THE COAL CRISIS.
WE repeat, the grand evil of the present method of settling disputes like that which has arisen in the coal-trade is that nothing is settled by it. The present condition of the crisis is apparently that the owners, especially the Companies, soothed and strengthened by the immense profits they must have earned upon their stocks, often enormous and previously unsaleable, have begun to give way, and are, one by one, with more or less reluctance, sometimes perhaps with a reluctance which is simulated, reopening their pits at the old rate of wages. That leaves the whole question open for another disastrous fight. If they cannot extract a profit from their regular sales, they must, when the accidental profits of the strike have been exhausted, make another attempt to reduce wages, to be followed by another strike, another clearance of stocks, another return to old wages, and so on ad infinitum. This means, of course, that the coal industry is to be kept going at the price of irregular periods of extreme suffering for the mass of the coal- winners, and is, perhaps, the worst solution of the problem possible. It implies an ever-increasing bitterness in the men, a deeper cleavage between miners and owners, and, in the end, more desperate efforts to unite their interests by transferring the property in the mines, under one form or another, to those who work them. On the other hand, a large section of the coal-owners hold out, and their plan of reconciliation is as little promising as the other. It is always arbitration in some form. Sometimes experts are summoned, sometimes the Mayors of the towns most affected, sometimes Members of the Ministry who, like Mr. Mundella, are familiar with industrial struggles, and are honoured by the workmen with some measure of confidence. What can any of them do except patch up an apparent peace ? The owners say, we believe with truth, that with the prevalent competition, and the tendency of their great customers to " run things so fine," because increase in the cost of coal means ruin to them ; prices do not in regular seasons leave enough margin to make it worth their while to keep capital in the pits. The men say, we believe with truth, that under the present system of working, which does not insure work for the whole week, a lowered rate of pay for the output means for them lees than a living-wage. Their wives cannot keep house on the silver they get,—a, fact borne out by the extraordinary fury of the women, reported from every dis- trict, and their efforts to keep their husbands " staunch to the strike," efforts by no means universal when strikes occur in other trades. How can any set of arbitrators, even if they are the most just and dignified men in the land, reconcile those two conditions ? They may patch up a peace by inducing the owners to give way, or by per- suading the miners that a 10 per cent. reduction— equivalent, be it remembered, to a two-shilling Income-tax —must be borne for a time ; .but their decision will produce no peace. The owners will ask impracticable reductions the moment they have lost the money earned by the clearances, and by the gigantic demand which, till next spring, must follow them ; and the men will revolt at the first opportunity to get back their 10 per cent. It is this permanent deadlock which needs to be removed ; and as yet, all the means suggested seem to us more or less objectionable. The very worst has been made this week, —namely, that the Government should, as a Government, depute two dignified arbitrators, who, in the name of the State, would suggest an equitable rate of wages. That would be exceedingly dangerous. If the State arbitra- tors suggested a rate at which the owners must lose— and this, with household suffrage, would be their tempta- tion—mines must be shut down, the few kept open would raise their prices, and the resulting misery would all be carried to the discredit of the State, which, in fact, would have committed a colossal economic blunder, entailing consequences large enough to disgust the whole com- munity. If, again, on the other hand, the State arbitra- tors fixed a price which the men and their wives declared to be less than a living-wage, we should have something very like an industrial insurrection directed not against owners, but against the State itself,—a thing which has not occurred in our annals since the reign of Henry VIII. There is, it is true, a third result not quite so objectionable as either, that the disputant who lost by the decision would disregard it ; but in what position does that leave the State, which ought never to intervene except as the final and the irresistible arbiter ? An enormous departure from usage, the only result of which was to make the State ridiculous, is a danger hardly to be thought of with equanimity even by Socialists, and is contrary even to their interest, which is to show that the community can do everything better than any private individual. Then there is that expedient of a new sliding-scale, which pleases everybody except miners and owners, both because it seems so just, and because it offers an apparent pros- pect of the permanence we all want. But is there any real use in a sliding-scale ? It must be arranged on the basis of the rise and fall in prices, and neither indicate clearly the rise and fall in profit, which alone enables the owners to pay wages. Besides, as both owners and men say, there is an irreducible minimum both of profit and of wages, below which neither party will consent to work. The owners will rather with- draw ; the men will rather live on Poor-rate allowance.. We have no hope from a sliding-scale, which the men usually ignore, and on which the owners in seeking con- tracts place no reliance. And, finally, there is that device of raising prices till the owners can afford good wages even to too many men. We mentioned this last week ; but we were hardly then fully aware of the consequences which rises in the price of coal produce. A solid per- manent rise would, or at all events might, stop half the trade of the country. It is not the kitchens of the poor only which would be affected, or the gas-works, but every factory with a chimney, including especially all iron- works, and glass-works, and the whole carrying-trade of the country, now by far the greatest division of our com- merce, and dependent in a high degree for its phenomenal success upon the price of coal. It is not only, moreover, that existing industrial establishments would be crippled or closed, but that industrial enterprise would be so para. lysed. The new projects planned or executed every day for great industrial works, are all based on certain cardinal data, and one of them is that coal will, within certain limits, always be procurable at a calculable price. It is very easy to say, "Lay in heavy stocks, and so be inde- pendent of strikes ;" but laying-in an article like coal, with its price and the cost of haulage, and the room it takes, and the way it deteriorates, means laying-out money in heaps ; and the central idea of modern business is that nobody need keep anything in oppressive quantities, because anything can be sent for when wanted by telegraph. It would be possible, we verily believe, by a comparatively inconsider- able rise in the price of coal, to inflict a blow upon British industry which would leave 10 per cent. of the working population with nothing to receive on Saturday ; and that means a social revolution.
The matter requires attention from abler men than town Mayors, and more impartial men than either miners' leaders or mine-owners. The whole future of our in- dustry is concerned in the dispute ; and if it were not for this wretched Irish project, which terrorises or absorbs our most powerful public men, it would be the first pre- occupation of the Cabinet. There must be a solution somewhere which both parties would accept, hard as it is to find one. Our own belief, as we hinted last week, is that the solution will be found in weekly wages to good hands, and the resolute dismissal of all men not on the establishment of the mine ; but that is only the opinion of onlookers, and practical experts may have a dozen better plans to suggest. Our point is only to deprecate the momentary peace which everybody is endeavouring to patch up, and which is based upon nothing except the profits which owners have been able to make during the immense clearance effected of their stocks, and which they expect also from the enormous temporary demand that must follow the cessation of the strike. Half the factories in North England are waiting to replenish their coal- stores, and the cities of the South, including London, may be counted as one gigantic and eager customer. There is no peace in a truce of that kind ; and a peace which will last is essential to the development of English industries. England is not, as of old, mistress of all markets, but if she is to supply the world, must calculate to sixpences, and be able to calculate them months in advance.
Previous page
