On Friday, June 24th, the miners' executive decided not to
hold the conference of other unions which they had summoned for Saturday, the truth being that the unions declined to attend. Realizing that they could not continue the strike without funds and without support, they tacitly abandoned their political aims and wrote to the Prime Minister and to the coal-owners asking for a meeting on Saturday "with a view to negotiating a satisfactory wages agreement which they could recommend their members to accept." The Prime Minister agreed to summon a conference for Monday. At this conference the coal- owners and the miners' leaders spent the whole day in working out the details of a new wages agreement. Both parties then joined in demanding the Government subsidy of £10,000,000 to tide over the next three months while the industry wall getting under weigh. The agreement, it was stated, would bind both aides until the end of next year, and would guarantee to every miner a minimum wage not less than the equivalent of what he earned before the war.
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