STRIKE OUTLOOK.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1390, 16 March 1912, Page 5

STRIKE OUTLOOK.

PESSIMISM IN LONDONENGLISH MINERS INCLINED TO RESUME. UNION FUNDS CRIPPLEDBy Telegraph—Press Association-Copyright London, March 14. Opinion in tho House of Commons lobby and in the newspapers is pessimistic. It is feared that an immediate strike settlement is a remote contingency. The Prime Minister asked tho Miners' Federation to agree to postpone the question of the wages of daymen and pieceworkers other than coal-getters, which could be settled after work was resumed, but the federation refused, adhering to its decision that a settlement must cover all grades and districts. Tho joint conference has again adjourned. Tho "Morning Post" describes the Miners' Federation's offer to negotiate with owners in various districts as misloading, Bince the federation still declines to budge from their schedule for any district. It is reported that the Premier's new suggestion is that, as certain local settlements have been secured, the men in those districts should resume work. Thero is evidence of a tendency on the part of tho English miners to leave the irreconcilables to themselves. It is possible that Wale's and Scotland will be left to finish the struggle alone, with tho support of a heavy levy from the English miners. The dislocation in other trades is increasing. One hundred and twenty thoueand railway men will be unemployed at tho end of the week. Destitution is increasing in the industrial areas, and tho charitable ; institutions aro unable to cope with the situation. Tho "Daily News" says the miners' blunder was that they struck at the unity of organised labour. Scarcely a trade union would emerge with its funds uncrippled. The miners' victory would be soured by tho allegation that it had postponed, if not wrecked, the hopes of other trades.