Trouble in the coal industry

THE mine owners’ demand for an extension of the working day is regarded by Mr. Cook [General Secretary of the Miners’ Federation] as a declaration of war. Mr. Cook is a Communist, and no doubt welcomes the declaration, but we believe that such a war, which, at a time of depression, must be fatal for all concerned, and most of all for the workers, should be and can be averted by wise Government action. Mr. Baldwin has hinted at subsidies for depressed industries, and in this there may perhaps be a way out of the coal impasse, though trade subsidies are deprecated by Mr. Hichens and other wise industrialists. We are not impressed by the protests of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour that Governments can do little. In these days politics and industrial problems are intimately associated. It was the politicians who drew up the Peace Treaty, and it was the politicians who agreed that Great Britain should pay her creditors while receiving nothing from her debtors, and the treaty and international financial arrangements are largely responsible for the army of the unemployed. What the politician has done he can to some extent undo, but only with a realistic appreciation of the changed economic conditions of the world.

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