Muddle, Anarchy and Lost Coal
It seems that reason is slowly beginning to prevail among the
• South Wales miners7o per cent. of the strikers on Wednesday were back at work, and it may be hoped that the recalcitrant minority will have also resumed when these words are in print. But at the best more than a working week will have been wantonly wasted, and a quantity of coal that cannot be made good has been lost, with immediate detriment to many war industries. The strike areas have afforded a disturbing spectacle of anarchy and unreason. The men have defied their leaders and refused to accept the majority decision of their own delegates' conference, although the objects for which they struck had been either already gained or were about to be considered fairly in the promised further discussions. Piece- workers are to get increases, and craftsmen's wages are still open to consideration. Whatever may have been said or thought about. the strike at the moment when these points were still in doubt, no advocate of the miners' cause can make any reasonable defence of their conduct in continuing to withhold their labour. The men, yielding to the passion of orators at pit-head meetings, have unquestionably put themselves in the wrong and done much to alienate opinion which is generally sympathetic to them. None the less, when this matter comes to be looked into, as it must, the Government ought to have realised that the Porter award by itself, raising minimum wages and implemented without regard to the position of the skilled workers, was certain to create trouble. Anyone might have foreseen that, and the Government surely should have done so. There has been bungling, and it must be frankly stated. This does not excuse the men, who have put themselves into the position of striking in war- time because some of them have had their wages raised, and con- tinuing the strike even when the gist of their grievances had been met. But it cannot be said that the situation has been well handled by the Government.
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