TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CRISIS.
SUPPOSE a dark night and a coach with an unruly team of horses driven by a coachman who, yielding to bad advice, has turned off the main highway and got into an intricate labyrinth of side-roads. After various hesitations and wanderings he at last plunges down a lane with deep ditches on each side, a lane so slippery that it is difficult for his horses to keep their feet, and so narrow that to turn round is impossible. What, in these circumstances, is the duty of a guard ? However badly he thinks the coach is being driven, however doubtful he may be as to the possibility of ever getting back into the main road by the lane in question, however ready he may be to tell the driver later what he thinks of him, it surely can never be his duty to make futile attempts to scramble over the top of the coach and snatch at the reins, to shout curses at the driver, or to remind him with futile iteration that he has taken the wrong road, that all is lost, that he is sure to upset the coach. Again, no wise guard, even if he sympathises with the anxieties and terrors of the passengers, and would like to join in the uncompli- mentary remarks which they are making, would do any- thing to increase the alarm of the "insides," or would encourage them to get out of the coach and make an effort, which could only end in disaster, to turn it round in the narrowest and worst place in the lane. When he knows that such efforts cannot but lead to ruin, a guard's duty, however much he may disapprove of the driver's behaviour, and however much he may doubt his wisdom, is clearly for the time to keep silent. Instead of adding to the noise and confusion, he must do his best to quiet the passengers and prevent matters going from bad to worse. His duty is to point out that, things being as they are, every effort must be made to keep the coach on the road, such as it is, and to prevent it being hurled into the ditch on either side. For the time no bewailings as to the way in which the coach is being injured, the body strained, and the wheels damaged—however true they may be—can be considered. A wrong road will never be made a right one by an upset.
This seems to us a fairly exact metaphor with which to describe the present crisis. We accept its lessons. There will be plenty of opportunity for criticism later. We are not concerned, then, on the present occasion to discuss the abstract merits of the Minimum Wage or what results are likely to follow from the attempt to fix the price of labour by Government action, direct or indirect, or, again, to trouble ourselves with the Par- liamentary tactics of the Opposition. The need of the moment is to get the miners to return to work in order that the essential machinery of industry may again be set in motion. The Government's scheme for doing this is the only one before the country, and therefore it is the only one which can be tried.
The Bill which, soon after these pages are in our readers' hands, will be the law of the land is a Bill the principle of which we profoundly distrust. But granted that its principle ought to be applied to the mining industry, which is the Government case, we are bound in fairness to say that it is probably the least objectionable application of that principle which could be devised. From the point of view of its authors it is a very able Bill. The worst possible Bill for applying the minimum wage to the mines would have been a Bill in which an attempt was made to put the price of labour into the Statute. The Government have wisely refused to adopt this course, and have made it the essence of their scheme that prices are to be settled in each district by a Joint Board of masters and men. Now it is to be noted that the practical effect of this will be that in a great many instances the prices of labour will still in fact, if not in name, be settled by "the higgling of the market." It will only be in the case of a deadlock that the chairman of the Board, who will be, as a rule, we presume, a Government nominee, will solve such a deadlock by settling the minima for each type of labour. When that is settled the owners will be obliged to accept these minima if they desire to keep their pits open. But, though this is the rule, a great deal of elasticity is allowed under the Bill. For example, what we may fairly call " contracting out " • is permitted. If the owners and the men agree in regard to a particular pit that a scale of wages less than the minima of the district should be adopted in order that the pit may remain open, such an arrangement will be sanctioned by the District Board. Again, aged or infirm persons will be allowed by the Board to work at a rate lower than the regular minimum wage. Such persons will, as it were, be lifted out of the operation of the Bill. Finally, the owner will possess the safeguard of being able to refuse employment to any man who is not exerting himself to earn the minimum wage. It is true, no doubt, that it may often be difficult for an owner to exercise this right for fear that the unions may support the alleged " malingerer " and declare that if he is dis- charged they will strike. Therefore this safeguard may be declared to be illusory. It must be pointed out, how- ever, that though this is a great danger for the owner, it is a. danger which exists now, and that in this sense the owner's position is not made worse by the Bill. Though we hold. it is only just and right to point out the moderating effect of the provisions of the Bill in these respects, we trust our readers will not suppose that we are therefore con- verted to the principle of the Bill. They merely minimise the dangers inherent in legislation of the kind proposed.
It will naturally be asked what will happen if, after the Bill has passed, the miners refuse to make use of it, and the unions do not order a return to work. In that case the duty of the Government is clear, and it is a duty from which, if we are to judge by the very plain speaking indulged in by Lord Haldane at the Fishmongers' Hall on Thursday night, and also by the tone of Mr. Asquith's statement in the House, the Government will not shrink. If the Bill fails to secure the return of the men to work, the Government will, we presume, at once proclaim that any owners who wish to open their pits and any men who wish to go down those pits, whether they be members of the unions or free labourers, shall have secured to them the most perfect and absolute protection, and that any attempts to interfere with that right to work on his own terms which is the essential right of the citizen shall be dealt with in the sternest possible way. If once the Govern- ment make this clear we have little doubt that a certain number of mines can at once be opened in every coal field throughout England, Scotland, and Wales, and that when once those pits are opened there will be a daily augmented. stream of labour flowing to the mines. A portion of this labour will, we are convinced, be drawn from members of the unions who are tired of the struggle and who, whatever their fellows may do, will regard the Govern- ment Bill as giving them all they denrand. But, in addition, there will be a considerable amount of non-union labour which will only be too glad to get the work which the more fanatical members of the unions refuse. We must never forget that, though the great majority of the most skilled miners are in the unions, there is no mystery about working underground, and that in all mining districts there are plenty of men. who are quite capable of doing the work, though no doubt they will do it much more slowly than the professional miners. In our opinion the Government have been dangerously tardy in declaring that they mean, be the risks what they may,. to protect men in the exercise of the right to work. But now that such declarations have been made, we cannot believe, should the Bill unhappily be rejected by the miners, that the Cabinet will go back from them. During the rail- way strike they showed that they had well-thought-out plans for the employment of the forces at the command of the State, and, unless we are greatly mistaken, they have been able to make not less, but even more, effective arrangements for protecting the mines. from lawless attacks. In spite of much foolish talk as to the miners being made desperate by displays of force, we are convinced that the determina- tion of the Government to show firmness will have a very great effect for good upon the leaders of the men. The last thing they want to see is the men gradually breaking away from their organizations and returning to work without leave. When they realize that there is any danger of this taking place they will, like sensible men, come to the conclusion that, having gained so much of their demands, it would be exceedingly foolish to throw that gain away in the hope of obtaining more.
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