13 MARCH 1926, Page 4

* * * * Unfortunately the dispute about non-union labour

at the Hoe works is not the only issue. Part of the impulse which is driving the strikers on comes from the general discontent with wages in the engineering industry. Wages vary so much according to local con- ditions that the engineering unions as a whole would prefer district agreements to a national scale. This is a strange inversion of the situation in the coalfields, where the miners have steadily refused district settlements in favour of the National Agreement. In the engineering industry the employers are holding out resolutely for a national scale. We cannot understand why.

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