BRITISH MINERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 September 1920, Page 7

BRITISH MINERS.

SITUATION EXTREMELY GRAVE. WAGES AND OUTPUT INSEPARABLE By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. London, Sept. 18. Owing to the fact that the coal conference adjourned with Mr. Smillie's uncompromising insistence on an immediate 2s increase per shift, the situation is again generally regarded as one of extreme gravity. Some circles behind the miners will push their distaste to an inquiry to the extreme action of a strike. After the conference, members of the miners' executive declared that if the jpoyerntneiit had said the last word upon H&fjWages question, a strike was inevitSir Robert Home says that the quesIPBhs of wages and of increased output fete inseparable. Hitherto, every fresh advance in wages lias been linked up with diminished output because, it was declared, every increase has merely sti-\ mulated a greater number of men to absent themselves from work. Sir Robert Home desires to raise the output to the pre-war level of 287 million tons, which he believes to be easily attainable, eeeing that 200,000 more men are employed than was the case in 1914. It is significant that a sub-committee of the Triple Alliance met after the conference and discussed the arrangements for co-ordinate action in the event of a strike. The Coal Association, in a statement on coal-hewers' wages for the period of June, shows that the first group averaged over £2O weekly, the second £ls, the) third £l2l an a the fourth £lo.—Reuter.'