A disagreeable feature of the crisis is undoubtedly the feeling
which exists among large sections both of the miners and the owners that it is better to have the fight at once and get it over. Some of the leaders and come of the men want to fight upon what may be called abstract and socialistic grounds, though we must be careful not to exaggerate here. They honestly, if mistakenly, desire to obtain State ownership and State working of the mines as a first step towards putting the country on a Socialist us opposed to an Exchange basis. They hold that a powerful lever for bringing this about is to make the country so thoroughly uncomfortable and so disgusted with existing conditions that the State will be forced to step in and expropriate the mine-owners. It is a vain hope, of course, but still it exists.
