MINERS IN MOTORS.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 September 1920, Page 5

MINERS IN MOTORS.

HECTIC PROSPERITY IN WALES. PURS AND SILKS FOR WIVES. . London, August 13. The Special Commissioner of the London Globe, who is travelling in South Wale 3, amazingly depicts the hectic prosperity of the miners. Many are earning £2O weekly, and motor to the mines in their own cars, while their wives squander large sums on finery, fur coats, and silk jumpers, and keep up a horde of parasitic ice cream, chocolate, and fancy goods shops, kinomas, and music halls. A miner sent his two sons to the university, where they took degrees, and were offered a salary of 30s weekly for assistant masterships. They returned to the mines. The Pall Mall Gazette, discussing the miners' demands, states that the Government takes the gravest view of the industrial outlook, and fears that the country will be plunged into the throes of a crisis of the first magnitude in a few weeks. Mr. Lloyd George is thinking of cancelling his holiday in Switzerland. If the unions decide to fight the issue the Government will accept their challenge. The correspondent of the Globe and other correspondents in Wales declare that despite their high wages the miners are dissatisfied, and want nationali.-a-tion, which they are prepared to go to any lengths to secure. ! A cable received last July stated that the miners' conference at Leamington had decided on a demand for an extra [2s daily for workers over 10 and Is for hoys, and also a proposal to compel the Government to cancel the recent addition of 14s to the price of coal. Mr. Robert Sjpillie, president of the Miners' Federation, declared that the mines were yielding princely profits, and the Government was not entitled to take £36,000,000 from them until the wages overtook the cost of living. The Government, however, uncompromisingly refused the demands for ar. increase, Sir Robert Home (president of the Board of Trade) pointing out that the miners were already well paid. Ho also stated that the Government, since it supplied domestic coal at cost price, was entitled to appropriate surplus pi ofits arising from coal exports for the benefit of the genfefal revenue. FolloWifig this the Miners' Federation ordered a general ballot to be taken on the question of a general strike to enforce their demands.