TOPICS OF THE DAY
THE APPLICATION OF THE REPORT
THE Report still holds the field. That is the essential thing to remember in the Coal Crisis, and that was " the constant influence " felt throughout Monday's debate. As the Times has reminded us, the Report is the touchstone of the problem. Just a month ago the Times described it as " the touchstone by which to test the policy of all upon whom the obligation rests to carry out its proposals." The article ended with the emphatic and significant words, " the Report intact is the only sure guide for a permanent settlement." Last Monday the • Times under the title of " The Touchstone " re- turned to and repeated its previous declarations. Though the Times demurs to some of the uses made of its words by Mr. Lloyd George in his opening speech, we are sure we are not misrepresenting our contemporary when we say that it has not departed, and will not depart, from this attitude. The Spectator, too, has clung to this point. As we said last week, we regard the Report as the verdict of an impartial jury, which it cost the country twenty-three millions to obtain. We desire, therefore, to see it put into operation. It is true that we do not ask for the Report, the whole Report, " and nothing but the Report." We have never meant to suggest that there should be " nothing but the Report," because it was obvious that the Report lacked the machinery of interpretation necessary to its statutory implementation and also a time-table for its application. In any case it is now in-ipossible to ask for the Report in its absoluteness and entirety. The Govern- ment has already mitigated its rigid integrity by abolish- ing the statutory barrier against working underground for more than seven hours. daily. Again, the Bishops —after, not before, the introduction of the Eight Hours Bill—have suggested some form of Government assistance for a strictly limited period in order to get the wheels revolving ; this is no doubt at variance with " the Report in its entirety," just as was Mr. Baldwin's offer of £8,000,000.
In a word, though, like Caesar's garment, the Report has been rent and torn, we still hold it to be serviceable. No doubt, if the perverse and devastating struggle still goes on and no settlement based on the Report is reached, some Mark Antony of the future may, looking back on the tragedy of the whole business, treat the Report as Mr. Baldwin's mantle and apply the very words of Shake- speare :— " You all do know this mantle : I remember The first time that the Premier put it on.
Look ! in this place ran Coquua' dagger through: See, what a rent the envious Owners made : Through this, the well-beloved Bishops stabb'd : And, as they plucked their cursed steel away, Mark how the -blood of Baldwin follow'd it."
But it is no use to cry over spilt milk. The Report may be so much damaged by the prolongation of the strike that in the " victory " of one side this great and costly effort for an equitable settlement as. against a -settlement by force will be committed to the limbo where rest the conclusions of most Royal Commissions. Yet our hope is better. In spite of all the harm that has been and is being done, we still trust that better counsels will prevail and that the Report will be put into Operation even at the eleventh hour. The Roman king did save some of the Sibylline Books, though he and the nation had to pay a price so much greater than that at which he might have bought- them earlier. So the owners, the miners, and the nation may at the last moment agree to carry out the Report. If they had done so three months earlier we should have saved at least two hundred millions of money and should be well on the way to a trade revival.
Even now we may put on Caesar's garment and find it, if slashed and torn, still wearable. To be specific, the delegates of the Miner's Federation are to meet on the day on which these words are published. Let us hope that they will review the whole situation without paying any attention to past " slogans," to present discontents with other trade unionist friends or with a section of their own leaders, to ineptitudes of the owners, or to vacillations of the Government. Let them sit-down and consult with themselves, not what is the best way to punish those whom they consider their enemies, to score off the Government, or to proscribe an individual, but to make the best practical settlement still possible for all concerned. Even now the acceptance of " the Report in its entirety," which is still open to them, would give them many very great advantages. That acceptance would eventually suspend the operation of the Eight Hours Act. Though it would also do away with anything in the nature of the old subsidy; the acceptance of the Report in its entirety need not tear off that promise of assistance to the amount of three millions which Mr. Baldwin " tacked on " to the Report immediately on its appearance. With that three millions in their hand, so to speak, the miners might well feel that they were safe against any automatic and instant reduction- of wages, in fact against that " cut in advance " which has threatened so much friction and suspicion. They would still, that is, have the chance of getting many of the proposals for reconstruction into working order before a " cut " was put into operation :—proposals which they believe would effect large savings in the working of the industry ; which would free it from carrying the derelict or uneconomic mines ; and, finally, would obtain an interpretation of the Report when and where necessary, under the auspices of an impartial chairman.
The negotiations in regard to the present conflict, no matter who may have been personally at fault, have been unlucky, and it is, of' course, possible that this ill-luck may haunt the negotiations till the end. Nevertheless, we venture to say that if the executive committee of the Miners' Federation were forthwith to propose to the Government terms of the kind we have sketched, it would be very difficult—nay, impossible— for the owners to consider that the best for everybody had been done when they had restored to them by Statute the right to offer eight hours work a day to their employees instead of seven. Though their represen- tatives have occasionally taken up a Bourbon attitude, we are well aware that there is a large section of the owners who have looked with consternation upon the way in which their case has been presented.
We would add one admonition to the miners: Let them remember that governments, quite as much as democratic leaders, are very sensitive to the special public opinion with which they are concerned. That being so, the miners might improve their offer from the Government's point of -view, without doing themselves any serious material -harm, if they would- make the interregnum instead of a period not exceeding four months, as suggested in the terms presented-by the Bishops, one-not exceeding two months, provided that they were allowed to 'applY the subsidy as a guarantee fund against the wages of 'individuals falling in the interregnum- below the rates of April last.
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