NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THIS has been a week of great events. In the first place, the coal strike has come to an end, and come to an end in a fashion far happier than we had ventured to hope for. The men arc going back to work under a scheme which recognizes in the fullest possible way, and we believe also in a generous way, the essential and irrevocable partnership which smirks between Capital and Labour in the mines, as indeed in every industry. The partners, as Pirtnere Will, may quarrel over the division of the profits, but that does not alter the fact that the profits are divided. The other great fact that has been recognized is that you cannot take out of an industry more than there is in it ; and, finally, that you cannot get round this law, which often seems cruel in its action, by recourse to a State subsidy. That is a fatal remedy. Whether the river of trade, which had dried up more rapidly than even the Thames has dried up with the drought, will now be able to flow strongly again remains to be seen. We believe it will, provided that the differences in the coal struggle are forgotten, and there is a real determination to increase pro. duotion and so increase the rewards of labour.
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