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Show ENGLISH MINERS I BITTER AGAINST I GOVERNMENT I Former College Professor ot America Digs Coal and Grasps Views of Workers .ln-t back I'rom wii-kin-, in English f a coal mines to find mt first-hand what I the Workiitjginaii in England think-. WJUtlng WUIIonis, steel company labor expert ami author, today tells exclusively exclu-sively for readers of the Standard-Examiner whii th. ureal coal strike mean-. Williams won national fame last year i;. iu white-collar Job as -tivl i omiaii official ami going to work in eastern steel plants as an un miucu ww , up uurkin anil nel With the low t paid workers and learned how thej felt and what tin -. tlHMighL Newspaper ami magazine articles, a h. ok ami nianj public ml I dresses, recounting Ids experiences at- t routed national attention, Last guru- rtier Williams, n former )lle;i- pro- I i. MOT, went Ut England and ivK'ulcd id- American xplolts. He has just re- iiiriud lo Imerlcn. He worked hi English Eng-lish coal mine-. Therefore, tlx roi-krwlng roi-krwlng arti. je. written exduStveij for this newspaper, i- Ihe llr-l and fit-sh tl I es( work on the English oiai strike brought to Imcrlca b mi American Editor . ' Bi vnrriNc widdiams, (Author oi 1 What's On the Worker's Mind") Mi. Chairman and Kellow Work-' Work-' men ! Mr. Chairman and Fellow Work- No one could ever forget the deadly earnestness of that appeal to our at-tentlon at-tentlon and good-will there in the union meetings of the little South Wales town, as one miner after an-other an-other arose to add hw voice and vote against or for the strike. for. The two days' strike which resulted was only a local one, hut it was engl- ,neercd and accomplished by men who III openly proclaimed themselves devoted to the raising of the red flag of IJol- I Bhevlsm over the house of parliament. W. Ish ciioiiKh they were and not Ku-- but they claimed to be in touch H with secret London representatives of ihe soviet, who gave ihciu the real in- iH formation that nowhere else in Un- I world were conditions for the work- I ingman as favorable as in the land i ruled from Moscow. R "Tii. se Bolshles 'ere be over proud o' themselves ami their wild ex- tremes," middle of the road miner H said to me us we walked togethei through th, darkness the two miles II I lup hill and down dale that led from I I the shaft lo our locations "at thi Bui after all I hey do b . ,- main h p I Qlece of the whOOj crowd of us thol b pjpH fair oon appv." l HEAR STIUKE T LK This unhappiness it was very eOBJ ptpV even in the thick darkness of the headings 900 feet away from the sunlight. As he brought down the coal from th,- bulging seam and 1 carried H it m my "curlln box" to the "tram" or car. we could hear the other col-Hers col-Hers r "hewers' in the next stall try-ing try-ing to persuade their friends not to work oi el.se discussing the cardinal points oi Hi ii- new industrial ,.nd po- i f I litical faith. Whether they worked or not the minimum wage law. in effect since 111'. would bring them prac- II tlcally the same pay as the hauliers and other "day" workers who put in a strenuous turn ." the rool "i It Industrial houi-- l H Britain Is quiferlng with the shout 1,200,000 miners as they lay down their picks and Shovels. Luckily not all British miners arc as extreme as my Welsh huddies. I'p in Yorkshire, for instance, where the leoal "tips" rise alongside the church pjpjpj spires to grace the landscape of pleas-ant pleas-ant hedge-lined fields and meadows. they voted against tin- nation-wide I ; pH Meanwhile, the strike is not against the owners Of the mines, but against tin- government, which has been in control of them since the days of the The union leuders, Sin 11 lie and Hodges, claimed that the government-I government-I fixed prices gave both the government 'and the owners loo much profit and 'so demanded a reduction of 14 shill- H )ings tuppence per ton lo the domestic i.onsuiners us a means of lowering the p 'cost of living. Hut this claim was i H abandoned some weeks ago since then i they have refused to submu to arid- jig t ration the mailer of the righness of II 'their claim lo two shillings more per J day. In spile, too. of a constantly tailing output of coal per man, the led to consider un plan for in- creased pay to follow Increased coal. strike. jpB BITTER row UIDS GOVERNMENT. It remains lo be seen whether a B Strike thus against a govonmcnl cat avoid becoming a revolution. it is highly doubtful Last summer I found i men more bitter towards their gov-crnment gov-crnment for not giving them the kind of Jobs and pay thej wanted than I V ha,- ever seen them here against their private employers. That spirit can make very serious trouble in a conn-try conn-try Which Will of course, be brought to a standstill by iho lack of what they I call "coals." But U representative government means anything the prob-.ability prob-.ability Is that a way out will be found : short of any fatal overturn. For. while the other unions publicly voted complete approval of the miners' stand, they were all privately praying that the fearful crisis would not conn. Individually 1 found most of the I workers of the country very undecided about nationalising the mines even .ui 5 thi miners themselves there would usually be representatives of the pro and the con in any group, and a few workers wen for stopping their own jobs on the rairwas or in the mills simply to give two "bob" a turn more to men who they f. It were already well paid with a guaranteed minimum larger than the generality of them- So unpopular a strike can hardly gjg hope to Win but it can. nevertheless cause a lot of trouble. |