Government accepted the Report provided the other parties did so.

Mr. Herbert Smith called attention to the fact that the Report was opposed to the prolonging of the subsidy after April 30, and asked if the Government was going to give any further help to the industry after that date. The Premier replied that the subsidy was bound to terminate on April 30. But he recognised that in some districts, if a settlement was to be arrived at, the sacrifice required might be heavy; if therefore an agreement was reached by May 1, he would be willing to consider what temporary assistance might be required to ease the position. If they found that some such temporary assistance-say for three months -was going to save the situation, then he would be prepared to consider departing from the strict ruling of the Commission, and he should regard money spent in that way as spent for the benefit of the industry.

At the suggestion of the miners' representatives, the Prime Minister agreed to circulate a list of the recommendations in the Report that would require Government action. The list contained the following fourteen points: Further Government assistance in the investigation of processes of low-temperature carbonisation; establishment of a National Power and Fuel Council; extension of provision for research; promotion of desirable amalgamations; State purchase of royalties; royalties to contribute to the Welfare Fund; granting of powers to local authorities to engage in the retail sale of coal; measures for securing the adoption of larger mineral wagons on the railways and greater concentration of ownership; profit-sharing schemes; modifications in the law governing hours; transfer of displaced labour; regulations governing the qualifications of mine managers; compulsory pithead baths; and establishment of joint Pit Com

mittees.

The Government's attitude was criticised in many quarters as showing a lack of decision and boldness. "If the changes recommended are good," wrote Mr. MacDonald in the Forward, "why should they not be made on their own merits?" Mr. Smith also, after hearing the Premier's statement, had, with his usual outspokenness, put it to him whether he was not adopting a bargaining position," and whether, having appointed the Commission, he ought not rather to abide by its findings, so far as they called for Government action, irrespective of what the other parties did. Mr. Baldwin could only plead in reply that he would have to get his party to swallow a great many things which they did not like, and he thought the others should do the same. In the light of subsequent developments, this conditional acceptance of the Report came to be viewed by many as a lamentable error on the Government's part, and as being largely responsible for the economic calamities of the next few months.

The Government having announced its decision, representatives of the Mining Association met delegates of the Miners' Federation on March 31 and April 1 to explain to them the coalowners' attitude. Mr. Williams opened the discussion by asserting that in their willingness to sit down with the miners and carry on negotiations on a national basis, the owners were making a sacrifice of their convictions which he regarded as a great step forward. He then broached the question of longer hours, but disclaimed any intention of making it a bargaining factor. On the question of wages he was more firm, and insisted that they should be settled by districts, and not nationally. A difference arose between the two sides as to the precise interpretation which should be placed on the Commission's findings on this point, but neither side bound itself to accept these unreservedly. On the next day the owners presented a written statement containing their considered view on each of the recommendations of the Commission which affected themselves. For the most part they professed acceptance of the recommendations, but often in terms so vague as to leave room for important reservations. At this meeting they announced a change in their policy with regard to district settlements, stating that they were now agreed that the amounts of the percentages settled in the various districts should be submitted to the National Conference for approval. The miners, however, found on cross-examination that the concession amounted to nothing, and declared it to be opposed to the Report.

The Executive of the Miners' Federation on the same night issued a statement which showed how little the Conference had done to bring the two sides nearer to one another. It pointed out that the owners, as a national body, had refused to disclose their intentions regarding wages, or to intimate what they proposed should be paid to workmen at the beginning of May. The statement further contained the ominous remark that the refusal of the owners to consider the fixation of a national minimum percentage and their insistence on all wages being the concern of the districts themselves had constituted an almost insuperable obstacle to an amicable settlement. Notwithstanding this disappointment, however, the Miners' Federation, it was said, would continue to give the most careful consideration to the recommendations of the Commission, and was earnestly desirous of an equitable settlement.

The next step taken by the Federation hardly accorded with this pious sentiment. On April 9 a Conference of the Federation was held to consider the Report of the Commission and the proposals of the coal-owners, and after full discussion unanimously issued to the districts three recommendations. One was that no assent should be given to any proposal for increasing the length of the working day. The second was that the principle of a national wage agreement with a national minimum should be firmly ad

hered to; and the third was that no assent should be given to any proposal to reduce wages, which were already too low. These three recommendations, of which the third was definitely opposed to the Report, thenceforward constituted the settled policy of the miners as a body, and tied the hands of their Executive for a considerable time in subsequent negotiations.

While thus defining its own policy independently, the Miners' Federation did not refuse to send representatives to a meeting of the Industrial Committee of the Trade Union Congress which, on the same day, considered the mining situation. This body passed a resolution which breathed a more conciliatory spirit than that of the Federation. While reaffirming its previous declarations in support of the miners' efforts to obtain an equitable settlement, the Committee expressed the opinion that negotiations between the Mining Association and the Miners' Federation should be continued without delay, in order to obtain a clear understanding with regard to the Report of the Royal Commission and to reduce points of difference to the smallest possible dimensions.

The door having thus been left open for negotiations, on April 21 the owners sent to the Miners' Federation a draft of proposals for a national agreement, and on the next day, at the owners' request, the Executive Committee of the Miners' Federation met the Central Committee of the Mining Association for the purpose of discussing the document. The miners found that the owners, while prepared to draft certain general principles to govern a genuine agreement, refused to discuss any minimum percentage to be applied nationally to the coal-fields. They, on their side, made this a sine qua non for an agreement. Each side described the attitude of the other as "adamant," and there ensued a complete breakdown in the negotiations.

