; it is enough to say that the representatives on both sides have become thoronghly stale—no blame to them for that—that they are incapable of seeing fresh points of view, and that they have become so immersed in bickering as an occupation that they have ceased to appreciate how intimately the whole nation is concerned in the reconstitution of the coal-fields.
The Prime Minister, in the rebuking letters which he wrote to the Mining Association, and to the miners, said in dignified language what everybody is saying and thinking. The flight of reason has brought us to this pass, that when we write these words nobody knows whether the large subsidy and all the labour of the Royal Commission are not going to be entirely wasted. Yet can it seriously be hoped that any new method that may be tried will present a better basis for agreement than the exceedingly able and painstaking Report of the Royal Commission.? The dispute has been going backwards instead of forwards. At first the owners gave the Coin- mission's Report what was generally taken to be an acceptance, though a grudging one. The Government promised to accept it, though they frankly did not like certain aspects of it, if only the owners and the miners would come to a preliminary agreement about wages. The miners never accepted it, since they tied their repre- sentatives by an absolute negation on the point of wages, although the Commission's proposal about a temporary reduction in the case of the higher paid men was incidental to a great number of_ valuable recommendations which should have been most agreeable to the miners and had, as a matter of fact, been demanded by them for a very long time. Now the miners remain where they did ; the owners have returned to the recalcitrant position which they took up before the Royal Commission ; and the Government are evidently in two minds as to whether it is of any use trying to proceed with the Report.
We do not take Mr. Baldwin's latest proposals to mean necessarily either that he wants to abandon the Report as a whole, or that if the Government now jettison part of it—as, for instance, the buying out of the royalty- owners—they will not pass all the legislation proposed in the Report when they get the opportunity. The real reasons for postponing the purchase of the minerals are, we imagine, that the purchase would not have any appreciable effect upon . wages and that time, of which already too much has been wasted, would be saved if the cargo of legislation were kept as small as possible. All the same, we must express our opinion that the Commissioners were very wise to recommend the expropriation of the royalty-owners. Though the royalties increase by only a tiny amount—say'• something between- 2d. and 6d.— the price of each ton of coal, they have caused jealousy, suspicion and misunderstanding. The atmosphere would at once become sweeter if the private ownership of the minerals were aboliShed. Whatever the Prime Minister's own opinions may be, however, the refusal of both' the owners and the miners to accept hiS plan of putting the essential parts of the Report into effect as quickly as possible has caused him to threaten that the Government may be compelled to resume complete liberty of action. This, then, is the pass we have come to, that not only has no progress been made, but we are behind the starting point of eleven months ago.
It is easy when reviewing this sorry history to say that the Government would have done much' better not to trust to the owners and miners coming to a preliminaty agreement about wages as the necessary condition' of legislation. But the display of unreason has been such that no one could possibly say with any confidence that any other order of events would have produced a result different from what we have got. The complaint of the Mining Association—which we are happy to remember does not represent all the mineown- ers—that the Govern- ment have been guilty of " political interference " is impertinent. The time is long past when a Government could look On with folded arms while the two sides in the most vital of the nation's industries fought each other to a standstill. The trouble is that their standstill means a standstill for everybody else.
It has been asked why the Government has not acted upon the memorandum which Sir Herbert Samuel pror duced during the strike and which commended itself to the Trades Union Congress. One answer, of course, is that even that was refused by the miners. It is almost impossible to understand why they should have refused it, for it meant a continuance of work with unreduced wages while the reconstruction of the coal-fields was being settled. For this purpose the Government would have had to pay a subsidy for what Sir Herbert Samuel called " a reasonable period." The Government would have been quite justified if they had said, as we dare say they thought, that " a reasonable period " was likely to become a very unreasonable period.
The miners are obstinate though brave men. They have a way of holding out longer than other trades would have any stomach for, but, like most obstinate people, they are quite illogical, and in the past they have often demanded, with the air of having. discovered something new, something that had been freely offered to them long before. This psychological fact should be borne in mind. We suggest that there is no need to write off the subsidy and the labours of the Royal Commission as of no avail. If the 'negotiators were changed there would very likely be a disposition to consider the Report as a whole, pro- vided that there was no question of anybody being bound, or seeming to be bound, by conditions before entering the Conference. A change of persons iiaeally important. The Government, we admit, could not note enforce fresh representation, but surely-the Mining. Association and the Miners' Federation could-voluntarily make changes which, we are sure, would be for their own benefit. Any sacrifices involved would be equal.
The Government cannot leave the matter to the arbitrament of exhaustion on one side or the other. The nation requires a settlement. The nation's needs are greater than those of either the miners or the owners, just as the need for reconstruction and saving the mines is much greater than any immediate issue of wages or hours of labour.
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