367 



Leading Articles in the Reviews 



THE COAL STRIKE: 

 The Non-Miner's Point of View. 



Mk. Henry Seton-Karr contributes to the Nine- 

 ttenlh Cenliiry for April an article upon the Coal Strike, 

 the spirit oi which may be inferred from its title, 

 " We are the Government Now " — a boast attributed, 

 rightly or wrongly, to a Miners' Federation leader. 

 Mr. Seton-Karr says : — 



The simple, overwhelming truth is that this country cannot 

 afford, from any point of view, econpmic, social, or inter- 

 national, to indulge in industrial disputes of this kind, and 

 general coal strikes least of all. It is incumbent upon us, as a 

 civilised, enliglucned, and business people, to take steps to 

 prevent any possiljility of a recurrence of a general coal or 

 transport strike in the future. 



This is all very well, but how should this be done ? 



WHAT MIGHT (?) H.WE BEEN DONE. 



The writer says that if the country had been governed 

 I by an enlightened Dictator, or even by a strong and 

 homogeneous majority Government in the House of 

 Commons, this is what would have been done : — 



It is at least highly probable, if not quite certain, that in this 

 case a clear iniimation would have been conveyed to the 

 l-'ederalion leaders, long before the strike actually took place, 

 that any general attempt to hold up the nation's trade would at 

 once be met, as has been done in Australia as well as in Europe, 

 by seizure of Union funds, and prosecution of the Federation 

 ' leaders for conspiracy against the public weal ; that the necessary 

 legislation for these purposes would be rapidly passed ; this 

 action also being accompanied by a clear and definite public 

 declaration that all willing workers would be promptly and 

 adequately protected if and when they desired to continue work. 

 At the same time every facility for calm discussion and arbitra- 

 tion might have been oiTered. One thing is quite certain. Had 

 some such steps been taken in good time there would have 

 been no strike. 



" NEVER AGAIN ! " 



He thinks the nation will arrive at the following 

 conclusions : — 



Never again shall the production of the first necessaries of 

 our nation's life and trade, and the means of our transport, be 

 allowed to be the instrument of organised industrial unrest. No 

 longer shall corporate Trade Union action remain freed from 

 Ihe common obligations of honesty, and honour, such as are 

 inherent in and necessary to all other forms of civilised human 

 inlercourse. No longer, perhaps, shall the insane economic 

 doctrines of Socialism and Syndicalism be allosved to be 

 preached, unchecked, in our midst. .\nd never again shall 

 a Trade Union Executive be allowed arbitrarily to control 

 individual freedom, and to usurp or to claim the functions of 

 ';)vernnicnl. 



THE PERIL OF FOREIGN RIVALRY. 



•Mr. G. B. Walker contributes to the same magazine 



an article entitled '' The Coal Strike and After." The 



chief point in .Mr. Walker's paper is that the colliers 



must never shut their eyes to foreign competition in 



. the coal market. He describes the legislation of Prussia 



I and the organisation of the Rhenish-Westphalian 



j Syndicate. The result of this careful fostering of the 



German coal trade has been that German coal has been 



( edccd into British markets at whatever price would 



secure the business, the losses on the export coal being 

 made good out of the better prices obtained at home. 

 The total quantity of coal exported from the German 

 Government coal-fields has gone up enormously, and 

 risen in the last seven years from about 6,000,000 tons 

 to 30,000.000 tons per annum. About one-fourth of 

 the coal produced in Great Britain is exported ; an 

 increase in the cost of producing that coal gives an 

 advantage to our German competitor. Nor is it only 

 the Germans who are competing with us in the Labour 

 market. The cheap coals of Japan and China have also 

 to be faced, to say nothing of the rivalry of oil. Mr. 

 Walker says : — 



We have, on the one hand, a demand for increased pay, 

 negatived^ in the opposite direction by a shrinking market. 

 These can only be reconciled, if they can be reconciled, by a 

 reduced number of men earning a higher wage, and a corre- 

 spondingly larger number of men out of employment and forced 

 to earn their living in callings where the pay is not so good. 



The Miner's Point of View. 



Mr. W. Brace, M.P., contributes a very sensible 

 article to the Contemporary Revieui on " The Mming 

 Industry of Britain." He has no sympathy with Mr. 

 Ramsay Macdonald's harsh strictures upon Mr. 

 Asquith. He says : — 



My own feelings are not of condemnation (I am writing this 

 after the third week of the struggle has commenced), but of 

 gratitude to the statesman who, by accepting the principle of 

 the minimum wage, rendered the workman a service of incal- 

 culable value at a most critical point in the proceedings. 



He is against compulsory arbitration. But — 



I am far from believing that it is either necessary or desirable that 

 strikes and lockouts should be a leatling feature of our 

 industrial movements in the future. If they are 10 be avoided, 

 then the wisest and sanest minds in Ihe land must address 

 themselves to produce a scheme that will enable employers 

 and workmen to settle their dift'erences by negotiation and 

 conciliation rather than by conflict. The instruments in 

 operation to-day fall short of the rtquitemcnls of the age. 



For Syndicalism he has nothing but abhorrence. A 

 general national strike, the most deadly weapon in the 

 armoury of the workman, should only be used as a last 

 resort : — '^ 



The miners' stoppage will have done something to show to the 

 workers the futility and hopelessness of such a policy. For one 

 of the outstanding lessons this national strike has taught is that 

 a complete closing down of one of liritain's staple industries 

 acts as a severe punishment on workmen, and those dependent 

 upon them, engaged in trades other than the one actually at a 

 standstill. 



On February 28th Germany celebrated the hundredth 

 anniversary of the birth of Berthold Auerbach, who 

 wrote a number of village tales the enormous success 

 of which astonished no one so much as the author 

 himself. The February numlier of the Gartcnlaubc 

 publisher a short article on Auerbarli by Hcrr Anton 

 Bettelheim. He died in iSSi. Another interesting 

 article on Auerbach, by the same writer, appeared in 

 the Deutsche Rundschau fur Februarv. 



