Although the miners are asked to consent to an immediate
temporary reduction of such wages as are above the real minimum wage, they are assured that the owners' profits will be used, wholly or partly as necessity may require, for the maintenance of the new wage rate. Moreover, wages would not be reduced at first to the full extent indicated by economic necessity ; a new lump subsidy of £8,000,000 would be given by the Government to make the transition easy. The permanent scale of wages would be determined by a joint Board of owners and miners with an independent chairman. The chairman would have a casting vote. So far as we can gather at present the hostility of the miners is not directed so much to the immediate reduction of wages as to the proposal that the determination of wages should in the last resort depend upon one man.
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