The Coal Miners.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17320, 5 December 1921, Page 6

The Coal Miners.

The president of the Alliance of Labour, Mr M. J. Mack, has stated, in replying- to a suggestion that the miners who have gone on strike have done so under instructions from the Alliance, that the Alliance has not issued instructions of any kind. Mr Mack could hardly make Buch a statement unless it were true, but it is a fact that the Miners' Federation placed its case in the hands of the Alliance, and it is quite certain that the stoppage pf work in various mines was not due to spontaneous action by the miners themselves. ; The trouble, it is understood, is due to the Iteration's annoyance at the issuing of the Arbitration Court awards. The Federation has adopted aB its policy the ignoring of the Arbitration Court, but this has not put the Court out of business, and as the mineowners found it impossible to persuade the Federation to negotiate with them in a reasonable way, they were obliged to go to the Court.. The Federation refused to recognise the Court, which, nevertheless, made awards which were very favourable indeed to the miners. What the miners desire now we do not know, but unfortunately the desires of the men are less important than tho desires of the agitators who control the miners' affairs. At the present time a coal'strike will not much alarm the publio. It is summer time, stocks of coal are large, and there is plenty of cheap coal available in England or the East. But it is lamentable that the miners should be so foolish as to go on strike, because they will be the .chief sufferers. Mr 'f. 0. Bishop has informed a Wellington paper that a strike now will simply mean the importation of further large quantities of ooal, with the result that the men who are' advising their comrades to strike are simply condemning their comrades and themselves also to work half-time for a much longer period than there is at present necessity for. The miners ought to be able to recognise by now that they have suffered very seriously from the attempts made in the past by the agitators to ride roughshod over the mine-owners and the publio.