The Conference of the Miners' Federation opened at Llandudno on
Tuesday. Mr. Herbert Smith, the Presi- dent, said that the membership had fallen from 957,000 in 1926 to 625,000. The loss of a third of the members is only too easily to be explained. Mr. Smith held out • fora six hours' day, a minimum wage for all mine workers, and pensions for all whom the employers no longer require. • He excited some opposition by commending -the efforts towards industrial conciliation at the Mond Conference; Throughout this speech Mr. Cook was sitting on Mr.-Smith's left hand and must have'been disconcerted by the repudiation of the Manton-Cook policy. On Wednesday there was an organized Communist demonstra- tion. Mr. Smith descended from his chair and helped the " chuckers-out." One of the Communists who seems to have got the worst of it discreetly remarked, " It is very difficult to know how to deal with an old man who is so pugnacious." Such humours of the fray, however,- are less obvious than the tragedies. The miners' honourable cause has been brought to collapse ; reason and hope are swallowed up in recrimination and despair. Compare with this the inspiring good sense of the prosperous railwaymen's unions, which are sitting down with the employers to thrash out the future of the railways, each side trying to help the other. There is difference between the methods of Mr. Cook and those of Mr. J. H. Thomas.
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