MINERS’ DEFENCE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 21 January 1927, Page 5

MINERS’ DEFENCE

GENERAL STRIKE POLICY. REPLY TO T.U.C. COUNCIL. FIGHT NOT YET OVER. BY CABLE —PRESS ASSOCIATION —COPYRIGHT. Received 10.20 a.m. to-day. LONDON, Jan. 20. “If we were deserted and forced to fight a loue fight, it was not by the workers that we were abandoned. This sentence, at the outset, is characteristic of the strongly-worded statement by the Miners’ Federation on the general strike, for the conference of trade union executives to be held today. The statement declares that the general strike was the climax qf concerted endeavours by the. employers for years to solve their problem by wage. eutting. In 1925 it was narrowed to the mining industry with its special dun culties. The first attempt, at general wage reduction in July, 1925, was defeated because the Labour movement was then strong and determined. Iho council of the Trade Union Congress stood by the miners, and the Government, which had backed the coal owners, was compelled to postpone the conflict and to take time to load its cruns The real purpose of the Royal Commission, thereafter appointed, was to find the argument which would divide the united front of the whole movement by the TU C. Council, which, in February, 1926, reaffirmed the solidarity of the miners and other trade unionists, but hesitated, si.*, weeks later, after the publication or the commission’s re-port, to reaffirm the position on which it had committed the whole movement. Thus the workers entered the general strike unaware that the T.U.C. Council contemplated yielding. Having once decided on a policy of yielding,' they yielded consistently until the end. . Summing up the lengthy argument in defence of the miners’ rejection of the Samuel memorandum, the statement cieClares: “To put it bluntly, the general council was leading the miners into a trap, but the miners refused to be enThe statement concludes: “The fight is not over. Longer hours and lower wages cannot bring peace in the coalfields. We will not allow the district agreements to shatter our strength, the unitv of our organisation is still intact. We are determined to recover lost ground, and we look confidently tor the support of the whole trade union movement.”