STRIKE EXTENDING.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1377, 1 March 1912, Page 5

STRIKE EXTENDING.

SATISFACTION AT MINISTERS' EFFORTS. A GRAVE FEATURE. (Rec. March 1, 0.30 a.m.) London, February 29. There are now 115,000 miners idle, including 32,000 in Nottinghamshire. Tho export of coal from the Tyne, which amounts to 20,000,000 tons annually, is at a standstill. Tho Scotch owners havo explained to the Government that they will abide by the agreement made on July 30, 1909, to which the Board of Trade was a. party. They are willing, however, to bo represented on a Joint Committee of masters and men, to consider the remuneration for abnormal places or in the event of injustice in exceptional cases. There is general satisfaction over the Government securing the adhesion of the employers nud CO per cent of the miners to the principle of a minimum wage, leaving the-door open to further negotiation with the minority. A grave feature of the situation is the miners' insistence upon a definite scalo of pay in placo of tho system of conferences suggested by the Government. "The Times" says there is no doubt that the solution of tho problem lies in conceding a minimum wage with safeguards. . , . The "Daily Mail" declares that the miners having scored a moral victory ought to be willing to submit their case to negotiation in tho various districts.

INCESSANT CONFERENCES. ENGLISH OWNERS AND PEACE. IF THE TUMI'S STOP. London, February 28. There have been incessant conferences regarding the coal crisis. The Government is doing its utmost to formulate a settlement. It is stated that the English coalowners, except those of Northumberland, are agreeable to accept the Government's scheme, including the payment of a minimum wage. South Wales owners object to a minimum wage, and those of Scotland arc divided on the point. There is much speculation ' concerning the Government's proposals, which range from a rush Bill enacting 'a minimum wage basis lo an owners' oiler temporarily to nationalise the Welsh mines. Significance is attached to the fact that the Scottish delegates have instructed the men in districts where one day's notice is required to lay doivn their tools to-mor-row. The Miners' Federation ha? decided after the expiration of the notices to allow sufficient men to attend to the veiltilation and pumping in the mines and to feed the ponies. Mr. JlacpheTson, chairman of the Mines Drainage Commissioners, has appealed to the miners not to allow themselves to be dragged at the heels of South Wales, when there is no dispute elsewhere. He adds: "In the event of a strike tho majority of the mines in the drainage area will be flooded bsyond recovery." SYNDICALIST MOVEMENT. PLANS FOR GENERAL STRIKE. London, February 28. The text of the handbills which were distributed among the soldiers at Aldershot by Frederick Crowsley (who is being criminally charged), and which, inter alia, urged the soldiery not to firii 011 stvikers, was a reprint from tho first number of the monthly journal, the "Syndicalist," published ns a successor to Mr. Tom Mann's pamphlets on syndicalism. The new journal's object is to prepare the way as rapidly as possible for a general strike of international proportions. It fixes 011 1913, as a trado boom year, in which to effectively resist the encroachment of tho capitalists.