It was on Monday that the Coal-owners rejected the "
earnestly considered request of the Government " that representatives of the Mining Association should attend a three-party conference. It would not, we think, matter under what name or banner representatives of the coal-owners came to a three-party conference so long as they came. Until we are proved wrong we shall refuse to believe that the owners as a whole do not see the tremendous importance of the present issue, or that they are incapable of admitting that national interests must sometimes be patriotically placed above private interest. Surely it is not beyond statesmanship to iather up the very different • district agreements and bind them togetheFwith some form of national sanction. We have often expressed doubts of the working of a comprehensive national agreement, but we would gladly see now the greatest common denominator of the -district agreements dignified with the epithet "national." If this is not done the miners will say that the object of the owners and the Government is to smash their Federation. That would be quite untrue. Mr. Cook and Mr. Smith have themselves done their best to smash it. But we must deal not with what ought to happen in a just world, but what is sure to batmen in the world as we find it,
