THE THREATENED COAL STRIKE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1375, 28 February 1912, Page 4

THE THREATENED COAL STRIKE.

» It unhappily appears to be inevitable now that tho trouble in the coal-mining industry in Britain must develop into a strike with possibilities of damage and danger far greater than have over before threatened the United Kingdom. The matter immediately in dispute is the demand of the men for the establishment of a "minimum wage" in the industry—a demand to which in the actual circumstances very few people can deny, a,very, real reasonableness. Unfortunately, to establish a rigid universal minimum wage is likely to injure the industry and tho miners themselves, for it will lead to a reduction of out-put at two ends. Inefficient miners, assured of a minimum wage, will become more inefficient than ever;' efficient miners, having to carry tho ineflicients on their backs, will find their wages reduced, and will lose the incentive to efficiency. There is plainly some right on both sides to the dispute, aud no doubt, when a settlement is eventually arrived at, _ the real substance of the men's grievances—which is, that many of them work hard with small, grievously small, results—will be admitted without detriment to the principle that the coal industry can live only on what it produces. The effects of anything like the general coal strike that has been threatened will be very far-reaching. What some of these will be are pointed out by the Spectator. In tho first place, the mines of_ Britain, and therefore the miners' interests, can flourish only if there is a persistent and increasing demand for coal. Now, a general strike will seriously, and perhaps permanently, check that demand. Already oil is seriously competing against coal in every direction, and the strike will increase the demand for oil, both by industries and by householders. Oil, in fact, stands to obtain a firm footing with great rap_idity._ Then, a prolonged strike will kill many industries which are now only just paying, and kill them for good and all; while the German and American mines will secure, and secure as a permanency, much of tho custom now given to British mines by foreign countries. One of yesterday's cable messages illustrates this aspect of. the question. A German Association of Miners has decided to withhold its support from the strikers on the significant ground that during the German strike in 1905 the British miners "seized every opportunity to capture tho markets, thus forcing the Germans to work short time when they resumed." Whatever a prolonged coal strike may do to the mine-owners and to_ the nation as a whole, it will certainly do grievous damage to the miners themselves, for, as the Spectator points out, the men in the long run aro paid out of tho product, and if less coal is produced there must either be a diminution in tho number of men employed underground or a diminution in wages, or both. "When tho battle is over and things havo resumed their normal condition there will be a smaller number of men employed in tho British coalfields, and not at higher but at lower wages than now." The real origin of the trouble is practically the samo as the origin of most of the large labour disturbances in Australasia in recent times, namely, the working of the syndicalism idea. Tho projected strike is really due to the desiro of the dominant leaders to show the power of the trade unions. The older unionists have doubts about tho wisdom of trying to slop the wheels of industry, out, to quote tho Spectator, "tho younger workers are almost all bitten with Socialism, and they are the moving spirits in tho unions, , . . Solidarity of action and obedience to the unions havo become almost a religious tenet with the miners, and the unions for I he lime being have been captured by Hie younger men." According to I lie Liberal llaihj Chronicle, (he leader of (he new unionism in South Wales, All!. Vkknon H.-MiTSiioits, has succeeded in displacing entirely (lie old influence exercised by "Jl.uion" and other good and trusted leaders of unionism. The spirit of the. strike k exactly I hi! spirit of Ton M.ixx, the spirit of the Coynes and Bi;.\ii'i,r.s; and )L may interest nomnfoolirh lw«) pcoplo to know that this spirit, and

the language of this spirit, lias boon condemned in extreme terms by that best of nil Radical papers in the world, the Manchester Guardian. To those friends of "Wardism" who in their madness encouraged tin; "general strike" idea in the recent tramway trouble, there must bo cause for pain and anxiety—for Nemesis will overtake them—in the attitude of the British authorities. The municipalities of the United Kingdom are anything but antiRadical, and yet at a conference of Mayors, presided over by the Lord Mayor of London, as recorded in a cable message printed yesterday, it was resolved that/'the claims of the community outweighed any conceivable difference dividing the negotiations in the strike dispute." Moreover, the Liberal Government in Britain takes the same view. We find Mi:. Keiii Hardie declaring l that "the miners were not going to be influenced by Mr. Lloyd-George." He knows that the Government will act the guardian of the imperilled nation. And we find the Home. Secretary, the Right Hon. R. M'Kenna, warning the strikers that "the Government is fully alive to its obligation in regard to" the protection of life and property in the event of r strike." No doubt Mr. M'Kenna and his colleagues are being denounced as "Tories" in those quarters which have no regard for truth or the public interest! But we can take another occasion to deal with the light that the trouble throws upon recent "Liberal" tactics here. In the meantime we can only trust that the extremists will be checked, and that by firm action the Government will hasten a solution that will preserve the Kingdom against a great calamity, and save the coal industry without leaving unredressed the legitimate grievances of the men.