Evening Post. TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1926. THE COAL CRISIS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 105, 4 May 1926, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1926. THE COAL CRISIS

The great strike for which the enemies of Britain, domestic and foreign, have long been hoping p,nd scheming has begun at last on a scale commensurate with their wishes. The miners struck on Saturday, and at the same time the decision of the Trades Union Conference in favour o£ a general strike to begin at midnight on Monday was announced. The break-down of the Government's eleventh-hour negotiations with the Labour leaders and I the grounds on which it was based destroyed the last hope of averting what in any event must be a aaitional calamity of the first magnitude, and may even, as "The Times" flears, develop into "the gravest domestic menace since the fall of the Stuarts.'' A position for which ft is neisessary to go back more than two centuries to the days of revolution and J civil war in order to find a parallel is grave indeed, but there is still room for hope that the conditioft which governs tfie diagnosis of "The Times" —"unless the counsels of reason prevail"—may not be fully realised. Temporarily the forces of unreason have triumphed, or the decks would not be cleared far a general strike. Just as we hoped against hope yesterday that the strike already operating in one great national industry would not be extended to all the others, so it is possible, though much more difficult, to hope to-day that, reinforced ?>y the appalling prospect, the counsels of reason may be able to prevent the struggle from being fought to a finish that will be ruinous to everybody. The outlook would be much clearer if the case of the miners were entirely devoid of merits and the florces of reason -were all on the other side. But no such clear-cut line can. be drawn. Both Mr. Eamsay MacDomald and Mr. J. H. Thomas were quoted yesterday as still whole-heartedly supporting the miners and throwing aft the blame upon the Government. ffo Mr. MacDonald's charge against the Government of haying provoked "an unnecessary, wicked, and criminal, fight," the character of Mr. Baldwin—in its weakness, one might perhaps; say, almost as much as in its strength—is a sufficient answer. Mr. Thomas's more stable temperament and 3ess rhetorical language give his declaration that "never had a Government made auch a blunder" a much greatw weight than Mr. Mac Donald's invective. It was certainly a serious blunder on the part of the mine-owners that their offer to the men should have becm delayed till the afternoon of the dey preceding what had been fixed nime months ago as the day of reckoning. A definite proposal was, of course, impossible until the Coal Commission had reported, but the publication of its report still left fifty-six days for the work of peacemaking, and the delay of that proposal until fifty-five of them had passed is a default which appears ("difficult to justify. To what extent tine Government must share the responsibility for what Mr. Lloyd George de£«ribes as "the same perfunctory and -dilatory diplo- | macy, the same . ineffefiual leisurely negotiations which led to the Great War" is a question -rhich a judicial observer on the spot mitst find it much more difficult, and such an observer at. this distance quite imjjossible, to answer. But, whatever may tio the respective responsibilities of the other parties to these negotiations, thriir blunders are now dwarfed by the eoSossal blunder of the men behind the miners. That blunder has raised a nev and infinitely ■ graver issue which leasvcs no room for reasonable doubt. Mb. Lloyd George properly followed up !his severe criticism with an appeal to everyone to support the State, "whicln must come first and last all the time.'* If his censure was coloured by partisßnship, he sounded in that concluding appeal the authentic note of statesmanship and patriotism. No civilised convuiunity can afford to let any of its citizpns take tho law into their own handis. Anarchy lies that way. The foundftfion of any State is respect for the law, and the foundation of a democracy 5s majority rule. But, though in a democjracy the right of a majority to make the law necessarily implies the right to aflter it, even the members of a majority cannot be allowed to defy the law, however distasteful, as long as it romains unaltered. Such a defiance is notliing short of a declaration of war against the State, and the State which takes it lying down will cease to be a, State even more suroly than if it Bubraits to the dictation of a foreign eneimy. Self-defence is tho first duty of a. State on which another State has decflared war. Not negotiation but surrender and the acceptance of dictated terms is the alternative. It was natural that the great victory which the miners and. their allies won lia iutyj Bhoulfl h&yc Jpd mapYj P.* them

to suppose that there was no limit to the concessions which the fear of a terrible industrial upheaval would wring from the Government. Legitimate pressure might still have done much, but they unfortunately mistook the infinite patience of Mr. Baldwin for weakness, and provided in their appeal to force— for a general strike is nothing less—the very thing that was needed to nerve him to resolute action. The threat of a general strike, .followed by cci tain overt acts, has compelled Mr. Baldwin not to sue for peace on his bended knees but to break off negotiation*. Overt acts, says the official statement, have already occurred, including the interference with the freedom of the Press, involving a challenge to the nation's constitutional rights. Before the continuance of negotiations, the Government demands that the Trades Union Congress repudiate those actions immediately and unconditionally, and withdraw its instructions for a general strike. The attack on the Press was about as ill-judged a proceeding as militant Labour could have selected for a start. The "Daily Herald" remarked with complacency that "in all the newspaper offices the printers are watching closely what is being said about the crisis," and it is doubtless pleased to find that in the office of the "Daily Mail" the watch was so alert that the paper waß unable to appear. The lovers of liberty who seek to deny freedom of speech have surely issued such "a challenge to the nation's constitutional rights" as will rally it with irresistible determination in support of the Government.