Miners ' pay
Sir: Miners are now saying the Wilberforce award has been eroded by inflation. Of course it has. What did they expect — prices to remain steady or even go down after their last inflationary wage increase? Coal is basic, and any increase in its price affects everything. It is clear, then, that the inflation the miners complain about was aggravated by their own actions, and if their threatened new wage demands are conceded, those increases will be eroded also very soon afterwards, and we shall then be well on the way to the production of paper money like so much confetti. If the powerful trade unions will not moderate their wage demands voluntarily, the only cure for inflation is an effective rigidly enforced wage and price freeze or a complete free-forall that would lead us into the sort of inflation Germany suffered in 1923 — and that didn't produce a revolutionary situation like the one the New Left wants. It produced Hitler!
W. Slater 148 Parsonage Road, Withington, Manchester
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