SIX MONTHS’ STRIKE

Taranaki Daily News, 2 November 1926, Page 7

SIX MONTHS’ STRIKE

MMORITY OF REN IDLE ONLY ONE QUARTER AT WORK RESTRICTION OF TRAINS HOUSE SUPPLY MAINTAINED By Ttlegraah—Press Assn.— Copyright. I<ondon, Oct. 31. It is (Sadly six months’ since the coal dispute began. Though there have been many breakaways there are still three-quarters of the total employees on the coalfields idle. Beginning from to-day over 100 additional trains will cease running in order to conserve supplies. Household coal is fairly plentiful and the Government has even increased the fortnightly nation from lewt to 2ewt, but the minimum is being bought, owing to the high prices. Mr. Baldwin in a letter says he has itever desisted from his efforts to bring the parties together. The difficulty throughout has been the impossibility of finding any solution which both sides would agree to accept, even as a basis of discussion. SABOTAGE THREATENED. MR. COOK'S AMAZING SPEWS. London, Nov. 1. Mr. A. J. Cook, Secretary to the Miners’ Federation, speaking at Liverpool, warned the nation that “if you drive the miners back to longer hours they won’t work them. They will go down into the pits but they will destroy more than they construct. They will fight guerilla warfare, and will continue the battle more than ever. If the miners are forced back to work at a bayonet point of starvation, it won’t do the owners any good. The miners are not yet beaten, there is a world shortage of coal, and economic conditions are in the miners’ favour.” Mr. Cook made an appeal to the miners not to be routed, so that they might not degenerate into a rabble to be massacred by the Governmeßt and the owners. "If,” he said, the Trade Unions refuse to back the miners, the latter may be compelled to reconsider their position.”