24 MAY 1926
Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister, has replied to the Mining Association of Great Britain and to the Miners’ Federation. He regrets that the mineowners do not recognise that it was impossible for any Government to have stood aside in matters where the national well-being is so vitally affected. Interference in the industry was due entirely to the industry’s incapacity to settle its disputes for itself. He tells the miners that, so long as they refuse to consider any alteration of wages or hours, no useful purpose would be served by his meeting them. The Government are no longer bound by the terms of an offer which has been rejected. It will be impossible for the Government to hold open beyond the end of the present month the offer of any further subsidy.
In reply to three members of the General Council of the Trade Union Congress, who asked if Sir Herbert Samuel would deny that consultations took place between Mr Baldwin and himself on the terms of the Memorandum of May 12, Sir Herbert Samuel states that no such consultation occurred.
Addressing Welsh miners at Porth, Mr Cook complained that Trade Union leaders endeavoured to bully the miners into acceptance of longer hours or lower wages. He also gave an account of his own part in the discussions before the withdrawal of the general strike order.
Lord Birkenhead, speaking at Oxford, said the provisions of the Trades Disputes Act of 1906 would undoubtedly require and receive examination.
In a letter to engineering Trade Unions the Engineering and Allied Employers’ National Federation state that there is now but one duty for all concerned, and that is by co-operation and reduction in costs to do what they can not only to overcome the effects of the recent dislocation and the resultant serious loss, but also to revive industry, at present so much depressed.
In a message to the Socialist candidate in North Hammersmith by-election, Mr Ramsay MacDonald says the general stoppage from which the country has just emerged was a magnificent and orderly demonstration of passive resistance to degrading conditions for a million mine workers, which, if imposed on the miners, would have appeared elsewhere.
An agreement between Great Britain and the Angora Government on the subject of Mosul is reported to be ready for signature.