COAL INDUSTRY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 22 November 1926, Page 9

COAL INDUSTRY.

4*> - AGREEMENT AT NOTTINGHAM. COVERS FIVE YEARS. % <UKI.Ii- HKKSB ASSOCIATION- OOPYHIQUI I Received 12.10 P- m to-day. LONDON, Nov. 21. Largely owing to Spencer’s efforts, the Nottingham owners and miner* 1 have agreed on the terms of resump- 1 turn. They cover a five-year period, including wages governed *by results. I The working day is extended by halt-1 un-hour. ENGLAND’S SPIRIT OF. THRIFT. NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE. New Zealand’s knowledge of the miners’ strike is an inconclusive summary of events by cable, a few illus-1 fcrations in ‘British periodicals, and be-1 lat fed cuttings from the Home press. The average New Zealander is not able I to visualise the conditions in due per-1 speetive. Particularly is he unable to form a just idea of the present conditions in England in contrast with what the Empire regards as the normal Motherland. It was after a residence of 50 years in the Dominion of New Zealand that j Mr Edward Foden, resident for 35 years in Hawera, returned on a second I visit to the land of his birth, reviewed the famous Black Country of England, and contrasted it with the conditions prevailing there when he left half a •’cnturv ago. „ . Mr Foden is frankly disappointed. England is not the country of his hoyhood. His love for the land of his I origin cannot blind Mr Foden’s eyes to the decadence in the independence of the race which formerly characterised its manhood. New Zealand was a I pleasant place to see after the terrible conditions ruling in the Old Country. Mr Foden says that men to-dav cavil at accepting much more money for eight hours’ work than the backbone of~Englaml accepted for 12 or 16 hours’ 1 work in the ’seventies. The old spirit I of' thrift had disappeared from the younger generation—Mr Foden drew a strong line lie tween the old type of I worker still supporting British industry and the new type unfamiliar with conditions before the war. | The old miners were not- those who caused the trouble. They realised that! the conditions obtaining to-day were I not what they might be, and t-heyhad I the support of the public behind them, but thev did not favour extremism, I and had been the first to return to 1 work. . The younger generation found no | favour in the returned travellers’ eyes. Thev were to be met with all over England, begging at every hand. The voirth of the country had lost all sense if thrift. A prominent town clerk had voluntarily lived th© life of the un-l employed for some weeks. He had I visited workhouses as an inmater, and had slept on the Embankment-. The result of his experience went to show that a large number of young _ men found a lazy enjoyment in drifting round the country, taking what the guardians of each district had to of-1 fer. While at the Liverpool Sunlight soap works, to the directors of which institution Mr Foden carried an intro-J auction ,the travellers from New Zea--1 land had been witness to an eloquentl ■ scene amongst the workers. The col-1 1 lierv employees were in favour of clos- ’ ing down the soap works in Liverpool, 1 - yet on this day, a Friday and pay day, I a- crowd of miners came up from South ■ Wales to sing at the gates and collect ! from the workers as they left with I their wages. As an old Black Conn-1 ' try man, Mr Foden considered, < in

brief, that the real pre-war miners were in receipt of the confidence of the public, had made the most of things, and had crone back to work at the first chance. The younger miners and other workers associated with the industry protracted the trouble until it caused a paralysis of commerce unable to be believed by those who were fortunate enough not- to have seen it. « Turning the question of the suffering of the miners during the strike, especially as. it referred to the children.%Mr Foden was of the opinion that there had been some exaggeration. Whilst visiting neighlxiurhoods in the midst of the mining areas, Mr Foden had seen school children fed and cared for in a manner which belied the words of a British woman member of Parliament who had visited the United States and drawn unwarranted pictures of juvAiile distress. Messrs Baldwin and Churchill .had rebuked the lady. That this rebuke came with reason the returned Haivera resident had no doubt. He had seen whole schools of miners’ children fed at the institutions. The people of the district provided the food, cooked it, served it, and washed up the plates afterwards. In conclusion, Mr Foden said that the indications when he left England were for an improvement in trade and a slow recovery from .the present serious position.