GOAL STRIKE CRISIS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1401, 29 March 1912, Page 5

GOAL STRIKE CRISIS.

ANOTHER BALLOT. MINERS AND THE MINIMUM BILL. STRIKERS Y. THE NATIONBy Telceraph—Press Association-Couyrielit London, March 27. Tlio Miners' Federation lias decided to tnko a ballot as to whether tlio men will rcsnmo work. The ballot paper asks.whether tlio men will resumo work pending tlio district boards' settlement of tho minimum wage in tho various grades. The ballot papers do not recommend how the men should vote. The result will be known next Wednesday. Mr. liamsay Mac Donald, on being interviewed, said he advised tho strikers to ncccpt the Bill and proceed to -establish joint boards in order to get early decisions on such simple points as ss. a day workers. If the decisions wero satisfactory they should be regarded as an indication of what other decisions were likely to be, and work could be resumed immediately, or he recommended a ballot as an alternative. Mr. V. Hartshorn, <a Glamorgan Labour leader, interviewed, said the strike was only commencing. He anticipates, with tho Labour M.IYs assistance and mass meetings throughout the country, to organise dogged resistance. "Then," he said, "it will be seen who will hold out longest—the miners or the nation." Mr. Stanton, another Labour leader, interviewed as to liis view regarding the solidarity of Labour, said the miners could within a week, by tho stoppage of railways and other transport, bring the Government to its knees, and beg tho workers to resumo on terms now declared to bo impossible. Notwithstanding the above opinions, the recommendation of the Miners' Conference for the taking of a ballot is interpreted as being intended to placo the responsibility for future action upon tho miners.