NOTES ON THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 102, 1 May 1943, Page 5

NOTES ON THE WAR

DANGER TO ALLIES

COAL STRIKE IN U.S.A. Another twenty-four hours has brought little change in the general situation on the Tunisian front, where the greatest battle of the war outside Russia is reaching its climax. The French on the north coast sector have advanced to within sight of Bizerta, but elsewhere on the front the fierce struggle for vantage points continues indecisively. Affecting not. only the Tunisian front, but every other theatre of war in the long run and endangering the whole prospect of early victory for the Allies, is .the coal strike in America. A quarter of the workers employed in the mines are already out, and the strike may become complete within, another day or so. The issue is vital to the Allies. Coal is the basis of all war industry, and America is the principal arsenal of democracy, for the supply not only of finished weapons and material of war, but also for raw and partially manufactured material dispatched under the lease-lend system to all the Allies, but principally to Britain and Russia. Without coal American war industry cannoj function, and the whole Allied cause will suffer. The immediate question in dispute is the demands of the United Mine Workers* Federation, of which Mr. John L Lewis is the president and militant leader, for: (1) an increase in wages of 2 dollars a day above the present rate of 7 dollars for miners, 5 dollars 8 cents for labourers, with a minimum wage in the mines of 8 dollars; (2) inclusion in the contract with the employers of 50,000 foremen and other sub-bosses; (3) limitation of the new contract for one year. The mine owners have flatly refused all but the last demand. Their offer was the standard laid down by the War Labour Board for industry, limiting increases to 15 per cent, above rates prevailing January 1. 1941. The two-year contract of the soft coal miners expired on March 31 and that of the anthracite miners on April 30. The issue was deferred to the latter date. Against Inflation. Behind this apparently simple issue is the whole struggle of President Roosevelt and his Government against inflation. If the mine workers succeed in getting the substantial wage increases they demand there will be nothing to stop a general levelling up in wages and prices, opening the door to inflation and all its dangers. President Roosevelt has been straggling for the past' year to check inflation by, all possible means —price-control, rationing, wage fixing, and limitation oi salaries to a maximum of 25,000 dollars a year. Congress opposed the fixing of farm prices and the limitation of salaries, and these issues are not yet satisfactorily settled. The two great American labour organisations,' the American Federation of Labour (A.F. of L.), of which Mr. William Green is the president, and the Congress of Industrial Organisations (C.1.0.), of which Mr. Philip Murray is the president, both—a little reluctantly—fell in with the Government's policy. Mr. John L. Lewis, founder of the C.1.0. and president for many years, until he was ousted by Mr. Murray, was at one time a supporter of President Roosevelt and his New Deal, but quarrelled with him before [the last Presidential election in 1940 over war policy and has since been a bitter opponent. Lewis is an mdi Ividualist and more or less an isolationist, fighting for his own hand m rivalry with the other Labour leaders, | Mr. Murray and Mr. Green. ''Utopia" Scorned. The attitude of Mr. Lewis towards the President's programme of social welfare and reform—described as an •'American Beveridge Plan"—is clearly indicated in the following passage from an editorial in the "United Mine Workers' Journal," official organ of the U.M.W.: A "We do not believe that American working men will be lulled into inertia by this all-embracing programme, allegedly designed to eliminate human want from the universe, any more than they were when another President promised the 'abolition of poverty.' "American working men are smart enough to know that they must produce the products, goods, and services upon which profits and taxes must be had and levied to pay the cost of any social Utopia, regardless of the political theory or management underlying and cpntrolling its; operation. "It is this knowledge that direct* the American workers now to ask a more favourable 'divvy' as along Jhe road we go. They recognise that '£ bird in hand is worth two' in the* bush.' "And right now the United Mine Workers believe that present-day equitable pay rates will best conserve their well-being and that's just what they are asking—not blueprints of a Utopia that, in the light of the present pace towards world physical and financial exhaustion, may never materialise."