Peace in South Wales The settlement of the South Wales
coal dispute came in time, but only just in time, to avert the strike which would have been inevitable if any hitch had occurred at the last moment. Left to themselves the owners and the men had utterly failed to agree in regard either to wages or to the kind of court to which the dispute might be referred. "Within a day or two of that last day of the month for which notices had been given the two parties were just as far from settlement as they were six months ago ; and they were agreed on only one point, that the open strife in which they seemed about to engage would involve both alike in disaster. In these, circumstances the intervention of the Secretary for Mines was welcomed, and he was instrumental, not indeed in settling the wages question, but in getting the consent of both sides to set up a court of arbitration whose findings in regard to the minimum percentage on base rates and the subsistence allowance for day-wage men will be accepted. Arbitra- tion, then, wins the day, and work is to go on.
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