The efforts to arrange a general strike of coal-miners in
order -to secure a rise of fifteen per cent. in wages still continuo, and it is believed in the North that they will be successful. The masters declare that coal-mining even now goes on at a loss, and that they can pay no more ; but offer to agree to a sliding-scale. under which wages and price shall always vary together. The men do not deny the loss, or enter into that question at all, but -contend that if there is loss, that is the masters' fault, for if they combined they could fix their own price for the coal, or, at .all events, could so restrict the output that coal would become .dear. The men appear to forgot two facts,—one, that the joint-stock companies and the individual owners will never permanently agree, because the owners will look two years -ahead and the companies only one,--that is to say, the owners will stand a loss on contracts which the share- holders will not ; and the other, that. if the output is seriously restricted, the miners will compete among themselves
for the work. •
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