This meeting took place on Monday afternoon and at the
end of a long discussion the owners' .representatives promised to convey the Government's arguments to the Central Committee of the Mining Association. The meet- ing was really a duel between Mr. Churchill, who pre- sided, and Mr. Evan Williams. Mr. Churchill cogently pointed out that the Royal Commission had expressly not accepted the owners' view that the industry ought to revert to district agreements. And the owners, on their side, had accepted the principle of a national agreement but had subsequently gone back upon it. It may be said that the Hours Act implied the disappearance of a national agreement, but Mr. Churchill showed that the possibility of that argument being used had been foreseen and pro- vided against by the Government. When the Prime Minister made his first speech on the Hours Bill he stated that though the proposals for increased hours came from the owners they would really. satisfy the miners' desire for a national settlement •
