The Government Bill for freeing the ooal trade from State
control after March 31st was read a second time, by 277 votes to 72, in the House of Commons on Tuesday. The miners' representatives, who had opposed the scheme of control, objected vigorously to its abolition and invited sympathy for the ill-paid miner, whose average wage was only £410s. a week. Sir Clifford Cory reminded the House that the industry in January showed a loss of £5,000,000. ,Mr. Gould, of Cardiff, said that Welsh coal could not now be sold abroad, because it was too dear ; American coal was being sold cheaper in Scandinavia than ours, and Australian coal was competing favourably with Welsh -coal in the Mediterranean. Sir Robert Home repudiated the suggestion that the Government should guarantee profits and wages and continue to bear a loss of a -million pounds a week.
• He declined to believe that the Miners' Federation was so weak that it must accept any rate of wages which the coal-owners cared to propose. He invited the miners' leaders to make a real effort to come to terms with the owners, by abandoning the hopeless demand for a pooling of the profits and losses of all collieries.
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