The Miners' Wages
The real question under consideration when Major Lloyd George met the mine-workers and then the mine-owners on Wednesday was to what extent should the nation—that is to say, the consumers of coal—pay more to meet the cost of increases in wages over and above the recent increase awarded by the National Reference Tribunal. It is not the mine-owners who will pay for further increases, but the users of coal both in other industries and in the home. None the less the difficulties created by the award are real ones, and perhaps ought to have been foreseen when the Tribunal fixed the minimum as high as it has done—it was £5 for under- ground workers and L4 less. for surface workers. The consequence of the award, which is now causing the trouble, is that in many districts skilled workers who have always been paid more than the minimum now find themselves with little more than the less skilled workers whose wages have been raised. The Government is prepared to meet the increase which the new minimum involves ; it is not prepared to pay for consequential rises above that level to higher- grade workers. It is obvious that it cannot make unlimited gestures of generosity to the miners at the expense of all other workers ; none the less an anomalous position has been created. Major Lloyd George's immediate task has been to discuss with the two sides of the industry a general overhaul of the wages structure which his Ministry has described as "long overdue." No further adjustment of wage rates ought to be made except in the light of a complete picture of the remuneration to all grades of miners. But the ultimate issue must be seen as one between the miners and the rest of the nation, in whose minds the constant record of diminishing output and sporadic strikes is inevitably weighed against the claims for ascending wages. Moreover, if the wages of unskilled men in the mining industry are to be forted up, demands for similar treatment from unskilled men in every industry will follow—a profoundly dis- turbing prospect.
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