The Government and the Miners' Federation Delegate conferences of the
miners have disclosed far more support for the Government's Coal Bill than was expected. Mr. Herbert Smith resigned from the Presi- dency of the Miners' Federation on Tuesday, but he remains at the head of the Yorkshire Association, which, though opposing the Government, will stay in the Federation.. Even in Yorkshire the adverse majority was not very large, though the workers there gain nothing by the reduction of hours of work to seven and a-half. The.Mines Department is devising some kind of National Wages Board which the Miners' Federation is prepared to accept as an alternative to the national negotiating machinery, hitherto considered indispensable. The Board would apparently lay down general principles for deter mining wages, leaving plenty of latitude for district boards. It- would also be a court of appeal, but it would not, according to Mr. Cook, safeguard the miners against lower wages which might be enforced in an economic emergency. The new President of the Miners' Federa- tion, Mr. Torn Richards, however, apparently thinks that the reduction of hours next April can be accomplished without any reduction of wages. On Wednesday, at the Miners' Federation meeting, only Yorkshire and the Forest of Dean voted against the Government's proposals.
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