LLOYD GEORGE

Hokitika Guardian, 9 May 1921, Page 3

LLOYD GEORGE

SPEECH ON COAL TROUBLE. NO HOPE OF EARLY SETTLEMENT. AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION. (Keceived This Day at 8 a.m.) LONDON, May 8. Hon. Lloyd a George, speaking at Maidstone, devoted the'greater part of a speech to the coal strike, offering no hope of an early settlement. He said when coal prices were high, the miners enjoyed their share of'the luck to which they were entitled. Npw that the mines were losing, the export prices having fallen more than fifty per cent in three months, and under the latest Government offer they must continue to lose. “ The Americans are cutting us out of the coal markets,” said the Premier, 11 and it is impossible to raise the local price in order to maintain an artificial rate of miners’ wages, because that would entail a loss in our manufacturing trade, eventually resulting in the closing down of the mines. In the first quarter of this year the mines lost sterling. That cannot continue. Government is forced to insist that the industry he self supporting.”

The miners’ demand for a national pool to prevent wages being reduced meant profitable mines paying towards the unprofitable. This is a far-reach-ing principle, and where is it going to end. If adopted with the mines why not in other industries, such as the profitable Lancashire and Yorkshire factories paying the wages of unprofitable factories in other counties. Why not the “ Daily Mail ” pay the “ Daily Herald’s ” losses. (Laughter.) That is why the “ Times ” advocates a national pool, and the “ Daily Mail ” opposes. (Laughter.) The .country is anxious to pay the miners the highest wages the industry can hear. The Government is prepared to consider any practical settlement proposal, based on permanent, not patched lines. This is the second mine stoppage in six months and the fourth threatened in the past two years. British industries cannot stand these hard shocks.

I am told every day that we are seeking to starve the miners into a surrend-

er. I am afraid it is the other way. The Miners’ Federation are seeking to starve the whole nation, into disaster by the settlement of the strike inflicting untold injury on thousands of people not connected with mining, but I must appeal here and now to the nation to endure with the patient,.stubborn courage which piloted it through worse troubles.

CABLE NEWS.