The Coal Crisis The National Board, meeting on Thursday, Novem.
her 27th, secured the acceptance by the six miners' representatives of a provisional arrangement for a month in the South Wales coalfields. The men are working on a basis of eleven days of eight hours each in a fortnight, but without any reduction of wages. In other districts similar temporary arrangements have been readied, which provide in effect for the spread-over. At the National Delegate Conference of the Miners' Federation, however, on November 28th, the power of veto allowed by the Coal Mines Act was foolishly exer- cised, and the spread-over principle was rejected. At present, therefore, the Government are tolerating a technical breach of the law. It appears that the votes of the representatives of Yorkshire, Nottingham and other districts, where the seven and a half hour day is already in force, decided the issue—that and a good deal of loose talk by M.P.'s for mining constituencies. In this way the Interim Report of the Board was simply ignored. The unhelpful policy of the mineowners, who decline to co-operate in the working of the Board, was more than matched by the other side.
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