COAL CRISIS.

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

COAL CRISIS.

ON THE VERGE OF STRIKE.

REPORT THAT OWNERS WILL BE COERCED. FACE TO FACE WITH DISASTER. Uj Tel'ocraD'i-FresJ Ass«eiatUn-C°Mrh:li> (Kcc. February 28, 0.30 a.m.) London, February 27. Mr. Enoch Kdwards, Labour M.P. for Hanlev, U to preside over a conference ot ICO dclegalos, representing 010,000 minor?, which will bo held at the Westminster Palace Hotel to-day. Sir G. Doughty, Unionist M.P. for Great Grimsby, sneaking at Grimsby, declared that if tho strike occurred 1500 fishing boats would bo thrown idle, and 200,000 persons would immediately be on the verge of destitution. "The Times" publishes an article describing the Australian methods for the settlement of strikes, particularly those adopted in New South Wales. Tho "Daily News" states that tho miners cannot be coerced, and tho owners can, and therefore must, grant the minimum wage. If they resist, a Coercive Bill will be introduced and passed in the House of Commons in 24 hours, and tho Peers will accept it as a matter of course. In the event of a strike, the railway companies have decided that the English railways shall bo treated as one system, and the passenger service reduced to a minimum. Goods trains will he used to carry foodstuffs, and will run at the rate of fifteen miles an hour in order to economise coal. Sweeping reductions will be made in the staffs. The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants has warned members not to precipitate a sympathetic strike without tho executive's instructions. A South Wales miners' industrial organisation has been formed in South Wales. It is not connected with the Miners' Federation. A pamphlet has been circulated in South Wales explaining the organisation's methods, which include socalled irritation strikes, whereby the men will reduce the output of working hours until profits disappear, when shareholders will be forced to relinquish tho mines, which will then be carried on in the interests of the workers, who will choose their own managers, and thus rid (lie industry of slave-driving.