COALMINERS' STRIKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17776, 9 May 1921, Page 5

COALMINERS' STRIKE.

NO EARLY SETTLEMENT.

ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT.

EFFECT OF FALLING PRICES.

By Telegraph-Press Association-Copyright. (Received 11 p.m.) A - ani3 N -Z- LONDON. May 7. The Prime Minister. Mr. Llovd George, speaking at Maidstone, devoted the greater part of his speech to the coal strike, but not offering hope of an earlv settlement. He said that when coal prices were high the miners enjoved their share of the luck, to which thev were entitled. Now the miners were "losing, the export prices having fallen more than 50 per cent, in three months, and under the latest Government offer they must continue to lose. The Americans were cutting us out of the coal markets, and it was impossible to raise the local price in order to maintain an artificial rate of miners' wages, because that would entail the loss of our manufacturing trade, eventually resulting in closing the mines. In the first quarter of this year the mines lost £25,000,000, and that could not continue. The Government was forced to insist that the industry be self-support-ing.

The miners' demand of a national pool to prevent reduction of wages meant that profitable mines would be paying toward the unprofitable. This was a'far-reaching principle, and where was it going to end ? If mines, why not other industries, profitable Lancashire and Yorkshire factories paying the wages of unprofitable factories in other counties? Why not the Daily Mail pay the Daily Herald's losses? (Laughter.) That is why the Times advocates a national pool and the Daily Mail opposes it. (Laughter.) The country was anxious to pay the miners the highest wages the industry could bear, and the Government was prepared to consider any practical settlement of the proposal based on permanent, not patched, lines.

This was the second mine stoppage in six months, and the fourth threatened in the past two years, continued Mr. Lloyd George. British industries could not stand these heart shocks. *' I am told every day we are seeking to starve the miners into surrender! I am afraid it is the other way, the Miners' Federation seeking to starve the whole nation into a disastrous settlement. The strike is inflicting untold injury on thousands not connected with mining. But I must appeal here and now for the nation -to endure with the patient and stubborn courage that piloted it through worse trouble.''

HANDLING FOREIGN COAL.

TRANSPORTERS URGE REFUSAL

Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. (Reed. 11 p.m.) LONDON,-May 7. The Transport Workers' Federation and the National Union of Railwaymen hvae issued a joint manifesto calling on their members to refuse to unload or handle foreign coal imported into Britain. Large quantities of such coal are arriving next week. i

DOCK STRIKE AT GLASGOW.

NO WELSH COAL HANDLED. A. and N.Z. LONDON, May 6. The Northumberland Mine Workers' Federation resolved to reject the Government's offer, as it does not include a national board pool. The branches will vote upon the resolution immediately. For a fortnight the dock labourers in Glasgow have declined to handle cargoes of Welsh coal. When a start was made to-day with non-union labour under police and military protection a general strike was declared, and the docks were thrown idle.

The Manchester dockers decided that no vessel bringing coal from foreign ports will be discharged. The police in Rhondda Valley dispersed bands of miners demonstrating against officers working the pumps.

LABOUR MEMBER'S VIEWS.

CRITICISM OF GOVERNMENT. Australian and N Z. Cable Association. (Reed. 11.2 p.m.) LONDON, May 7. Mr. A. Henderson, writing in the Sunday Express, blames the Government for describing the coai dispute as political, thereby making settlement under the Industrial Disputes Act impossible. He expresses the opinion that work could be resumed if the Government, recognising the need for helping the industry over an abnormal period, gave a, uefinite pledge that until permanent wage-regulating machinery acceptable to both sides were established, it would undertake to sustain wages at a cost-of-living level.

PARALYSIS OF TRADE. 5,000,000 WORKERS AFFECTED. A. and N.Z. LONDON, May 6. Industrial chaos in Britain is increasing daily. Five million workers are now idle or on half-wages, representing fifteen million men, women, arid children. They are not buying clothes and other goods, and gradual paralysis of trade is coming on. The miners show no signs of giving way on the principle of the national pool, which the Mining Association now announces it will not even discuss, as it means certain disaster to the industry.