The Prime Minister and Harworth The Prime Minister's moving speech
in the debate on the Harworth colliery dispute on Wednesday has changed nothing in the situation—unless it has changed everything. The debate, opened in admirably temperate terms by Mr. Attlee, was closed equally admirably by Mr. Tom Williams, the Labour representative of a Yorkshire mining _constituency. The idea of a national coal strike on the strength of a local dispute at Harworth would be fantastic if it were not so charged with dangerous possibilities. The employers have now given a. belated assurance that there will be no invidious discrimination in the reinstatement of workers, who will in fact be chosen by ballot, and an agreement between repre; sentatives of the Mineworkers'. Federation and the local Industrial Union was actually reached once, though it was repudiated subsequently by the Federation Executive. Mr. Baldwin insisted as strongly as Mr. Attlee on the right— and necessity—of collective bargaining, and Mr. Williams acknowledged that the Government had done everything that could be expected of it. A House of Commons debate cannot settle an industrial dispute between employers and workers in a great industry, but with the gap between them so narrow, and the appeal for reason and conciliation so irresistibly strong, it is impossible to believe that Harworth will involve the country in the major disaster of a miners? strike.
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