BRITISH COAL CRISIS

Evening Star, Issue 19275, 14 June 1926, Page 5

BRITISH COAL CRISIS

SEVERAL MINES REOPEN MEN RETURNING TO WORK Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON. June 12. Nearly 2,000 more miners have returned to the Warwickshire mines, and the movement is extending to other coalfields in Nottinghamshire and Lanarkshire. Many mines are working overtime. Several of the South Staffordshire owners have offered to reopen their mines on the old terms. _ Earl Dudley is promising a years agreement or an eventual national agreement, whichever is the most favorable to the miners. One thousand men returned at two collieries near Bewdley. There were angry _ demonstrations against the workers in one or two localities, but the situation generally is calm.—Reuter.

MONEY FROM RUSSIA

HELP FROM TRADE UNIONS

MOSCOW, Juno 12, The Soviet trade unions have so far contributed 3,626,000 roubles to the Miners’ Federation in Britain.—Reuter. STATEMENTS DENIED. LONDON, Juno 11. The Acting Charge d'Affairs at the Soviet Embassy has issued a statement denying the llorne Secretary’s declaration in the House of Commons that the Soviet Government had sent money to Britain to support a general strike.— Reuter.

TRADE UNIONS PROTEST,

MONEY NEVER RECEIVED

LONDON, Juno 12.

In connection with the British Note to Moscow in regard to tho Soviet’s oiler of money to the Trade Unions Congress during the general strike, tho Trade Unions Congress has sent a letter to Mr Baldwin denying that it over received money from the Soviet Government, and most strongly protesting against the attempts to misrepresent the efforts of tho Russian trade unionists to help the British workers to pur-sue-legitimate trade union activities and to use them in such a way_as to seriously endanger the relationship between His Majesty's Government and tho Soviet 1 Republics.—Renter.

MR BALDWIN’S LAMENT

REPLY BY MR COOK

LONDON. June 12,

Mr Baldwin, addressing 15,000 unionists at a fete at Chippenham, said ho wanted to see the British Labor movement free from allied and foreign heresy and developed on English lines. Ho hoped the time would soon come for the more enlightened and statesmanlike minds, both among the employers and the trade union leaders, to meet and discuss a new industrial policy with whatever help tho Government could give. He lamented the fact that both sides in tho coal industry had thus far rejected the arbitration which he had offered.

Mr Cook, who is touring Cornwall, said: “If Mr Baldwin attempts legislation to force longer hours it will be the start of a British revolution. I am prepared to have an independent ballot of the miners to decide whether they will take longer hours and lower wages or not.” —A. and N.Z. Cable, A WORKER'S VIEV/ The following extract from a letter from a hairdresser’s assistant in London, written to liis relatives in_ Dunedin, giving his views on the industrial problems at Home, will be of interest: — “As you are no doubt aware, we are in the throes of one of the most pig-headed conferences we have ever had, and it doesn’t look ns though either party will compromise. iThe Government "is making very elaborate arrangements to try to deal with the emergency, Thero is something radically wrong somewhere with the mining industry, as there nr© thousands more employed in it than there were before the w»r, and the output is about two-thirds of the pre-war total, and the price is nearly double to the consumer. Yet one can’t get away from the fact that the miners are not geting the wage they should. I daresay you have seen the report of our latest Budget. Do you wonder we can't gel going? About the only thing untaxed in England to-day is the cat. We still have just one million unemployed, and yet every week thousands of pounds’ worth of work is being sent abroad, and machinery is being imported that could easily bo bought in England if only the employer know how he stood. The hard fact remains to me, who am looking on impartially, that the British workman of to-day expects the maximum wage for the minimum of work. He has been educated into this frame of mind by trad© union leaders until he finds that lie has ruined his own prospects. The loaders know it, but it is not likely thej - are going to admit it. If they bad educated the men to do their utmost, and show that they really deserved more wages, I think the masters would have had sense enough to see their argument. Less work, shorter hours, and more money won’t balance. As you know, I meet all sorts and conditions of men and employers, and I say emphatically that if employers of labor only knew where they stood in regard to their ability to carry out contracts without the nightmare of strilos, entailing in their case hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of pounds not allowed for in the contract, and also a fair day’s work in return for the wages agreed on beforehand, there would be 50,000 leas unemployed in this country in the next six months. With all the unemployed and dissension here the theatres, picture palaces, and football matches are overcrowded. You can’t book a scat in a London theatre under three montlis ahead, and really there doesn’t seem the discontent that one would naturally expect in such a parlous state of affairs. I daresay we shall muddle through somehow.”