THE COAL SUBSIDY

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 34, 8 August 1925, Page 7

THE COAL SUBSIDY

DEBATE IN HOUSE OF COMMONS

CRITICISED, BUT PASSED.

(UNITED CHESS ASSOCIATION—COFIRIQHT.)

IRKUTSK'S TUEQRAX.)

LONDON, 6th August.

The House of Commons was crowded and animated when Mr. Baldwin moved the supplementary estimate of ten millions sterling for the subvention in aid' of wages in the coal-mining industry. Mr. Baldwin said there was no means of avoiding a strike without temporary I Government help. He was still convinced the Government took the right and wise course. He had been called a coward. Well, it was easier to bo ruttied into a, fight than rattled into peace. Wo were confronted with a great alliance of trade 'unionists, who had the power and will to inflict enormous and irreparable damage on the country. Amid Labour cries of dissent, and Ministerial cheers, Mr. Baldwin said there was apparently a deliberate avowed polity to force a stoppage regardless of suffering. He was unaware if that policy was endorsed by the whole of the Labour, Party. If that were so, he did not see how a constitutional Government could live. AN IMPRESSIVE STATEMENT Mr. Baldwin said he had done his utmost during the last year to socure industrial peace, "but if we ar» again confronted by such a, challenge, let me just say that no minority in a free country has ever yet coerced the whblo community. I am convinced that if the time comes when the community must protect itself, with the full strength of the Government behind it, the community will do so, and the response of the community •will astonish the forces ol anarchy all over the world. I say this merely as a warning-, and I know I am stating the deep, fundamental, widespread belief of the vast majority of the great free people of this country." . Mr. Mac Donald said he regretted most deeply Mr. Baldwin's closing sentences, and declared that anarchy had never occurred in any State unless the conditions were caused by a feeble, reactionary . Government. He asserted that public opinion was united most extraordinarily against the coal-owners for posting the notices. The trade unions had to prepare their own defence. Their extraordinary manifestation of industrial strength would be amply justified. Mr. Mac Donald admitted that the situation last Thursday could only be met by a subsidy, though he rejected the subsidy in principle. He believed the inquiry would find that national control of the mines was essential. "PRACTICALLY NATIONALISATION" Mr. Lloyd George declared that the bargain .was practically nationalisation, with a Government guarantee but without • contr.ol'; Mr. Baldwin was driven to it by the threats of direct-actionists. Democracy would bo doomed if it surrendered to compulsion by a minority. _ Mr. Robert Smillie (Labour), referring to the conditions of countries with which Britfeli coal competed, said there was. money, ijwested in coal mines in India in which' the conditions were similar to those existing in Britain a century ago. There would be a revolution in Britain if the miners were forced down to such i position. Sir Robert Borne expressed the opinion that a subsidy could not meet the difficulties, which arise from the condition of the inohistries of the world, which the Government could not control. If the people were led to believe they could live on subsidies, their plight next May would hA worse than to-day. Colonel Gretton declared that the Conservatives were a.larmed by the surrender to force. The Government's action would strengthen the position of Communists and extremists within the trade unions. He hoped the Government would give an assurance that their policy would not be one of subsidies.

Mr. J. R. Clynes (.labour) said tho Prime Minister's speech had cast an -unwarrantable aspersion on the workers, who had their backs to the wall. The miners would have been craven cowards jf they had not resisted i\hese wage reductions. The rest of .the workers ' would not have been worthy of the name of comrades if they had failed, to etand behind them. BREATHING SPACE GAINED

Mr. Churchill. Chancellor o< the Exchequer, replying to the debate, said it was agreed that the settlement was not final, but a breathing spaced secured in tho hope that the community would be spared a conflict. The subsidy might amount to fifteon millions. They must ensure that the time was well spent, and the sacrifice of mouey was not made without achieving an. effective advantage. Nobody liked a subsidy, but fewer would have liked ■ a general stoppage. Tho Government's decision, therefore, was in the best interests of the public. He had not provided for (he subsidy iv the Budget. He did nc-4 intend to propose any new taxation^ Tha matter could bo considered .-when 1, the next Budget was framed. Miners' wages had not been raised above the pre-war figure to the extent of other | less dangerous occupations. The Gov- j evnment declined to discern in the j miners' resistance any wish to challenge State labour. There was a challenge from a force which was deliberately working to promote discontent. It would be a great mistake to identify the masses of their fellow-countrymen with those forces, which were inspired by foreign propaganda. Parliament must also be protected from the threat of trade unions. It must not be supposed, because the Government had worked for peace, it was incapable of defending a great institution.

A section of the Liberals challenged a division on the Supplementary Estimates, which was adopted by 351 votes to 16.