3 JANUARY 1931, Page 5

News of the Week

The Coal Dispute disorders of the-coal mining industry have several 1. times driven the public to exasperation and the public is not far from that state of mind now. The issue between the owners and the miners is extraordinarily complicated, and it is difficult for anyone not equipped with much technical information to distribute the blame justly, but the onlooker is not far wrong -who' says that this is not the time for heroics. The difference between the two sides is so small that there is-no excuse forka battle which would leave both sides the losers and place .the rest - of the nation in the position of an exhausted and beggared third party.

* * *