Wairarapa Daily Times [ESTABLISHED OVER 50 YEARS.] SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1926. THE BRITISH COAL STRIKE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 27 November 1926, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [ESTABLISHED OVER 50 YEARS.] SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1926. THE BRITISH COAL STRIKE.

If appearances count for anything, the coal strike which has paralysed the coal-mining industry in Britain for over six months is on the verge of settlement, and the final stages of the negotiations will be watched with hopeful interest in New Zealand. If, as the cables imply, the country is to be divided into districts, each of which is to have its particular agreement, the whole to be under the control, so far as variations from these agreements are concerned, of a iicav national industrial tribunal, the actual result will be in the end to establish a modified form of national agreement; and this compromise may possibly prove acceptable to both sides, and also prove workable. But the possibility is a very doubtful one, and the chairman of the tribunal will be faced with no easy task in his endeavour to settle the many contentions that arc bound to arise. For the report of the Coal Commission shows how varied and intermingled are the factors on which the regulation of wages is based, and must be based, in this most complicated industry. Two main elements enter into the determination of the matter, the basic rate and the percentage addition thereto, and each of them is arrived at by different methods of calculation. The basis rate is fixed by local conditions entirely; it may be different in two pits in the same area; it may even vary in two parts of the same scam. It may be piece rate or day rate; it may change as new machinery or new methods are introduced. On the other hand, the percentage is determined by the economic conditions of large districts, and not by Ipeal differences at all; its function being to allow for changes in the industry generally, in the value of money, and in the standard of living. To combine the complexities of these two great essentials, and to adjust them to a happy mean, is a task which the Commission frankly refused to face. But the new tribunal will have to face it, ami the prospects of its success cannot be regarded as over bright.