Tag: 100 Years Ago

28 AUGUST 1926

The verbatim report of the conference between Ministers and miners’ leaders at Downing Street makes it clear that the Government have rejected overtures for further financial assistance to the coal industry.

---

The men having refused Lord Vernon’s terms for a resumption of work at Poynton Colliery, in Cheshire, the ponies have been brought to bank as the first step in the closing down of the colliery foreshadowed by the owner.

---

Austrian Trade Unionists have levied themselves in support of the British miners.

---

The Ambassadors’ Conference have sent a Note to the German Government insisting on the fulfilment without delay of the demands of the Inter-Allied Military Mission in regard to Germany’s disarmament. Official circles in Berlin regard the Note as coming at an inopportune moment in view of Germany’s impending entry into the League of Nations.

---

A Paris telegram states that French diplomacy has been taken by surprise both by the manner and the matter of the Spanish Note on the Tangier question.

---

Elections are to be held in Greece on October 24.

---

Further details have been received of the advance of the Cantonese “Red” Army in Central China. The “Reds” have taken a large number of prisoners. The important treaty port of Hankow is their immediate objective.

---

Chinese pirates, who were disguised as passengers, have looted the Norwegian steamer Sandviken near Hong-Kong, getting away with booty valued at 20,000 dollars.

27 AUGUST 1926

A conference took place at 10 Downing Street between miners’ leaders and members of the Government. A bulletin was afterwards issued stating that the coal situation had been reviewed, and that a verbatim report would be published to-day.

---

A six hours’ conflict between police and miners in the St Helen’s district is reported. Several baton charges were made, and the police were stoned, several mounted men being struck by missiles. Two photographic pressmen were mobbed and threatened with immersion in the canal, and their cameras were smashed.

---

There is a probability of a withdrawal of safety men in the South Wales coalfield, and the Bentley (Doncaster) Branch of the Yorkshire Miners’ Association have passed a resolution withdrawing authority to 300 of their members to continue working as safety men.

---

A party of miners and miners’ wives leave for Russia to-day, under the auspices of the Miners’ Federation, with the object of collecting funds.

---

One of the most terrible accidents in the history of motor racing occurred at Boulogne. Captain R. Howey, a well-known British motorist, and a spectator were killed. Three other onlookers were injured.

---

An inquest was held at Weybridge on George L. Parkes, Norbury, a racing motor cyclist, who was killed at Brooklands. Parkes was hurled forty yards from his machine.

---

A Geneva message states that M. Ninchitch, Foreign Minister of Jugo-Slavia, will likely be the President of the seventh Assembly of the League of Nations.

---

A Greek Cabinet has been formed by General Kondilis.

---

Four of the accused in the conspiracy trial at Angora were sentenced to death.

26 AUGUST 1926

At a Privy Council at Balmoral, a new Proclamation of Emergency was signed. A second Proclamation summons Parliament to meet on Monday next, August 30.

---

The miners’ leaders have asked for an interview with the Minister of Labour, who has been left in charge of the coal situation by the Government.

---

In order to prevent intimidation of returning miners, the Home Office has made elaborate police provision.

---

A meeting of the National Joint Trimming Committee failed to reach an agreement in connection with the coal-trimming dispute. It was decided to invite the Ministry of Labour to appoint a Court of Inquiry.

---

Mr Lloyd George, in an address to the Inter-Jewish University Federation delegates at Bangor, paid a tribute to the patriotism of the race during the war. He revealed how a discovery by Dr Weizmann, a Zionist leader, had helped the Allies to win.

---

The officers of the Spanish Artillery are reported to have demanded the dismissal of General Primo de Rivera, the Prime Minister.

---

Considerable dissensions have manifested themselves in the Air Sub-Committees on Disarmament at Geneva.

100 YEARS AGO

His Majesty the King has arrived at Balmoral Castle.

---

The Rev. Dr Norman Maclean, St Cuthbert’s, Edinburgh, has been appointed one of the Chaplains-in-Ordinary to His Majesty in Scotland.

---

The Privy Council meets at Balmoral Castle to-day to recall Parliament for Monday next to confirm the Emergency Regulations.

---

Following Mr Cook’s hurried week-end tour to “stop the rot” in the Midlands, a considerable falling-off in the number of miners who had resumed work is reported. A serious feature of the situation is an outbreak of violence and intimidation.

---

Admiral Koundouriotis has definitely decided to reassume office as President of the Greek Republic till the new elections have been held. A Coalition Cabinet is to be formed. General Pangalos has been transferred from Athens to the island of Ægina.

---

The Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs stated at the close of a meeting of the Cabinet that he would not be attending the forthcoming League meeting at Geneva. The problems of Tangier and the League of Nations were discussed at the Cabinet Council.

---

According to news received in Paris, there is danger of another seditious movement in the Spanish Army owing to the dissatisfaction prevailing with the new conditions in regard to the promotion of Artillery and Engineer officers.

---

Dr Marx, the German Chancellor, speaking at the Catholic Convention at Breslau, complained that the various sections of the nation were too much under the spell of a spirit of individualism.

---

Mr Charlton, the Australian Labour leader, in a speech at Weston, New South Wales, expressed himself opposed to the proposed constitutional alteration giving the Government special powers to protect the interest of the public in case of an actual or probable interruption of any essential service.

---

A man exploded a bomb in a bank at Pittsburgh, U.S.A. The interior of the building was wrecked. One person was killed, and many were injured.

25 MAY 1926

There has been no fresh development in the coal situation. The owners and miners, it is understood, are considering Mr Baldwin’s letter. In Labour circles it is being described as an ultimatum.

