Editorial – The 10% Reduction

Mr. W. W. Chappell, the secretary to the South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire Miners’ Association, is no extremist. He has shown on several occasions, notably when a strike was threatened last year, that he holds moderate and common-sense views on the wages question so far as it affects the mining community, and he was bold enough to declare those views on the eve of what threatened to be a disastrous strike, when the minds of the miners were inflamed through the opposition of the colliery owners to their demands, and when moderation was hardly thought of. This alone would speak volumes for the consistency of any man, and is an irrefragable proof of the earnestness of Mr. Chappell in the case which he has at heart.

The great agitation of 1883 collapsed, and even the miners themselves have recognized the fact that they had resorted to extremities nothing but failure would have resulted. No one can deny that the statements uttered publicly by the officials of the South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire Association at the supreme moment, when every inhabitant of the district spoke with bated breath of an impending catastrophe, had a great deal to do with the collapse of the agitation. The funds of the Association and of its Barnsley rival were low; the miners, through bad trade and reduced wages, were impoverished; nothing but adverse turn stared them in the face; and, worse than all, public opinion, rightly or wrongly, was against them. Just in time to avert a stupendous struggle between capital and labour the Denaby Main men, who were, if anything, intenser in the worst possible position for carrying on the struggle, wavered, and one after another the miners employed at the other collieries in the district resumed work at the same wages as before. The miners of Denaby received much blame from their fellow workmen in other parts of the district, but there is no doubt that the latter were convinced of the hopelessness of the undertaking, or they would have gone on with the struggle independently of the isolated action of one colliery.

Mr. Chappell foresaw the breakdown of the agitation, as he fully understood that the profits made by the colliery owners were exceedingly small and that they would resist the demands made upon them. But if he saw no reason then why the men should have an advance of fifteen per cent., he can see no grounds why the threatened reduction of ten per cent. should be now enforced by the colliery owners. Ominous rumours of an approaching reduction of ten per cent. have been floating in the air for the past month, and hints that the colliery owners have been conferring together with closed doors on their prospects of success in imposing a reduction have been freely given. We hope that no question of the kind has been raised, for we have no hesitation in stating that the men would unanimously resist the slightest attempt at lowering their wages. Trade is doubtless bad at present, but the miners know that there is nothing so elastic as the coal trade and that at any time it may recover from its stagnant condition.

Mr. Chappell at the meeting in question gave several statements which had been made to him by managers at local collieries, which were unanimously condemnatory of any attempt at a reduction. The only excuse the colliery owners have for enforcing a ten per cent. reduction is that they might thereby be enabled to grapple with “the agitation of next October.” Even if the agitation of last year is to be renewed in October, which we very much doubt, that is no reason why a reduction should be attempted now. An eccentric man in the East of England was in the habit of locking in his bedroom a huge coffin in order that he might have the idea of death present with him, and if the colliery owners act upon this wise action by continually having the idea of an agitation locked in their breasts it will be a long time before confidence will be restored between employer and employed.

Mr. Chappell’s warning is very clear, and cuts two ways. It administers a strong rebuke to any person who might be disposed to rake together the dying embers of last year’s agitation, and at the same time warns those who would reduce the wages of the miners that their efforts would be futile. The statements made by Mr. Chappell were as follows:—

“As far as I understand the question, I am not aware that anybody of men will be foolish enough to begin an agitation like that of the past year. There is nothing to justify it as far as I can see, and I do not suppose that there will be, as the whole trade of the country seems in a state of stagnation. Upon the question of a reduction I say that I have never heard a single owner, or a single manager who was likely to speak with any degree of authority, say that such a movement will be set on foot. My firm conviction and hope are that the reduction will never be demanded, and if such a thing were to be attempted I know that the men most certainly will try and resist it with all the power they possess.”

These are straightforward words, and words which, coming from a leader of the miners who does not deal in extremes, and who moreover is in the habit of carefully weighing his words before they are uttered, ought to receive very careful consideration by everyone interested either in the renewal of a fruitless agitation for an advance or in the still more hopeless attempt at a reduction of ten per cent.