The American miners' strike has been complicatd by a strike
on the railways, affecting at present only the men employed in the workshops. Railwaymen's wages are adjusted, under an Act of 1920, by a Railway Labour Board, including three repre- sentatives of the companies, three of the unions, and three of the general public. The Board last spring decided that the very high war wages—ranging from ls. 9d. to 3s. 6d. an hour—must be reduced, in the case of a million and a quarter employees, by about two dollars a week, on an average. The leaders of the railway workshop unions refused to accept the decision and declined to enter into a conference with the companies. They preferred to order a strike, hoping no doubt that they could exert pressure on the public by stopping the traffic and making coal still scarcer and dearer. It is uncertain whether the strike movement will spread ; in Pennsylvania it has already collapsed.
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