REASONABLE OFFER ACCEPTABLE

Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 58, 6 September 1920, Page 7

REASONABLE OFFER ACCEPTABLE

LONDON, 4th September.

Probably the Miners Federation will reply to Sir Robert Home's conciliatory statement, thereby paving the way for negotiations. It is believed that if the federation abandoned the demand to- reduce the price of domestic coal, little difficulty would be experienced in arriving at a satisfactory compromise, on the wages claim. It is reported that the federation is ready to consider any rea» sonable offer from the Government and to submit it to a miners' ballot. The preliminary stfJps are already being: taken for another ballot.

The Observer emphasises the wideSpread growing conviction tbat if Sir Robert. Home and Mr. Smillie met a way out of the impasse could be found. The Sunday Times says that Mr. Smillie and Sir Robert Home agree to the principle of mediation. They differ only on matters of detail and machinery.

LONDON, 6th September. A suggestion that the Government and the miners should agree to a public inquiry concerning an increase in output and the relation of wages to output is gaining adherents among Labour leaders. The Portsmouth Women's National Political League is strenuously striving to -avert a strike, and. is organising a conference of miners' and transporters' wives in London with a view to proposing that the wives, equally with the husbands, participate in strike ballots. Many similar conferences are being arranged in the provinces.