It may be objected that the Government have really abandoned
the idea of putting the Report as a whole into operation. But this is not so if we may judge from the Speech of Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland last Saturday. Sir Arthur said that the reason why the Government were driven to throwing over for the present parts of the Report was that their opponents were doing exactly the same thing. "But," he added, " I can only say that for Our part we stand by the Report, and we are doing our best to carry it out." Is it vain, now that the two sides are so near together, to expect some glimmer of imagina- tion from the miners' leaders ? Why do they not say something of this sort ? "We see now that the only alternative to the Report would be a settlement less to our liking. It would be what we are calling every day' owners' terms.' We solemnly declare, therefore, that we desire to return to the Report, the whole Report, and nothing but the Report. We acknowledge that it means a revision of wages. We are willing to enter into negotiations at once." If they did that they would defeat the Hours Bill because a settlement in accordance with the Report as a whole would engulf that purely permissive measure.
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