The Daily News. THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 1921. “MOON-MAD” MINERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 June 1921, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 1921. “MOON-MAD” MINERS.

The latest developments in connection with the British miners’ strike strongly emphasise the remarks made by Mr. Lloyd George in April last, when stating the nation’s case, in a reply to the Workers’ Federation’s threat to starve the nation into submission. “I have an uneasy feeling,” said Mr. Lloyd George, “that the men who are at the head of the Miners’ Federation are not the people who are directing the issues, that you have a number of thoughtless men down below who are forcing their hands hy blind clamor.” That is putting the position far milder than does a London paper, which, after referring to the incredible fact that the wages question itself never came to any kind of face to face discussion on its own merits, adds: “This was chiefly due to the extreme section of miners’ delegates, which over-ruled the wiser group. The extremists began with the glaring blunder of abandoning the pumps, and ended with the stupendous folly of refusing to meet the owners to discuss wages, and by this forced the rupture of the Triple Alliance. The whole issue was obstinately bedevilled by an insoluble dispute on the abstract principle of a national pool.”

That is the position in a nut-shell. No one can read the full report of Mr. Lloyd George’s reply to the contentions advanced on b'ehalf of the miners’ case without discerning his absolute impartiality and the profoundness of his desire to effect a settlement, also his great concern at the raising of issues that presented not only barriers to a settlement, but would land the nation in infinitely worse difficulties than ever before. These barriers take the shape of a national pool and a national wages board. The pool question blocked the way to the examination and wages. From the first it was rejected as impossible. It meant that the mines in Yorkshire, Scotland, and Nottingham should be put under contribution so as to create an artificial wage in South Wales, and such a principle could not be accepted. With regard to the clfym for nationalisation, the British Premier was equally condemnatory, as it would eliminate private competition, private stimulus, and fail to give complete national control and distribution, while bound to prove a complete fiasco. The National Board proposed by Mr. Hodges would merely be “Nationalisation up to the point of meddling and not managing—the worst form of nationalisation. ... It

is neither one scheme nor the other, and it has the defects of both.” . .

Yon may say: ‘You could nationalise.’ There ifl only one way you could nationalise. You can put it to the nation. . . If the nation decides your plan is the right one, why should you starve your people in order to achieve something which you can achieve by reason, if reason is on your side If reason is not on your side, why should you force the nation by starving it to a surrender to unreason ?”

These arguments of Mr. Lloyd George strike at the root of direct action and have an application to all industrial disputes. They form a powerful appeal for the adoption of constitutional means for ascertaining what is right, just and fair, instead of trying to starve the nation into submission —or the workers being treated in the same way. The outstanding point emphasised by Mr. Lloyd George is that even if the miners succeeded in obtaining their demands, success would not alter the vital economics of the position. It would not increase the selling price of coal by even a penny, nor of steel, neither would it find markets in any part of the world, while the money in the mines would be the same. It is these important factors that. the workers do not sufficiently appreciate, for the argument holds good in all industrial operations. The secret of the whole trouble may probably be found in the fact that strikes are frequently the outcome of imaginary grievances, and that no sooner is one concession made than it is treated as of no account, the thing that matters being something else that is asked for. The real vital issue that should have been raised by the miners was the question of wages and profits. The extremists well knew that this matter equid easily be settled. They evidently wanted a fight, and so made nationalisation and the pool the main planks of their demands. Both the Government and the mine owners are prepared to discuss and settle the wages question with the Miners’ Federation as a whole. Mr. LT.yd George stated plainly that the men could be sure of receiving out of the industry every single farthing that it is capable of paying in its present circumstances. and

he pledged a Government grant of ten millions to tide over the transition period, while the owners expressed their willingness to ask for no return whatever on their interests in the immediate future, but in their moon-madness the miners’ delegates refused these favorable offers. Comment on such action is needless. It would seem, however, that a large number of miners are returning to work. This is a good sign that reason is taking the place of obstinacy. But for the extremists the strike would long since have been settled.