THE COAL TROUBLE

Hokitika Guardian, 25 August 1926, Page 2

THE COAL TROUBLE

[Australian & N.Z.' Cable Association.] MINERS’ ATTITUDE. 'London. Aug. 23. Reliable accounts from Derbyshire say that although twenty thousand have signed on to resume work, only live thousand men went into the pits. It is explained that those signing on were influenced to retract. This was done by the Union leaders’ contention that those men would not only have to work half ail hour longer daily, hut that the wages would he reduced by ten per cent. However, the actual official terms posted were that the pre-stop-page wages would he guaranteed for the next seven months, with a reduction by one half of the 14s 2d per cent, increase in the wages granted to the hewers when the ho lire were cut down from eight to seven. SCENES ON THE FIELDS. LONDON, Aug. *l Apart from the picketing there was a lively incident at Pont Newynydd, where a band of strikers failed in the outcrops workings, hut a similar attempt in other places found four hundred outeroppers ready with Targe heaps of stones to keep off the intruders. A police superintendent on horseback got between the parties. Ultimately two thousand demonstrators, after heated exchanges of compliments, marched off. NAVY DEPENDS ON U.S.A. COAL. LONDON, Aug. 24. The Daily Herald publishes a long statement, by its special correspondent at Norfolk, U.S.A., showing, that record exports of American coal, consigned to the British Isles, are leaving Norfolk and Newport News, some being for the British Navv, whose reserve stocks are now almost exhausted.