COLLIERY TROUBLE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22722, 7 May 1937, Page 11

COLLIERY TROUBLE

MR. BALDWIN'S APPEAL

LAST BIG COMMONS SPEECH

DRAMATIC EFFECT IN HOUSE

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright British Wireless RUGBY, May 5

In what he evidently regarded, and the press has signalised, as his last big speech in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister, Mr. Stanley Baldwin, intervening early in the debate on the threatened national coal strike, made an eloquent appeal for a peaceful settlement.

Mr. Baldwin assured the House that the Government was not indifferent to what was happening and he himself had been in daily touch with the Minister of Mines, Captain 11. F. C. Crooksliank, for a long time.

The present dispute called for delicate and sympathetic handling, but Mr. Baldwin was not without hope that reason would prevail, because there was a feeling throughout the country that the issue was so reduced that it ought rot to be allowed to lead to a strike. The whole world had its eyes on London, where it was represented for rejoicings associated with the age-old ceremony of the Coronation, so near at hand.

The Prime Minister appealed to the handful of men on both sides, with whom peace or war in the Harworth Colliery dispute rested, to do the thing which would rejoice the hearts of all •—to rend arid to dissipate the dark cloud which the threatened strike held over the country—and to show the world that British democracy know how to practise acts of peace in a world of strife.

The Prime Minister's appeal made a great impression in the House and produced dramatic effect.

Mr. Tom Williams (Labour —Yorkshire), himself a former miner, said that if the response to the appeal was what it ought to be, Harworth would quickly settle down to the happy condition which obtained at Bentley, where the same companj owned a colliery and for 20 years had never had a strike.

Opening the debate Mr. C. R. Attlee asked the Government to bring every possible influence to bear to settle the dispute and suggested that if a strike occurred on May 22, the House should be called together, in advance of the reassembly date, May 24.

Mr. . Attlee said that although the immediate issue concerned only a few workers in one village in Nottinghamshire, 500,000 miners were prepared to face hardship and loss on behalf of the principle of recognition. STRIKE NOTICES PROCLAMATION TO MINERS LONDON, May 5 The Miners' Federation has issued a proclamation pointing out that the Nottinghamshire colliery trouble is not settled and urging all miners to hand in their strike notices as evidence of their determination to fight for justice. This might or might not mean a national stoppage, but further dictation would not be tolerated, the proclamation states.