"STRATFORD EVENING POST" FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1929. A HOUSE DIVIDED.

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 32, 8 February 1929, Page 4

"STRATFORD EVENING POST" FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1929. A HOUSE DIVIDED.

ENGLISH papers just to hand!, din reports dealing with the Avireless appeal by the Prince of Wale s for financial'assistance for distressed miners, give graphic details of_the miserable conditions under which thousands of. unfortunate people are living. In his address the Prince said that because the distress was concentrated in special districts, many !toisk the line of least resistance and put out of mind what was out of sight. That is the unfortunate truth, and it has only been the Priuce's action in draw, ing attention to the matter, that brcnigh to the nation a realisation of the acuteness cf the problem.. For ' the last 4 or 5 years the miners have not been in full work and almost every one has experienced short time., fewer shifts per week, less earnhigs to take home. Tilings were going from bad to worse week afterweek and mcuitk after month} until now more than a quarter of a__mil. lion miners, are out of work. These men, with no work and no wages, have been obliged to use what little they had in the way of savings, and sell their furniture to buy food. In many cases now, there is nothing left to sell. There is no need; to stress the seriousness of this problem, in the Old Country—it is well realised now, and, difficult as a solution, seems, one must ho found. Every endeavour is being made to transfer the men to other parts of the country where

employment could bo prepared for them, but in the labour market in all parts of Britain the, supply by far exceeds the demand and thus the solution dues not lie in sendling mei\ flro.ni one district to another. Of course the Colonies can take a cer* tain proportion, but many of them have their own unemployment problems to face, and a. large number of thesa in the distressed areas in the Homeland are not suitable to. take up Colonial life. The staggering part is that the majority of those miners will j never again find employment in their ' own industry and* for this the policy j of their own organisation is not blameless. Tlio /unneoessajiy mid often unwarranted) stoppages in the coal industry stimulated the growth

of rival industries, ami) the competition of oil and electricity developed more rapidly than would have been tlio case ifiad a, regular coal supply been available. That a house uividcd against itself cannot stand is as applicable to industry as jt is to anything else and it is d/uo, in a largo measure, to the. failure of the parties eoncernexS in tne coal industry to understand this that that activity is now in such a precarious position. The focussing of public opinion on the terrible plight of the unemployed minors will probably lend to a. big pndeavour being made to solve the problem wlyich i» part and parcel of Britain's groat difficulty viz. un, employment. The trouble will take; a long time to overcome, but that it will bo rig'htetT'is certain if it is tackled in the ririit way by people imbued with the ritzht spirit.