MINERS' DEFEAT

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 60, 4 December 1926, Page 9

MINERS' DEFEAT

MR. COOK GOING TO MOSCOW TO GIVE HIS VERSION TRADES UNION CONGRESS BLAMED Bs TBIiEGBAPH. —PBESS ASSOCIATION. Copyright. London, December 2. Mr. A. J. Cook (secretary of the Miners’ Federation) has left London for Moscow. Interviewed by the “Daily Express” he said.*— “Russia wants an answer to various questions, and I will tell exactly what I know, namely, that the miners’ defeat was due to the policy of the Trades Union Congress firstly in calling off the general strike; secondly in refusing to enforce the embargo on foreign coal, and, finally, the trades unions in England left the miners to fight alone. I will tell them that the maction and opposition of the British leaders, particularly Messrs. Bromley and Thomas, prevented a levy on the workers’ earnings being made. “Russia will regard the absence of a delegate from the Trades Union Congress as a rebuff to the Russian workers Nevertheless, I will tell Russia that, despite Britain’s trade unions’s leaders, the rank and file are heart and soul with the Russians, and that also the increased bitterness of the Government is due to the £1,250,000 sent to England.”

EMERGENCY REGULATIONS LIFTED LABOUR CENSURE MOTION IN HOUSE OF COMMONS London, December 2. In the House of Commons, the Home Secretary (Sir William Joynson-Hicks) announced that the Coal Emergency Regulations, except those preventing export, would be lifted at midnight. The Prime Minister (Mr., Baldwin) announced that Wednesday would be set apart for the Labour Party’s censure motion on the coal crisis, the terms of which complain of disregard of the Roval Commission’s findings, the Ministry’s partiality to the owners, and the latter’s imposition of harsh terms. It says that the only remedy for the trouble consists in nationalisation of the industry.