Two Ways with Italians
The public at large has generally found it difficult to be patient with the behaviour of certain coal miners first towards the very suggestion that Italians should be brought in to fill the gaps in the mining labour-force and secondly towards the Italians when they come. No doubt allowances must be made at all levels. The cost of bringing in Italians is high, the wastage of men who want to go back to Italy or to move into other occupations is considerable, and the adjustments to foreign ways and customs that have to be made in the mines themselves are often difficult. But when a handful of haulage boys, at Bullcroft Main Colliery, near Doncaster, manage to secure the suspension of thirty Italians after an underground dispute, the rights and wrongs of which are obscure, and then to obtain some sort of endorsement for their action by a meeting of miners, the time seems to have come for the proper exercise of justice. This also appears to be the view of the Yorkshire Area of the National Union of Mineworkers, for there is some possibility that the vote of 180 miners (out of 1,600 employed at the colliery) for the withdrawal of the Italians will not be allowed to decide the matter finally. But it seems too much to hope that miners generally will come round to accepting Italians easily. In these circumstances the manufacturers who have so far taken 500 Italians into steel mills in Wales and are recruiting and training still more may be wondering how long this can go on before they run into trouble. But so far there have been no serious difficulties, although the usual wastage must be faced and the ability of the immigrants to stand up to the very exacting work will take time to test fully. It is possible that an indirect answer to the immigrant labour problem may be the right one. So far the coal mines have proved themselves to be the point of most resistance. If, through a search for lines of less resistance elsewhere, the coal miners can be given an object lesson in common sense and tolerance, so much the better.
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