FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1921. THE BRITISH MINING CRISIS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 6 May 1921, Page 4

FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1921. THE BRITISH MINING CRISIS.

One feels very deeply sorry at the pitiable state of the women and ehildre.n in the mining areas of the United Kingdom due to the madness of the strikers in following the dictates of a group of revolutionary leaders,..who are using the coal iudustry for political purposes, as ,Sir Robert Home pointed.

2yt in til© House of Commons a few 'i (lays ago. We say that the attitude of the unionists is sheer madness because they are supporting demands which, if the principle were extended, must lead to national 'bankruptcy. Nature has given Britain a very gener-! ous portion of the world's coal mea- j sures, and to that fact she owes very . largely her great place in the world's ; markets as a manufacturing nation. When the war broke out it became im- j perative that ample supplies of coal should <be won from the mines, and be-J cause of the necessity there was justij fication for the Government taking j over .control of the industry. But war measures by their very nature are of only temporary value, and having found that Government control of industries in peace time is not sound, the Government decided that it would cease to control the mines at the end of March. The production of sufficient coal during the war meant great inj creases in wages, and in the poorer ' »coal fields the payment of such high wages to the miners would have been i impossible for the companies. The Government by its control was a>ble to ! make up losses from the working of the poorer areas by putting against them a .portion of the profits from the richer" mines. The export of coal at high prices also helped to keep the trade going. But in the last few months there has come a very great change. America has been able to jump into seme of the European markets with j coal at a lower price, and the manufacturing industries in Great Britain' itself have undergone a serious slump, meaning that the Home demand for coal has also dropped. Yet in spite of these difficulties, admitted by the miners, secretary, Mr Frank Hodges, ' the miners are not willing to^ accept a lower wage and contend that a national pool should be made by the companies, to be supplemented (by heavy subsidies from the Government, in order to keep wages at the high level which has been reached. The miners' demand is tantamount to nationalisation or State Socialism, which in the war period and since has proved a failure. We suppose that, with the urgency of supplying the Army and Navy with coal and munitions at all costs, the adoption of the system of Government control, or State Socialism, could not be avoided, ■but it has raised huge problems, and it

will probably be years before its evi{

effects will be obliterated. The! methods oi: Governments under their control systems have not in any way been devised, with a view to helping to improve the position when control ceases, and. Governments have not played a helpul part iv restoring industry. The presence of extremists among the workers has been a continual source of trouble, and the sad position of the coal industry to-day in lki<tain arises partly from the fact that the Government has followed, on the whole, a peaee-at-any-price policy, because of the danger that resistance might have interfered with the nation's war effort. Governments have under the stress or

war been obliged to accept and put in- . |to practice certain theories of Socialism. To-day we are reaping the harvest of discontent) go-slow policies, and strikes, and the danger to the nations is very great. The loss incurred in the British coal strike has already been

very severe upon the workers, the own-

ers, and the nation as a whole, and all because a number of extreme Labour leaders will not take common-sense views and are themselves hoping to i gain political power. One wonders how long such madness is to 'be continued, how long reasonable men (as the bulk of the workers are) will permit themselves to le carried away by worthies* agitators, and how long the great mass of the people will continue to suffer the hardships which such strikes cause. A movement which has as its ibasis the destruction of things as they are, regardless of the effects, must itself ultimately perish, and: we should not be surprised if? in its fall it .seriously damages the whole trade union movement. If the absurd attitude of the coal miners in Britain is a 'sample or' Labour's sanity, then one can see no hope for the movement as at present constituted toeing anything else than an agent of destruction, instead of i what it should be, and would be if the reasonable, sections had their way—a power for good and for the building up of the nation. The loss and suffering | inflicted upon the British people by the coal strike, caused because the Government is not willing to push the country ( into bankruptcy, are most unfair, and ■will bring their own punishment upon the perpetrators. • Let us hope that the mass of the miners now on strike are beginning to realise the foolishness of their action, and that when they return to work, as they must before long, they will have their minds made up | that the strike weapon is the greatest enemy to themselves and their wives and children, and that whatever gains come through strikes tney are swallowed up by the losses suffered while the men are idle.