Mr J. R. Clynes, in his presidential address at a Congress at Bournemouth of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers, declared that whatever censure might fall upon Trade Unions for declaring a national strike the responsibility of the Government for being the primary cause of it would in due time fall upon millions of working men.

A deadlock has occurred in the disarmament discussions at Geneva.

At the Conference of the British Legion a resolution was moved protesting against the attitude of headquarters during the general strike in calling upon all ex-servicemen to offer their services to preserve law and order. This was lost amid cheers.

It is reported that an emissary has arrived at Fez, bringing with him a letter from Abdel Krim for M. Steeg, the Resident-General, and that both have had a long talk on the situation in Morocco. The French Cabinet will consider the matter to-day.

Addressing a patriotic demonstration at Genoa, Signor Mussolini said the people of Italy were thirsting to be obedient, thirsting for discipline, eager to be governed. The Fascisti State would survive. It had buried the Liberal Democratic State, with its collective lack of responsibility—that State of Parliaments which talked until people were sick with boredom.

In the Egyptian elections Zaghlul Pasha has secured a commanding lead, and the Government party has been wiped out.

The death has taken place of Sir John Williams, the doctor who attended the birth of the Prince of Wales.

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.

23 MAY 1926

Hundreds of thousands of miners sought financial relief as they continued to withhold their labour despite the end of the General Strike.

The death of Sir Edward Pryce-Jones, the former Conservative MP for Montgomery, was announced.

22 MAY 1926

In their reply to the Government’s mining proposals the coalowners urged the need for a return to the eight hour day and for freedom from political interference.

At a joint meeting of railway companies and railway Unions in London arrangements satisfactory to both parties were made for suspension of the guaranteed week. These arrangements, it is stated, will enable the companies to spread out work so as to remove the difficulties which have arisen as to reinstatement of the staff who were recently on strike.

Replying in a speech at Bournemouth to criticism directed against the Trade Union leaders who called off the general strike, Mr J. R. Clynes, M.P., said the whole idea of trying to settle anything by such a method was a delusion; but out of the result they could gather a most profitable experience if the leaders maintained anything like the unity and loyalty of the rank and file.

Mr Philip Snowden writes to the Socialist candidate in the Hammersmith by-election that the great lesson of the recent deplorable industrial stoppage is the need of increased Labour representation in Parliament, so that industrial questions may be settled by peaceful methods and without resort to steps which inflict injury on the country.

21 MAY 1926

At a sitting in London the miners’ delegate conference passed a resolution submitted by the Executive that, while agreeing with the legislative and administrative proposals in Mr Baldwin’s suggested basis for a settlement of the coal dispute, they objected to the proposed wages reduction. A special meeting of the Cabinet was held to consider the situation.

The Chancellor wound up the debate on the Finance Bill in the House of Commons, replying at length to Mr Snowden’s criticisms earlier in the sitting, and dealing with the general strike and the coal deadlock in their effect upon the finance and trade of the country. He emphasised the seriousness of a continuance of the last-named trouble and the futility of further subsidy to the industry. The Bill passed second reading by 324 to 117.

The Secretary for Home Affairs stated in Parliament that during the general strike he stopped £100,000 intended by Russian Trade Unionists as a gift to the British workers; but a payment in aid of the miners, who were engaged in a genuine trade dispute, stood on a different footing.

Attention was drawn in the House of Commons to Major Stemp’s statement at the inquiry into the recent railway accident at St Margaret’s, Edinburgh, reflecting on the humanity of a strike picket in the vicinity.

The Home Secretary, Sir W. Joynson-Hicks, speaking on the general strike and the future, said that no attempt would be made to destroy the legitimate position and influence in the country of Trade Unions. They wished them to continue their beneficent work, but they did not intend that the country should be exposed again to the risks of a lightning universal strike. They would not legislate in a hurry, but would consider carefully what could be done to protect the country and not to injure the legitimate work of the Trade Unions.

20 MAY 1926

It is understood that the Executive of the Miners’ Federation have decided to recommend the delegate conference to-day to endorse the reorganisation proposals in the report of the Royal Commission, but to reject the immediate wage reduction implications in the Government’s proposals and the report of the Commission.

The Secretary for India, in reply to Lord Olivier in the House of Lords, made a statement with regard to the conference agreed upon by the Governments of South Africa and India for the discussion and, if possible, amicable solution of problems connected with the colour bar legislation of the first-named Government.

The House of Commons discussed the Finance Bill on the motion for second reading. Mr William Graham moved the rejection of the Bill. He urged that greater attention should be paid to Income-tax evasion, suggested that £15,000,000 could be saved in three years on armaments by overhead cuts on the three Departments concerned, and that the task of relating finance year by year to financial and industrial conditions might be delegated to a body representative of the House. The debate was adjourned.

Statements said to have been made by Zinoviev, Radek, Trotsky, and other Russian members of the Soviet Government, that the general strike in Britain was political, and an important stage towards the Communist revolution, and that contributions from Russian workmen would enable the lie to be given to the denial of the British Labour leaders that it had a political complexion, formed the subject of questions in the House of Commons.

In reply to questions in Parliament, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs said his attention had been called to the fact that three British subjects had been sentenced to imprisonment on charges of espionage in France. He laid stress on the denial issued by Lord Crewe, on instructions from His Majesty’s Government, when the accused were arrested in December. He had not seen a report of the trial, but he had no reason to suppose that the judgment of the tribunal indicated any doubt of the truth of the statements by His Majesty’s Government.

Their Majesties the King and Queen have found it necessary to cancel their projected visit to Edinburgh.

Publication of the King’s Birthday Honours List is postponed until the 3rd of July.