The delegates of the Miners' Federation decided on Friday, March
18th, to consult their local unions regarding the new offer of the coal-owners. Under this very generous offer, the miners would receive as a minimum the base rates paid in July, 1914, with the additions made to those rates since then. The owners' standard profits in each district would be 17 per oent. of the wages paid on that scale. Any surplus remaining from the sale-price of coal would be divided, the miners taking three-fourths and the owners one-fourth ; the owners proposed, however, to forgo their share, for the present, provided that the men's wages were determined at monthly intervals. It appears that the Yorkshire miners will accept this offer, but that South Wales and Scotland, where the extreme Socialist minority has contrived to gain control of the miners' executives, are hostile to it. The choice for the miners really lies between employment at good if not extravagant wages and unemploy- ment with a State dole. The coal-owners cannot continue to lose £5,000,000 a month when state control ceases on March 31st, and the community is in no mood to pay high prices for coal and, in addition, a subsidy of £60,000,000 a year, as Mr. Hodges has proposed, so that South Wales hewers may continue to earn £12 or more for a nominal working week of thirty-five hours.
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