BRITAIN'S COAL CRISIS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19143, 8 October 1925, Page 11

BRITAIN'S COAL CRISIS.

|tABGUR LEADERS' WARNING. '"DELICACY OF THE THREADS." LONDON, Sept. 27. " Don't you chaps have a revolution until I start one," said Mr. Herbert Smith, president of the Miners' Federation, speaking at the Stafford collieries. " I won't ask any mother's son to go where I won't go myself, but let me go first, and before you start wait till I come bo,ck and tell you What it is like." Mr. A. J. Cook, the general secrefcvry of the federation, says that there would be a way out of the deadlock if the employers and the Mines Department drew up an agreement clearly securing the miners against wage reductions. The miners asked for protection during the truce. Mr. J. R. Clynes, M.P., speaking al Widnes, Lancashire, said that nothing wou'd be more fatal to the workers' in terests than to allow the strike weapon to degenerate into a habit of mind in which it was believed that anything could be achieved by ceasing work. They should reject futile foolish encouragements toward physical force, instead of constitutional power. Force, ou a small scale, was childish, but if attempted on a large scale would evoke from every other I section of the community effective and proper resistance. Mr. Frank Hodges, the secretary of the International Miners' Federation, speaking at Eastwood, said there was a lack of understanding of the delicacy of the threads on which trade was carried on. This, coupled with the tirades of a foolish leader, who was playing the role of national bogeyman, was certain to result in more unemployed miners. They were on the road to iruin unless they realised the necessity for the reorganisation of industries and a new land policy, Mr. Hodges declared. The three great issues at the party conference wefe unity, unemployment and a living wage. They must drop personalities and unite to save the country from destruction.