On the adjournment of the House of Commons on Friday,
May 13th, Mr. Clynes complained that the Government were not trying to bring the miners' strike to an end. He suggested that it would have been cheaper to give the miners all that they asked rather than to resist their demands. He hinted that they would return to work if they were not asked to aocept such a large reduction of their wages. Mr. Hartshorn said that the miners could hold out for six weeks longer. As the Government offer of £10,000,000 in aid of wages was conditional on the miners agreeing to further reductions if the coal trade did not improve and on their promising not to strike for wages for eighteen months, they could not consider it. The miners were not " a lot of irresponsible hotheads and revolutionaries." Nobody, we may remark, has said that they were. The revolu- tionaries, unfortunately, are on the executive and not in the pits. Other members raised the question of Upper Silesia, while Colonel Croft and Mr. Gwynn asked the Government to deal with the Bolshevik plotters who were promoting the strike.
