BRITISH MINERS' WAGES.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17702, 2 March 1923, Page 7

BRITISH MINERS' WAGES.

DEPUTATION TO PRIME MINISTER. ? (fit CABLE—PMSa ASSOCIATION— COPTBIOHT.) (ACSTEALIAN ; lit! K.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION) (Received March Ist, 11.40 p.m.) LONDON, March 1. Mr Herbert Smith, president of the Miners' Federation, leading a deputaton to Mr Bonar Law demanding an enquiry into miners' pay and working conditions, held it was imperative that there should be a grant of early relief to the miners, whose wages had been constantly graded down. Mr Frank Hodges, secretary of the Federation, held that British miners' wages, expressed in terms of the cost of living, were the lowest simlarly calculated wages in Europe. Mr Bonar Law contended that an enquiry now, when the coal trade was booming> would be foolish. Coal prices would soon produce better wages. Mr Vernon Hartshorn, M.P. (Labour) said the miners had been starving since November, 1921. Mr Hodges: "It is like asking tne men to wait for the hearse to come." Mr S. Walsh, M.P. (Labour), supporting an increase, said; "If it does not materialise shall we come to you again with newer facts P" Mr Bonar Law: "If yon like; but you must give the boom timei to snow distinct results. We are not prepared for an enquiry yet and can do nothing,"