COAL STRIKE NOW SIX MONTHS OLD

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3494, 2 November 1926, Page 9

COAL STRIKE NOW SIX MONTHS OLD

Breakaways by No Means Serious PERSISTENT EFFORTS TO FIND SOLUTION L Sy Electric Cable—Copyright.] [Aust. and N.Z. Cable Association.} (Received Monday, 7 p.m.) LONDON, Oct, 31. It is exactly six months since the coal dispute began. Though there have been many breakaways, three-quarters of the total employees on the coalfields are still idle. Beginning to-day over 100 additional trains will cease running in order to conserve supplies. Household coal is fairly plentiful, the Government even being able to increase the fortnightly ration from one to two hundredweight, but the minimum is being bought owing to the high prices. Mr. Baldwin ip a letter says that he has never desisted from his efforts to bring the parties together. The difficulty throughout has been the impossibility of finding any solution which, both sides would agree to accept even as the basis of discussion.

COOK THREATENS SABOTAGE. . (Received Monday, 7.36 p.m.) \ LONDON, Nov. 1. Mr. Cook, speaking at Liverpool, warned the nation: “If you drive the miners back to longer hours, they won’t work. They will go down into the pits and will destroy more than they construct. They will fight a guerilla warfare, and continue the battle more than ever. If the miners are forced back to work at the bayonet point of starvation, it won’t do the owners any good. The miners are not yet beaten. There is a world shortage of coal, and economic conditions are in the miners’ favour." Mr. Cook made an appeal to the miners not to be routed, so that they degenerate into a rabble to bo massacred by the Government and owners. “If the Trade Unions refuse to back the miners, the latter may be compelled to reconsider their position.”