THE COAL STRIKE

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 201, 26 July 1926, Page 7

THE COAL STRIKE

THIRTEENTH WEEK. SOME MEN RETURNING TO .WORK, POSITION IN WARWICKSHIRE. [By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.] LONDON, July 24. Events are beginning to force the coal strike, which has now reached its thirteenth week, into prominence again. The biggest breakaway of miners has occurred in Warwickshire, where the number working is variously estimated at between 3000 and 5000 out of '20,000. Mr A. J. Cook (secretary of the Miners’ Federation) cancelled all engagements for the purpose of spending the week-end in that coalfield. Speaking at Nuneaton he said: “Warwickshire is going to bo the cockpit of the fight. I do not blame the men, because Warwickshire is the only district which has been offered an agreement until March. Special efforts have been made to persuade the men to return. A flood of leaflets has been circulated in the interests of the employers, but the majority remain firm. If Warwickshire wants a change in policy, the men must say so. If it wants a conference, the federation will call 'one, but blacklegging must be stopped.” Other leaders of the men are going to Warwickshire next week.

, Writing in the Observer, Mr Garvin states: “We have been restrained in our criticism, but the time for reserve has gone. Mr Baldwin and the Cabinet must s act. They can and should bring the Coal Commission into life again, with power to interpret and elaborate its recommendations, and should provide for arbitation on the disputed points. The more we pay for the dispute, the more decisive will be the explosion of disgust if the Governmnt can do no more towards settlement- than protest that everything has been done.”—A. and N.Z. cable. TERMS OF PEACE. PLEA BY CHURCHMEN. LONDON, July 24. The Bishops and eleven, Free Church leaders lifive signed a new statement, pleading with the Government to reconsider the terms of a coal peace which they submitted to Mr Baldwin. Tjiey emphasise that the miners’ families are enduring real privation, while other workers, the Christian churches, and the whole of the community suffer with them. They declare that the spirit of the fight to a finish is anti-Christian, ahd that no lasting peace is possible except on the basis of justice and co-operation, with adequate remuneration and humane conditions for workers.—A. and N.Z. cable. MONEY FROM MOSCOW. DELEGATES OBJECT. PARIS, July 23. The international miners’ committee concluded a private conference, which merely confirmed the decisions of the Ostend and Brussels conference as regards the coal stoppage in Britain, confining the support of the miners to verbal sympatliy.

Mr A. J. Cook, interviewed by the newspaper Humanite, complains of the attitude of the French and German delegates. “They savagely attacked us for accepting money from Moscow,” he stated. “The Americans alone supported us in this connection.”—Reuter.