On Thursday, September 24th, the Prime Minister gave a considered
answer to the Miners' Federation, which had objected that the nine months' truce was not being respected in a few of the mines. The complaint turned on the point whether the truce stabilized wages or only the National Agreement, under which wages are capable of a certain variation. Mr. Baldwin said that the plan to carry on for nine months on the old terms clearly referred only to the- Agreement, and that the miners' leaders themselves at the time of the crisis had under- stood that this was so. He proved this by quotation. Undoubtedly the weight of evidence is on Mr. Baldwin's side, though it must be admitted that Mr. Cook can make one documentary point. There are, unfortunately, two contradictory memoranda ; one continued the Agree- ment for nine months, but the Other, no doubt through inadvertence, summed up the truce by mentioning a continuance of "wages at the July level." Apparently Mr. Cook did not notice the phrasing of this memorandum till two or three weeks after it was published. The miners now propose to consider at a delegate conference whether the whole settlement shall be repudiated. They also threaten to boycott the Coal Commission.
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