VERY DELICATE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 58, 7 March 1912, Page 5

VERY DELICATE.

COAL STRIKE CRISIS. | MORE OPTIMISTIC FEELING. IMPORTANT CONFERENCES _____ ♦ WITH INDUSTRIAL COUNCIL GOVERNMENT AND MINIMUM. (Received 11.15 ajn.) LONDON. March 6. Replying to Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald in the House of Commons to-dav, Mr. Asquith said that it waa pure imagination to consider that the Government was going to introduce a bill laying down a minimum. The strike position was verv delicate, and he hoped that the trouble would not be discussed .by the House of Commons at present. The Government was meeting Um men's representatives to-day. CONSIDERING THE SCHEDULE. The Industrial Council is considering the miners' schedule with the figures supplied by the masters. A more optimistic feeling prevails. The executive of the Miners' Federation has agreed to meet the Industrial Council. WILD MIDNIGHT GALLOP. Many of the Staffordshire and Derbyshire miners attended the Uttoxeter races. Blackpool is full of visitors, well supplied with money. Tunee hundred pit boys at Sunderland raided the paddocks, and seized a pit pony apiece, indulging in a wild midnight gallop through the villages. Many Yorkshire miners are following hounds afoot. The gramophone shops in Wales are crowded, and the picture theatres at Pontypridd are open continuously. Wholesale houses are refusing to sapply tradesmen where the mines are closing, except for cash, and many shops are closing.

The Miners' Federation has informed the transport workers that it is unnecessary for them to declare a sympathetic strike. MODIFYING THE SCHEDULE.

The "Telegraph" says that as a re* suit of inquiries among miners and their leaders. Cabinet anticipates a satisfactory settlement within a week.

The paper adds: The men are likely to slightly modify the wage schedule, enabling owners to reconsider the main points on which the opposition to the schedule is based.

Professor A. y. Dicey, the well-known jurist, in a letter to the "Times," urges the repeal °f tne Trades Disputes Act, as neither masters nor men should possess the privilege of committing wrongs. He recommends the adequate protection of miners where the right to work is menaced. A NATIONAL GUARANTEE. Mr. W. T. Stead, in the "Times," suggests that the nation guarantee the mlneiwrtierfc* any~ tows CffrTTng" a' ■ three months' t'ial of the minimum wage. They would thus obtain a date on which to arrange a permanent settlement. * Twenty steamers have been chartered to convey American and Westphalian coal to Mediterranean and South American depots, heretofore supplied from Wales. Officials are caring for the ponies at Whitburn pit, where the miners refused to attend to them. A crowd at Ryhope overpowered the watchman of a colliery, and looted the coal wagons.