South Wales Miners on Strike, 15th July 1915: "... we have not only the owners but the Press to

Hucknall man George Goodall defended the South Wales miners after 200,000 went on strike from 15th July 1915. The action was illegal but the war had not removed the resentment that many miners still felt after the Army was sent into the area during the unrest in 1911.

The men were accused of being, at best, unpatriotic and even of being German sympathisers. But, as Goodall, in his lengthy article, quickly pointed out, “As is usual in any strike of the working class, we have not only the owners but the Press to fight as well.”

"Before these words go to press, probably the whole of South Wales collieries will be working; but before that can happen, something like our original demands will have to be conceded. "As is usual in any strike of the working class, we have not only the owners but the Press to fight as well, and for those reasons as a checkweigher and member of the Aberdare District Executive, representing one of the largest collieries in the Aberdare Valley, I can speak with some truthfulness in defence of the South Wales miner on the present stoppage. "For over five years it has been known that our agreement would terminate in 1915. Since last August we had thought a strike was impossible, and have tried with every means within our power to prevent it. Our Central Executive at Cardiff have times without number in the last three months written the South Wales Coalowners’ Association asking for negotiations to be opened on the New Agreement Question but without avail. Yet these people, who have refused to negotiate on a New Agreement have been putting up prices at such a rate never before known in the annals of mining; and these at the expense of the nation and miner. It has been quiet an open confession with them, that if they run up coal to £2 per ton, the Government will be able to get it back again through taxation; and these are people the Press call patriots. "The miners who have been working six days a week and many of the collieries nine hours a day; they who have sacrificed their holidays since last August at the request of the Admiralty; they who have given 50,000 of their comrades to the trenches; they who levied themselves thousands of pounds for the soldiers’ wives and families are unpatriotic and pro-German because they claim 4s 3d per ton whilst the coalowner is reaping 11s 2d per ton (including increased cost of production) as before the war. These figures are not my own nor are they any rumour, but those of the Board of Trade statisticians, who, at the request of Mr Runciman, worked out the increased cost our demand would entail on the coalowners. "At the termination of notices we had a conference in Cardiff, to which three Cabinet Ministers and a Board of Trade official were sent by special train with proposals from the Government, which might form the basis on which we should further negotiate with them in the furtherance of a settlement, and that for 14 days we should work on day-to-day contracts: now whilst the men themselves in patience and first three months and during the days from June 30th, the Executive Council have strained every nerve, every ounce of energy to effect a settlement upon which the industry could be worked without the loss of a single ton of coal; but without results." "Every day without exception they have sought to broaden the basis of the Government's terms, and to get clear definitions upon those that appeared acceptable. Conversely the coal owners have spent the same in an endeavour to limit the scope of the terms and to render them as ineffective as possible. The cumulative effect of a fortnight's negotiations with the Government has only deepened the gloom. "However, it may be as well to show how the Government has failed to grasp the inwardness of the situation: how great an opportunity it has allowed to slip from its grasp; and by a disposition to treat the coal owners more leniently than they can ever hope to deserve has left the situation practically unchanged. The proposals of the Government were five in number, i.e.: "That the rates of the surfacemen, which are now below 3s. 4d., be advanced to 3s. 4d. per day. "Night men to receive six turns for five. "Haulers on the afternoon and night to be paid the same rate as those on the day shift. "A new standard of 50 per cent on the 18s. 9d. standard to be established. Any standards in operation other than in 18s. 9d. to be correspondingly adjusted. (It is not intended that the alteration shall in itself effect an immediate change in wages). "The maximum and minimum provided for in 1910 agreement not to be operative. "To anyone but the South Wales miner these proposals may appear as difficult as Hindustani to an Icelander, so I'll try and explain. "The first and third proposals are the men's original demands. The second is not, by any means, although the Government has since interpreted it to mean that where a man is unable to work a full week's work by night or afternoon owing to action of his employers, he shall be paid a proportionate part of the bonus turn for the number of shifts he has worked. Were this the only difference between us, there would be no doubt as to the decision of the men. Unhappily there are other and more fundamental points of difference. "To commence with, a limitation has been secured by the owners of the application of the surface rate. It is only to apply to "able-bodied" as understood at various collieries. If able-bodied meant men capable of doing the work there would be no quarrel: but every manager in the coalfield would interpret it to exclude everybody that was physically imperfect. A large percentage of our surface workers are men who have been injured underground and are temporarily disabled from