STRIKE DISCLOSURES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 159, 7 July 1926, Page 6

STRIKE DISCLOSURES.

Revelations of the course of negotiation's before the general strike arc illuminating, especially the reference to the attitude of the union leaders Messrs. Smith and Cook, who at first modilied their attitude on the wages question, and then, hypnotised by their slogan, '"Not a minute more, not a penny less," withdrew their agreement

to accept a guaranteed minimum, not necessarily the wage previously ruling.

It is clear from tlie disclosures made that the Trade Union Congress never quite accepted the slogan of the miners, and believed that some concession should be made by them; the Con-

gess was against any loss of wages, but at tin: same time it favoured some

active steps, to reorganise tlie industry before adhering to a watertight

refusal to discuss wages, seeing that reorganisation on the then existing scale was impossible without the closing of uneconomic pits, and the discharge of 300,000 hands. The Congress leaders

rightly refused to face this awful prospect in view of the fact that already over a million unemployed were

registered

The policy of absolute negation adopted by the miners is foreign to the spirit of the Trades Union Congress, which accounts for its withdrawal of the general strike. The delegates felt that they were calling upon the unions for sacrifices which could have no useful effect in view of the stiff necked attitude of the miners.

This statement lias Lllc authority of tlie Congress itself, and it is hound to preatly affect public. o]iijiion upon the •rencral position. The report clearly indicates that in the opinion of the Confrress the miners failed to take tlie opportunity of making favourable terms, and that they were not justified in rejecting the opportunity. Public opinion lias been behind the miners to a great extent in their fijrht for a continuance of tlie old wage rates, but it will not strengthen their hand to let it lie known that the bulk of the labour movement supported reasonable consideration of what were regarded as favourable terms, and that the miners reTTiscd to budge an inch.