Nationalisation of the Mines. By Frank Hodges. (Leonard Parsons. 4s.
6d. net.)—In this little book the Secretary of the Miners' Federation puts the case for the scheme of " national ownership " under which Parliament is to finance the coal industry while the Federation virtually controls it by appoint- ing at least half of the ruling Councillors. We have looked in vain for any discussion of the labour problem under the proposed scheme. But we may safely infer from a section in the Federa- tion's draft Bill, preserving " the right of any employed person, subject to his contractual obligations, to dispose of his labour as he wills," that the miners would go on striking for higher and still higher wages under the Mining Council if by some strange mischance their representatives on the Council failed to increase their pay quickly enough. Mr. Justice Sankey forsaw this obvious danger, and stipulated that miners should not strike until they had submitted their grievances to the Local Council and then to the National Council, but the Federation leaders at once repudiated the condition. So far as we can see, coal—black diamonds— would become as scarce and precious as real diamonds if the miners took over the mines, since they could fix their own prices. Mr. Hodges professes to hate bureaucratic control, and protests that he does not want Syndicalism, for which, as he admits, " the vast majority of British workers have no desire." Yet his scheme would necessarily involve one or the other, or both. Tho little book is worth reading if only because it shows the extremely vague and unpractical nature of the scheme which Mr. Hodges and his colleagues propose to force upon the Government and the nation whether they like it or not.
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