On Monday Sir Robert Home, whose patienco and courtesy have
been as commendable as his firmness, made it clear to Mr. Smillie and his colleagues that the Government's offer was twofold. First, the demand for two shillings a day should be submitted to an impartial court, which could determine, as in the ease of the railwaymen, whether the miners ought to be paid more because the coot of living had gone up or because other trades received higher wages. The Government were most anxious to avert a strike. Further, the surplus profit which was claimed by the miners but which did not yet exist, save to a very meagre extent, would disappear in the event of a strike, and the price of coal would have to be raised again. Secondly, the Government proposed a revision of the rates of wages, so that the miners might earn still more money if they produced more coal, beginning from October. In both ways the miners would stand to gain.
