21 MAY 1921, Page 2

There is little to record about the coal strike. Negotiations

have been going on unofficially and the atmosphere is more hopeful. It is said to be the intention of the Prime Minister not to call another public meeting till an arrangement has been drafted which is virtually certain to be accepted. Meanwhile the decision of the Railway and Transport Executives to instruct their men not to handle imported coal has had little effect. We can well believe that the miners have been astonished, as other people have been, by the public calmness with which the seven weeks' strike has been treated. Factories and shipping and railway companies in all directions have been finding and applying substitutes for coaL