MTh CHURCHILL AND THE SCOTCH MINERS.
[To ma EDITOR OF TEE "SPECTATOR."' Sin,--There is one aspect of the coal strike to which I think it is well that attention should be called, because it has con. siderable bearing on the trustworthiness of our leading poll- ticians. The agreement under which the Scotch collieries were being worked till the strike broke out was negotiated in July 1909; at a conference held at the Board of Trade, under the chairmanship of Mr. Winston Churchill. The conference sat for four days, and at the end an agreement was reached which was signed by representatives of the eoalowners of Scotland, the Scottish Miners' Federation, the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, and countersigned by Mr. Winston Churchill and other representatives of the Board of Trade. The agreement was formally ratified by the coalowners of Scotland on August 3rd and by the Scottish Miners' Federation on August 5th. This agreement has still six months to run. It has been set aside without explanation and without apology by the miners, and, so far as can be gathered from the public Press, Mr. Winston Churchill has done nothing whatever to persuade the miners of the sanctity of the agreement which he helped them to negotiate, and which he countersigned. This is important in view of the assurance he gave at Belfast that the Irish Protestants might safely entrust their fortunes to his clients the Nationalist
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