The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 1926. GETTING BACK TO WORK.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 199, 23 August 1926, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 1926. GETTING BACK TO WORK.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Though the miners in the important South Wales area maintain their stubborn attitude, the breakaway in the Nottingham, Derby and Warwick fields continues, and during the last week-end it became fairly evident that in those areas the strike is in imminent danger of collapsing. . This is probably the beginning of the end; the movement, once fairly launched, is likely to grow like a snowball. The miners are tired of idleness; many of them were so anxious to get back to work that they did not even wait to see the terms in black and white.

The utter sterility of the discussions —they can scarcely be called negotiations—which have extended over nearly four months is deplorable, and the return of the miners under such conditions as now apply to the reopening of the pits is not very hopeful for the future of the industry or for the spirit of co-operation which is so essential

to its recovery from the economic losses which have been suffered, not only over the coalfields, but throughout Britain's industries. The strike has made it clear that the wages and conditions in the mines are not the concern of the coalfields only, but that since all industry is dependent upon coal for motive power and for transport, the issue is a national one.

Nobody wants to see the miners starved into submission, going back to the pithead sullen, discontented and ready to drop work again upon the slightest provocation. The Royal Commission definitely recommended some sacrifice on the part of the men; the miners' leaders have been entirely unwilling to make the slightest concession, and have blindly adhered all along to their slogan, "Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day." The position was, however, that coal was costing up to half a crown a ton more to mine than it could be sold for, and that the nation, which had already found £60,000,000 since the war to support the industry, could not go on indefinitely paying the huge toll thus demanded.

The Eight Hours Bill was, therefore, passed to increase the output and thus diminish the cost of the individual ton, without causing any heavy decrease in the earnings of the miners. When the stoppage occurred there were 1,074,395 workers employed in the industry, and it has been calculated that upon the new terms, with the longer day, the wages will be the same for 72J per cent, 4 per cent will receive more, 20 per cent will suffer a reduction, while in the remaining cases the terms were not available. The South Wales wages will be £4 10/6 a week for hewers, 67/11 for timbermen, 52/9 for labourers, and 54/6 for pithead men. These rates vary on different fields, down to £3 19/7 on the Derby field, the greatest reduction being in Durham and Cumberland, where the rates run down to £2 19/5, a 10 per cent reduction on the April rate.

While the miners have been adamantine in their attitude, the owners have also been intransigeant, and it is to be regretted that the Government did not take up a firmer attitude upon *.he reorganisation question. It is trSe tnat they passed a Bill providing for this, but the bill was entirely divorced from the lengthened hours, and it is to be feared that the reorganisation plans will be postponed or so watered down that they will prove ineffective. If that should occur the last state of the industry will be worse than the first. For, of course, the miners will devote their energies to securing the overthrow of the eight hours' day at the first opportunity, by repeal if they can win an election for Labour or by a general stoppage at some future date. Either of these contingencies would cause a recrudescence of the present evils and

all that has been put Into the industry, including the huge subsidies. thp report and the exhaustive inquiries, will have availed little or nothing.

Coal has been going into England at a rate which has sometimes exceeded half a million tons a week.

The factories, yards, and workshops of the country have thus been kept going, but the price has been a tremendous one, the strike having cost the country millions a day. A return to work which does not ensure 6uch a measure of contentment that it will last for

years will be a tragedy very little less in degree than a continuation of the disastrous conflict.