In the course of the discussion the owners disclosed to the miners the district terms which they had drawn up, and the miners reported them to the Industrial Committee of the Trade. Union Congress. This body agreed with the miners that the new wages offered were impossible of acceptance. They accordingly interviewed the Prime Minister, and informed him that the trade union movement would feel bound to support the miners to the end against such drastic reductions as were proposed. Mr. Baldwin thereupon, after having been a mere spectator of events for several days, decided once more to intervene, and invited owners and miners to meet him the next morning (April 22) at the Ministry of Labour.

At the meeting Mr. Baldwin asked each side to restate its position, in the hope, apparently, that some new fact might emerge with which he was not already acquainted. His comment on hearing their statements was that they had tied themselves up into a pretty tight knot, and it was his business to get the knot

untied, or cut, or otherwise disposed of. He accordingly asked each side to appoint a small sub-committee with whom he could talk over matters, and to this they immediately agreed. On April 26, after a blank week-end, he asked the Industrial Committee of the Trade Union Congress to come to his assistance. As a result of his own pressure on the owners, and the pressure of the Industrial Committee on the miners, the two parties were induced to resume negotiations on April 28. The owners had made an important concession by agreeing to come to this discussion "without imposing any limitations or reservations." This statement seemed to imply that they were willing to withdraw their opposition to a national minimum; but in the discussions which took place on April 28 they still refused to commit themselves to this principle, and made proposals with regard to wages and hours which the miners would not for a moment entertain.

In spite of strenuous efforts on the part of the Prime Minister, who was in constant touch with the parties concerned, matters had not advanced any further when, on the next day (April 29), a Conference was held of Trade Union Executives to define the attitude to be taken up by the trade unions affiliated to the Congress in the impending struggle. About a thousand delegates attended, including most of the trade union leaders of the country, and Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Henderson also took part. The Chairman of the Trade Union Congress, Mr. A. Pugh, explained the steps which had been so far taken by the Industrial Committee of the General Council, and called special attention to the recommendation of the Commission, that no sacrifices should be asked of those engaged in the mining industry before it had been definitely agreed between the parties that all practical means for improving its organisation and increasing its efficiency should be adopted as speedily as circumstances allowed. The Conference thereupon, on the motion of Mr. J. H. Thomas, endorsed the efforts of the General Council to secure an honourable settlement, and instructed the Industrial Committee to continue its efforts, declaring its willingness for the negotiations to continue provided that the lock-out notices, as they called the new wage offers which by this time had been posted by the owners for April 30, were not enforced.

On April 30, a few hours before the lock-out notices were due to take effect, the mine-owners at length made some grudging proposals for a national settlement of the problem. The miners, however, refused even to consider these proposals unless the lockout notices were withdrawn, and they asked the Government to call upon the owners to take this step. This would have entailed the prolongation of the subsidy for the period of the resumed negotiations, and the Government would consent to this only on condition that the miners expressed their willingness to accept a

reduction of wages as recommended in the Report. The miners, through the mouth of Mr. Smith, declared themselves ready to discuss the Report from beginning to end with the mine-owners and the Government, and to abide by the results of the discussion, even if they should involve a reduction of wages, but they would not tie themselves beforehand to the principle of such a reduction. The mine-owners naturally saw in this declaration no reason for withdrawing their notices. Not a single group of miners accepted the new terms, and accordingly as from that day (April 30) there was a complete stoppage of the coal-mining industry throughout the country.

Though war had thus been declared in the coal-fields, the Trade Union Council continued to negotiate with the Government during the whole of the succeeding day (May 1) with a view to finding some basis for a settlement of the dispute. But even while engaged in these negotiations, each of the parties to them took a step which introduced new elements of disquietude into the situation. On May 1 a Royal Proclamation was issued declaring that, in virtue of the threatened cessation of work in coal-mines, a state of emergency existed such as was contemplated in the Emergency Powers Act of 1920. Shortly after two o'clock on the same day the General Council of the Trade Union Congress decided to order a general strike to begin at midnight on Monday, May 3, if the miners' notices had not been withdrawn. In a manifesto issued in the evening of the next day, the Council declared that it had been compelled to "organise united resistance to the attempt to enforce a settlement of the mining problem at the expense of the mine-workers' wages," and laid the whole blame for the breakdown of negotiations on the Government and the mine-owners, on account of their insisting in advance on an acceptance by the miners of reductions in wages.

In threatening to call a general strike, the Trade Union Council acted without the concurrence of the Miners' Executive, who had expected no more of it than that it should lay an embargo on the movement of coal, as it had threatened to do in the previous July. The subsequent course of events seemed to show that, in thus throwing down the gauntlet, the Council was not actuated solely, or even principally, by a desire to help the miners, but was obeying the dictates of a large section of the trade unionist world which had been worked up by the Congress of the previous autumn to a desire to try conclusions with a "capitalist" Government, and thought the mining dispute a suitable occasion. The great majority of the responsible trade union leaders were personally strongly averse to such an extreme course. They thought, no doubt, that the Government would shrink from the challenge, as it had shrunk in the previous July. In this they miscalculated. The truth was that in the Government also there was a section no less eager than the militant trade unionists for a trial of strength,