SPEECH BY LLOYD GEORGE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 9 May 1921, Page 5

SPEECH BY LLOYD GEORGE.

THE TRUE POSITION

1 MINERS TRYING TO STARVE

NATION. »

LONDON, May 8. Mr Lloyd George, .speaking at Maidstone, devoted the great part of in« speech to the coal strike, offering no iop© of an-early settlement. i He said that when tihe coal prices '•were high the miners enjoyed their «har e of the luck, to vfciefc they wsre entitled, 'but now tihe. mines -were losing, the export prices having fallen more than 50 per cent, in three, months, and ander the latest Government offer they must continue to lose. , "Americans are cutting us out of the coal markets," said the Premier, "and it is impossible to raise the local price in order to maintain an artificial rate of miners' "wages, "because that would entai^loss in our manufacturing trade, eventually resulting in the. clo'sX 3ng down of mines. In the first; quarter this year the mines lost £25,000,----000. That cannot continue, and the government is forced' to insist that the industry be self-supporting." , Proceeding, the Premier said: '"The miners' demand for a national pool to prevent wages being reduced meaiifc the profitable 'mines paying towards the unprofitable. This is & ifar-reach-ing principle. Where is it going to end? If adopted with mines, why not in other industries, such as the profit--1 able Lancashire and Yorkshire factories paying the twages of unprofitable factories in other counties? Why not the Daily Mail paying the Daily Herald's losses? (Lughter.)

"The country is anxious to pay &h» ' miners the highest wages the industry can 'bear/and the Government, is prepared to consider any practical settlement .proposal based on permanent and not on patched lines. This is the second mine stoppage in six months, and the fourth threatened in tihe past (two years. British, industries cannot stanxT these heart shocks. 1 am told every -day we are seeking to starve miners into surrender. 1 am afraid it is the other way. The-Miners' Federation is seeking to starve the wihole nation into a disas>troiis settlement of the strike, ■inflicting untold injury on thousands ox ■people not connected with mining, jbut ll must appeal here and liow to the nawion to endure with the patient and stubborn courage which piloted it Rhrough worse trouble." ■ Mr Arthur Henderson, the well■known Labour leader, writing in the ■Sunday Express, (blames the GovernIxnent for describing the coal dispute as la political matter, thereby making a ■settlement under the Industrial iDisBputes Act impossible. Mr Henderson ■expresses the opinion that if the GovBernmerit, recognising the need for helpHing*tTie industry over the abnormal Bperiod, gave a definite pledge ; that unIbil permanent wage regulation machin■ished, it would undertake to sustain Hery acceptable to both sides .was estaib-Bn-ages at the cost of living level, work Hzould be resumed.