The Ballot at Bedwas A week ago a strike in
the whole of the South Wales coalfield was imminent, as a result of the dispute at the Bedwas Colliery and the refusal of its directori to agree to the proposal of a free and secret ballot by which the men employed at the mine should indicate whether they preferred to belong to the South Wales Miners' Federation or to the new Miners' Industrial Union, membership of which is at present a condition of their employment. An immediate stoppage is happily averted, for though the directors of the Bedwas pit at first rejected the proposal, in spite of the fact that it was commended by the Secretary for Mines, they gave way at the last moment, and there is every reason to hope that the ballot will in due course be taken, though the conference between the Bedwas directors and representatives of the Miners' Federation under a neutral chairman has had to be adjounied owing to the foolish, unauthorised and pernicious epidemic of stay-in strikes which has broken out at Bedwas and other South Wales pits. Employment in the coal mines increased by 44,000 in August, and it would be a tragedy if the Bedwas dispute led to a general stoppage.
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