LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs are often more read, and therefore more effective, than those which fill treble the space.] SCOTTISH MINERS AND THEIR LEADERS. [To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOE."] Sia,—The writer resides in a part of Scotland where there are both coal-pits and oil shale mines, and he has had business and friendly relationships with miners as well as mine-owners for more than thirty years. During this period great industrial developments have taken place, and many large new collieries have been established, particularly in Fife, which is now the most important Scottish mining county. Coal-mining has been carried on more or less intermittently in the Lothians for eight centuries, and for three or four centuries in Fife. But to expedite the recent developments, the hereditary race of local miners—the so-called " hame-biders "—a decent and quiet, though perhaps somewhat slow-going class, were found to be not nearly numerous enough to produce the large output and work at the accelerated pace needed for modern industry. It was thus unhappily found necessary, towards the end of last century, to import large numbers of foreigners, notably Irish and. Poles, with strong arms and tongues, but often with weak mentality, and it is mainly these undesirable strangers, or their more unruly and often mixed descendants of the second generation, who have become the chief mischief-makers in various places, and have given the worthy Scots a bad name in recent years. The Lowland Scot, with many solid qualities of heart and head, is, as a rule, somewhat deficient in oratorical power and self-assertiveness, and for the sake of a quiet life often allows himself to be overruled and silenced by the voluble Irish minority and by the half-civilized men of Slavonic parentage. It is only necessary to look at the names of the Labour leaders in this district to see that the vast majority are Irish, from Bob Smillie downwards. As for the rest, the Poles have mostly changed their original unpronounce- able names for those of worthy native families, and there is no knowing in some places whether or not a Sandy Macalister or a Donald Campbell has a drop of good Soots blood in his veins. During the strike I have conversed with various worthy " hame-biders," both old and young, and asked them if they understood what the pool meant to them. I explained that at the colliery where they worked there had not been an idle day for want of orders for the last twenty years, while they would, under the pool, no doubt have to give up part of their earnings to other pits that were often idle, and the mine- owners would be asked -to do likewise. If that was the_meaaing
of the pool, I was told, they would see themselves far enough before they had anything to do with it, and the mine-owner could not be expected to hand over his profits to keep worse managed collieries going either. Many of these men were working hard at local coal outcrops from (sunrise to sunset, and even all night, and were driving little mines considerable distances, and under a bad roof, into the hill faces in quite a creditable way, and getting their coal profitably disposed of at £4 or £5 a ton. I commended their enterprise, and had many a joke about not sticking to their seven-hour day and the orders of their union prohibiting outcrop mining. More than once they complained bitterly of the roguery of trade union officials, and said they were sick of their long holiday, and would gladly go back to the pits if their leaders would let them. One old miner said the whole of them were ruled by a clique who did anything they liked. When I asked him why he did not go to their meetings with his friende and outvote the clique, he protested that "he had never been at and wadna gang near ony o' their meetin's."
That is unhappily still the usual attitude in the district. A. few days ago a general meeting was called of all the miners in one part of West Lothian, where about 1,100 are employed. The meeting was attended by only about 100 men, and was addressed by the county agent—an Irishman—who, as usual, advised the rejection of the last Government offer. Some of the small audience went prepared to move an amendment to accept and return to work, but the motion was not put to the meeting by the wily agent, and he went back and reported that the men in that area were all against acceptance of the new conditions. Such is the way the poor miners allow themselves to be handled, and this is only a small example of what is taking place all over the country. Dishonesty and deceit on the part of a small but determined revolutionary minority are keeping the miners hungry, and endeavouring to spread further discontent and mislead the public. The Labour leaders are loudly proclaiming that to accept the new wage rate means starvation and poverty to the coal-miners. But in the very same county, a few miles away, there are several thousand oil- shale miners who have long ago quietly accepted a reduction of 6s. a shift, as they recognize that the Scottish oil industry cannot afford to pay more. They nay the market price for their house coal and work six days a week, while the cal- miner gets his coal at a very small or nominal price, and only works five or five and a-half days a week. With a reduc- tion of 36s. a week—more than the coal-miners are asked to accept—the shale miner still lives quite comfortably, and does more work than his neighbour in the coal-pits. For many years the miners have paid ls. a week into their union funds, and after, say, ten years, if the funds were honestly managed, each man should have at his credit £26 plus the interest that should have accrued, less, of course, a small percentage for the management expenses of the union's business. But what do the men find when a stoppage occurs? All that has been received in some districts is £1 or £2 of strike pay. The rest has dis- appeared, eaten up between expensive delegates' charges at multiplied conferences, and by salaries to officials and political propaganda. Any insurance or bank managers who made their clients' funds evaporate so effectively would have to accept the King's hospitality for a lengthened term, and disappear from public life thereafter, but unhappily there is no public tribunal to protect trade unionists' financial interests. All these things show that this agitation is not only vastly injurious to the general public, but is also thoroughly dishonest in intention. The chief sufferers will be the coal-miners themselves, who little know whither their Bolshevik and Sinn Fein self-appointed
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