The Dominion TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1921. CRIPPLING THE NATION

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 192, 10 May 1921, Page 4

The Dominion TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1921. CRIPPLING THE NATION

Mr. Lloyd George took a somewhat unusual step in devoting the greater part of his speech at Maidstone to the coal strike, but his departure from routine procedure was fully warranted in view of the national issues raised. The British miners now are not inj-any real sense conducting a dispute with their employers, but are attempting to levy such a toll upon the community as could not be paid without bringing about the wholesale ruin of industries. The miners are demanding far more in wages than their industry, under existing conditions, can possibly yield. Heavily as it has fallen, the price of coal is still at a level which narrowly limits demand. Coal must be cheapened before there can be any pronounced revival of British industry and foreign trade, and since wages constitute an overwhelming part of the cost of producing coal, a reduction in wagcs-cost represents the only means of bringing- down the price.of coal. It is quite open to the miners to reduce the wagcscost and the price of coal without reducing their own wages in anything like the same degree. They are insisting instead that the mines must be worked under conditions which would make it impossible to produce coal at such a price as in(Jhjstries and shipping can afford to P Yn light of these well-established facts it is obvious that in resisting the unjust demands of the miners, the British nation is defending its industrial existence. It would be utterly incorrect to describe the coal strike as a contest between Capital and Labour. In its most essential aspect it is an attempt by twelve hundred thousand miners at once to impose a crushing handicap and to levy unjust toll on their fellow-workers. There is much talk in these days of the need of an educated democracy, but even an imperfectly educated democracy ought to be able to classify workers who are not content with demanding that their wages should be supplemented out of the earnings of other workers, but insist in addition that the cost and price of coal must be raised by artificial means to extravagant heights at a time when the production of cheap coal is manifestly a vital condition of revival in all branches of industry. Many of the individual miners arc no doubt erring in ignorance,- but the effect of Their combined action is to threaten the continued existence of their country as an industrial nation.

The effect of the coal strike as a deadly attack on national prosperity is most conspicuously apparent in figures of rapidly expanding unemployment for which it is directly responsible. In order, that the full effect may be realised, however, it is necessary to take account of the present state of the foreign trade on . which the United Kingdom so largely depends. Detailed particulars of the volume and value of British trade show that apart from the coal strike, though largely as a result of the abnormal price demanded for coal, both (exports and imports fell away disastrously in the early months of this year. The position is best realised by ignoring figures of value which are affected by the repent heavy fall in wholesale prices, and comparing British. exports and imports in the opening months of this year and in earlier periods on the basis of quantities. In the following table British exports of coal and other goods during January and February last, that is, before the strike started, are. compared on this basis with those of the corresponding period last year and in 1913: — UNITED KINGDOM —TWO MONTHS, JANUARY AND FEBRUARY.

14,656,000 8,473,000 5,004,000 Coal exports for the period this year were much less than a third of the corresponding export in 1913, and little more than half the coal export of January and February last year. Exports in the remaining category (largely manufactures) reached only about half the volume recorded in 1913, and showed a decline of about 22 per cent, as compared with the. corresponding period in 1920. The decline in aggregate exports to little more than a third of the quantity in the first two months of 1913 is worth considering if only as an indication of the extent to which the. employment available for shipping has been cut down. Tn some circumstances a decline in exports might speedily be overtaken and made good, but- the decline in British exports during the early months of this year was accompanied by a decline in imports, shown in the following table, which is even more disturbing as it bears on trade and industrial prospects in the immediate future: — IMPORTS INTO THE UNITED KINGDOM.

These imports' consist chiefly of food and raw materials, and their volume in a great measure determines the standard of comfort, attained by the people of the. United Kingdom. These conditions of trade were due in a great measure to tho high price of coal. Dear coal had, and has, much to do with the fact that British industries are being undersold at their own doors by foreign competitors., and that.it is being found impossible to maintain the volume of -importation which is indispensable to the prosperous expansion of export trade as time goes on. A position already acute has been heavily intensified by the coal strike, and. will defy rernedv so long as the miners are enabled to persist in their policy of making coal far dearer than it. need lie. Until the nriee of coal in the United Kingdom is brought down in sympathy with other prices, industry will languish, unemployment and distress will spread, and the seriously adverse conditions of foreign trade now disclosed will go from bad to worse.

1913. Tons. 1920. Tons. 1921. Tons. Coal 12,197,000 6,799,000 3,701,000 Other goods 2,159,000 1,674,000 1,303,000

1913. 1920. 1921. Tons. Tons. Tons. January .... 4,517,000 3,309,000 3,3S3,000 February ... 3),933,(MX) 2.892,000 2.571,000 To, al for two rnonllis 8,450.000 0,201,000 5,954,000