The Coal Strike

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 215, 9 March 1912, Page 5

The Coal Strike

OTHER UNIONS NOT SYMPATHETIC. ENORMOUS COST OF THE STRIKE. EIGHT HOURS DAY AND BETTER PAY. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. London, March 7. The London and North-Eastern Railway wilPrun only statutory trains after Monday. Crowley, who distributed/handbills at Aldershot urging soldiers not to fire on strikers, was committed for trial. Yorkshire .and Derbyshire owners have practically agreed to an eight hours day for surfacemen and better pay. Speculators at Cardiff hold 100,000 tons of coal, which was purchased at £1 per ton. An offer showing 60 per cent, profit, ,was refused, the holders asking for 100 per cent. The North-Western Railway Company denies the report that it is reducing a number of trains. The entire Ministerial press censure the miners. The Chronicle says that the terms of the schedule do not admit of a reasoned defence. The Pall Mall Gazette demands the introduction of Australian methods of compulsory arbitration, and the cutting off of strike funds. To-day's news shows that miners are feeling the pressure from other unions, whose funds are being depleted. Electricians, clerks andi sub-managers are working the ventilation and drainage of the big Glamorgan colliery. The loss, including miners' wages, in South Wales, amounts to £400,00G weekly. The Trade and Labor Council is urging the Cardiff City Council to provide free meals. The feeding of school children is being arranged at Mountain Ash. EXIGENCIES OF THE SITUATION. RISE IN THE PRICE OF BREAD. STRIKERS WRECK AND BURN BUILDINGS. Received 9, 12.5 a.m. London, March 8. There is no appreciable change in the strike situation. The miners' executive will not yield without instructions from the national conferences. The summoning of Scottish owners' representatives to co-nfer with the Premier is regarded optimistically. The Premier, in the House of Commons, stated that the exigencies of the situation were not such as to make Parliamentary discussion at present desirable.

The Industrial Council, owing to the resumption of Government negotiations, has suspended its meeting until Tuesday. It is reported at Cardiff that some of the leading South Wales owners, hitherto restrained by the extreme pressure of the no-surrenderers, will break away and join the English owners in regard to the terms of settlement. There has been a general rise in the price of bread. The delay and disappointment over the Argentine crop is the controlling cause, but the coal strike hastened the decision.

The quantity of coal exported in February, in view of the threatened strike, was 628,000 tons above that of February last year.

Four hundred thousand workmen are idle.

Strikers wrecked the buildings and burned t!v- iu;ii;n-iioiise at Tobrax colliery, in Midlothian, where a few nonunionists were working.