1 OCTOBER 1921, Page 2

It is now stated that the Parliamentary grant of £10,000,00 0

in aid of miners' wages during the past quarter has not all been spent. Both the coal-owners and the miners, especially in South Wales, are now demanding that the balance should be given to them, though the period of the subsidy is now ended. We can see no reason why this great and once prosperous industry should be specially favoured for a further period. The miners have only themselves to thank if many of them are unemployed• The majority of their leaders insisted on a strike in order to force the country to accept "nationalization." They deliber• ately allowed many pits to be flooded in order to injure the coal-owners. They were repeatedly warned that such destructive tactics must do most harm to the miners themselves. The

warning was, unhappily, justified. Now that many miners are out of work, because the trade has gone to foreign countries, the men who brought misfortune upon themselves and others have no special claim upon the generosity of the nation.