HOURS BILL READ THIRD TIME

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 3, 3 July 1926, Page 9

HOURS BILL READ THIRD TIME

STATEMENT BY PREMIER

MINERS' FEDERATION BLAMED.

(United Prest Association.—Copyright.) (Reuter'i Telegram.) LONDON, Ist July. The debate on the Coal Mines Hours Bill in the House of Commons, which opened menacingly, with Labour members creating a scene and several retiring, was continued. The Speaker repeatedly had to re-. buke Eabour members for interrupting the debate. . Mr. y. Hartshorn (Lab., Ogmore). declared'that the passage of ■ the Bill would raise the most awful situation there had ever been in the mining indus-. try. It would depress tho standard of • life of miners throughout the world. AH workers of the country considered Mr. Baldwin tho greatest enemy of the workers of the las(^ generation. Mr. Baldwin declared that the Miners ' Federation had refused to bridge the gap between the selling price of coal and the cost of production, or to produce a policy for the interim period required for reorganisation. This had driven the Government to its present attitude. Unless the negotiations for which he had fruitlessly endeavoured to arrange between the contending parties were possible, there appeared to be very little hope of anything being done. If the federation even now could accept the report and all it implied, which is what they had struggled for in April, he believed that a mutually satisfactory settlement could be reached.

The Bill was read the third tinw bt 332 votes to 147.