NATIONAL OR DISTRICT

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 60, 8 September 1926, Page 9

NATIONAL OR DISTRICT

ISSUE IN NEGOTIATIONS.

LONDON, 7th Sept !The question of a national agreement; in the British, coal industry wm the main subject of disenssion at a, long conference between Mr. Winston Churchill, the Cabinet Coal Committee, and a delegating of the Mining Association.

An official report shows that Mr. Churchill and other members of the committee pleaded with the association to meet the miners and discuss the questions at issue, including a national agreement.

Mr. Evan Williams, president of the Mining Association, in reply, emphasised that the association would not enter into negotiations with the federation on a national agreement. He declared that there never had been peace in the industry since they had national agreements.

■ Mr. Churchill emphasised that if tho Mining Association finally decided never to negotiate on a national basis, then the Government ■would have to move forward upon its own course of action in the association's absence. Ho earnestly hoped the association would seek from its constituents authority to enter into discussion. It would be a very serious disaster for the association to take up an unalterable attitude at present. | Mr. "Williams said they could not seek powers to do what they felt was j wrong,' but they would submit the facts 'to a meeting of their central committee to-morrow and take their opinion. CHUBCHILL'S PLAIN TALK. Mr. Churchill contended that thifc Government was justified in believing that when it introduced the Minn Eight Hours Bill there would be no question of departing from negotiation for a national agreement. He was quite sure that, had the Government known that after the passage of the Hours Bill the national agreement door to peace would have been closed, it would never have passed the Bill. Ho earnestly asked the mice-owners to consider most carefully their attitude to tho Government's request, and then meet the men in an open, unprejudiced discussion. He honestly believed that there had been a change of heart on the part of the miners, and that there was an earnest wish for peace, and a willingness to discuss on its merits, with a sincere desire to secure the greatest benefits for all concerned, every aspect of the question, The expression "reduction in labour costs" in the miners' letter to the Govern, ment had been deliberately chosen, and covered everything—wages, hours, and reorganisation.

Mr. Evan Williams, in reply, asserted that tho Government had never Bug* gested that the Eight Hours Bill was conditional upon a national agreement. It was clearly understood between theni that there was no question of a general resumption of work simultaneously, but that it would be by districts.

Sir Arthur Steel Maitland (Minister of Labour), Sir Lancelot WorthingtonEvans (Minister of War), and Mr. W« C. Bridgeman (First Lord of the Admiralty) argued in favour of putting the district agreements in a form which' they could be ratified by representatives of the men and tho owners nationally.

The gathering broke up without arrangement for a further meeting, but the. mine owners are now consulting representatives of the district associations.