BRITISH COAL STRIKE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 451, 27 March 1912, Page 5

BRITISH COAL STRIKE.

o i SOME MINERS RESUMING. MINIMUM CONCEDED. ; London, Mondav. I The masters and men in each district i in South Wales have voluntarily agreed to an all round minimum living wage of 5s a day for adults (except the old and infirm) and 2s for boys. The masters in South Wales explain that the 2a minimum for buys is a small matter, but 5s a day for adults is an important consideration. Many men, it is alleged, merely fill the tubes with rubbish. The demand is claimed to be really equal to an attempt to secure the raising of the wages of skilled day labourers, as- the latter would afterwards demand that the present margin between the wages of skilled and unskilled men be preserved. Three hundred colliers at Chirk, North Wales, have returned to work. Many hewers, it is stated, are paying adult assistants only 3s Gd a day. GREAT LOSS IN WAGES. The Bradford miners have lost a total of 23,000,000 working days and £5,850,000 in wages since the strike began. Other trades have lost 12,000,000 days and £2,350,000 in wages. The total daily loss in wages is now £700,000. Prufessor Jevos states that the strike is costing the nation £IO.OOO, 000 sterling every week. ! A number of accidents, several of them being fatal, have occurred through unemployed men getting coal from uutcrop seams in various districts. One man ftas killed and nine iniured through this cause at Westbowling. It is estimated that 2,500,000 are no strike, out of work or on reduced wages. The South-western railway announces that it has sufficient coal to continue is presentt services for six weeks. It bought a large quantity at 40s a ton. Six thousand people in Birmingham waited five hours to buy two penn'orth of coke from the Corporation. The churches and chapels in many country districts held their services in the afternoon instead of evening on Sunday in order to save gas. Reports from Rio Janeiro state that merchants have notified the shipping companies that stocks of coal are exhausted.