Cadeby Miners ready to Strike | Conisbrough and Denaby Main Local History

February 1914

CADEBY MINERS READY TO STRIKE.

A lively Sunday meeting.

Pressmen menaced.

The reporters who attended the meeting of the Cadeby main branch of the Yorkshire miners Association, which was held at Conisbrough on Sunday, met with an exciting, though unpleasant and painful experience.

Mr J Hill, president of the brands, occupied the chair, and there were also on the platform, Mr P. Bonsall (secretary), Mr Kelsall (Treasurer), Mr G Starr (delegate to the Barnsley Council) and Messrs. Goulding, Marsden, Doran and Smith (committee).

It appears that prior to the arrival of the pressmen, the chairman and made a request that all reporters should leave the room. Upon their arrival the reporters commenced note taking, and had been thus engaged for some 10 min in full view of the audience and officials, when a member of the audience reminder the chairman of his remarks and proposed that the pressmen be “ejected”. The chairman requested the reporters to step on to the platform, which they did, and submitted their shorthand notes to the inspection of the officials. The proposer of the ejection reiterated his request, whereupon the cry was taken up all round the room, on the uproar became general. The chairman asked the pressmen to stay behind, when their notes will be dealt with by the officials, and the committee were in favour of adopting this course, but the audience grew more insistent, and began to get out of control. There were cries of “throw ‘em out.” And burn their books.” And it was proposed that the matter should be put to the vote.

Mr Doran: surely, if the men have been honourable enough to come up and submit the notes to our inspection, that is enough.

The proposer of the resolution: I thought this meeting was for union men only. I propose they be ejected.

The chairman: I think the committee are quite competent to deal with the reporters, short and now is. If you are not satisfied with those, you know what to do.

A voice: tear up the notes then.

The chairman: We cannot touch the reporter’s property.

After the “scene” and lasted for about 20 min, the chairman negatived the proposal that the reporters be “ejected” and ultimately they were allowed to proceed.

Two Interpretations.

Mr Hill said that the meeting of that evening at sprung from a meeting of the Barnsley district Council, at which the recent minimum wage award of Sir Edward Clark had been discussed. The Masters disputed the figure of the recent award, and the trouble was that they calculated them one where are the men calculated then the other. They (the miners) contended that Sir Edward Clark’s award has been misconstrued by the coal owners and the result had been a decrease of 2d per day.

When the first award was made, the conciliation board agreed to add all advances which had been received up to the present time to any future award, and the agreement had never been broken so far as the Yorkshire miner’s representatives and the coal owners were concerned. Before long the miners would want international support. The Masters Association had recently met in London, with the sole object of breaking down trade’s unionism. There would come a time when they would not have to rely so much upon their finance they would be called upon to take sides and to strike, not from work, but to strike blows. We urged that wherever the masters were striving to tie them down they would always fight for freedom. He hoped they would support their Association in the matter of finance and that if the time came, they would be prepared for other things.

Mr Bonsall read the following resolutions, which were carried unanimously:

“That this meeting of the Cadeby M ain miners pledges itself to support the county in giving in notices to enforce their just rights in the recent minimum wage awards, and also endorses the action taken by the Rotherham district miners’ branches in not tolerating the masters’ interpretation of the above awards”

and

“That this meeting of the miners of Cadeby Main support those collieries which are still standing re the minimum wage awards, and that we levy our members 3d per week to support the families of the miners who are fighting the battle for Yorkshire.”

An insult to Yorkshire.

Mr Kelsall said, as a result of the minimum wage award, counties, which were previously below Yorkshire were now above it. He called it a direct insult to Yorkshire (loud applause.) When one came to consider the prices call was fetching in markets today, it made one wonder how owners could have the audacity to ask miners to submit to a reduction. If miners did submit to the owners in this matter, they would only be putting whipcord to the width to flog themselves. (Applause.)

This concluded the business.

On leaving the meeting, the pressmen were subjected to some rough handling by some 50 hooligans, who heaped them with abuse and assailed them with various missiles.