following their old occupation, but can do surface work with complete efficiency. Thus the Government intepretation is worse than its original proposals. "Secondly, the application of the men that the underground day-wage men's new standard should be arrived at by adding 50 per cent to the rates in the award of Lord St. Aldwyn has been totally disregarded, although the men have made it transparent to the Government that the proposal was fundamental in character. As Mr. Runciman's interpretation reads, it is open to the perpetuation of the old rates of 1879 with 50 per cent of the present per centage added, and which the Federation has so seriously endeavoured to abolish. "That may not have been the intention of the Government but, unless revised, it leaves the owners in possession of the open field. And I think I can say there is not a single leader who would agree to an agreement with so vital a matter left out. The surfacemen would be getting 5s. per day, whilst the underground man would in thousands of cases get less if he failed to carry out the rules applicable in the award of the Krd St. Aldwyn under the Minimum Wage Act. "Again the change in the standard is not to mean in itself any change in wages. The change in the standard is not the item from which the men hoped to derive an increase, but from the 10 per cent minimum we proposed to be added to the new standard. This would give a 5 per cent increase to every man in the coalfield, as 10 per cent on the new standard would be equal to 55 per cent on 18s. 9d. "Of course the miners of the English area have been successful by negotiations (which were refused us) in making their old maximum their new minimum. Henceforth for the period of that agreement, which lasts until at least March 1918, their wages cannot go below 65 per cent of the old basis. "In other words, you have added 50 per cent of your percentages to the old standard rates, making a new and up-to-date standard; and, in addition, secured 10 per cent minimum upon that. And all this was done while the guns were belching forth on the fields of Flanders. "The Government's terms thus leave the South Wales miner 15 per cent worse off than his fellows in England. Why should this unfortunate distinction be made? The South Wales miner is as patriotic as any other worker in the British Empire. What have they done to have this discrimination meted out to them? are the Welsh coal owners, who never pay one farthing to the miner for the small coal he's now selling at £1 1s. 6. per ton and which constitutes one fifth of the miner's output, so situated that any permanent demand on their margin of profit would break the back of the industry. "If so, then what a chance for them to invest their money in English mines where by easy negotiations with the men they can provide for a minimum equal to 65 per cent of the old standards. However, I am profoundly convinced that the Government have offered the South Wales miners so little of their demands out of sheer misunderstanding of the situation rather than of studied calculation of the owners' interests. I am equally convinced, too, that there can never be an agreement in South Wales on the terms offered. "The equivalent selling price of coal even to the new standard has not been fixed, and if the Press and Government think they can coerce the South Wales miner by the Munitions Act or the Defence of the Realm Act, they have made the greatest mistake ever made by an Imperial Government. "Of course, the coalfield has been proclaimed a prohibited area, and for every day the miner loses by this strike, he is liable to a fine of £5 for each day, and the leaders of the strike to penal servitude. Now if anything has gone to irritate them it is this, and they are determined to a man that it shall be withdrawn before any work is resumed. The South Walian has always been a fighter and his reputation will not be lowered in this case by a fight against an Act that enslaves him and his fellows. "What have they done to be treated in this manner? Should anyone be placed under the law it is the unscrupulous coal-owners who have refused conciliation for over 14 weeks, yet throughout the whole period of the war they have enhanced their profits beyond the greed of avarice. "In conclusion, let me have one word with the critic When he talks of the patriotism of the South Wales miner, does he know how many South Wales miners are fighting on the battlefield? Does he know that at the commencement of the war the South Wales miners offered to refrain from asking for higher wages if the coal-owners would undertake not to increase the price of coal? When he talks of wages of the miner, can he tell us what is the relationship between every grade of workmanship and the profits of the coal-owner? When he talks of intelligence, has he ever heard a conference of miners discussing their affairs? Does he know that the miners have, and are prepared to do, anything for the nation, provided the Government will insist upon the owners doing common justice. "Some of those critics, living on Olympian heights, may look down on the South Wales miner as an inferior being, who does not possess the ordinary intelligence and good qualities of human beings. It may be the critic does not know the South Wales miner or his conditions. If that is so, then I cannot understand why he should go out of his way to condemn them as unpatriotic and in the pay of the Germans." [1] Following the personal intervention of David Lloyd George the strike, which lasted between 15th and 21st July, was ended with the miners winning concessions from the Government. Common sense prevailed and there was no repeat of the violent disorder that so characterised the 1911 dispute.

[1] 'Hucknall Dispatch', 22nd July 1915.

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