the coal-fields of the United Kingdom. The fact that the Government made this offer has hitherto been kept secret; but it is only right that the miners and general public should be informed of the truth. As things are, he only instruction given to the District Boards is that hey must have regard to the average daily wages paid n the district when fixing the minimum rates. It has been feared that this provision will tend to lower the output, by diminishing the incentive to the better worker o exert himself. This fear is, in my opinion, groundless.

It is idle to deny that the men have suffered defeat; but that defeat has been due mainly to mistakes and gnorance on the part of the leaders, and to a lack of subordination and unity of purpose on the part of the nen. The ground of attack was ill-chosen; the men should have stuck to their original demand-the payment on account of abnormal places or losses due to bad management. If, in addition to this, they had asked for an increase of wages equivalent to 10 per cent. on the basis rates, to meet the increased cost of living, they would have occupied strong ground; and, if they had von (as they probably would, for the demand would have Deen obviously just), every man would have benefited, vhereas very few will derive any benefit from the Act. The great mass of men came out to obtain higher wages, nd for no other reason; and when they voted for the ormula a minimum wage,' nine-tenths of them did not know what they were voting for. Secondly, this great industrial army was led out to fight the employers after giving them three months' notice of their intention o do so. From the point of view of the public this has loubtless been an enormous advantage; but, from the tandpoint of the men, it is to me incomprehensible that he attack should have been made in such a manner. niners and their leaders, in fact, entirely misconceived he position. The miners were told by some of their eaders that a national strike could not possibly continue or more than a week, and that a general strike was the panacea which would put a speedy end to all their grievinces. They had, however, entirely lost sight, first, of the fact that the past winter was an exceptionally mild ɔne; and, secondly, that, instead of working short time, is they would under normal conditions have done, the

The

pits were, owing to the fear of a strike, kept working their utmost capacity, so that enormous reserves of ca were accumulated. The extreme men now say that when the next general strike takes place, no notice will be given. Consumers of coal have already noted these observations, and will doubtless lay down much larger stocks of coal during the summer months than they have ever done before.

A general strike can never under any circumstances benefit the miners, while on the other hand it may benefit the owners, by causing a shortage of coal. High prices naturally follow; and many owners will, owing to this reason, soon make sufficient profit to wipe out the losses caused by keeping the mines open during the strike while many men will be left penniless and impoverished. In these circumstances it is the poorest section of the community and the miners themselves who suffer most. A sectional strike, on the other hand, is very injurious and costly to employers, for they not only lose their markets, which are taken by their competitors, but their pits may lie idle for many months. The answer doubtless will be that the Welsh owners have a large fighting fund and can use it in the manner I have already described; but it must be borne in mind that, provided the miners act in a rational manner, the owners, whose interests are antagonistic to each other, will not continue to maintain solidarity, for those who possess good mines will not shut down their pits and incur losses in order to keep the old mines going. The owners have been forced to join hands in South Wales owing to companies which were outside the Coal-owners' Association being made the subject of special attack, which is madness from the point of view of the miners, because the result of such an attack is to drive the outside companies into the arms of the Association. An attempt has recently been made to form a general association of owners throughout all the coal-fields of the United Kingdom to resist the attacks of the Federation; but this attempt has not been success ful, for many of the largest companies refused to com bine. I have no doubt whatever that the sectional strike which has been the weapon the miners have used in the past to improve their conditions of labour, will in the future again be their chief instrument; for, when judit

!

usly handled, it is the weapon by which the workmen can nost successfully fight their employers. The folly of a eneral strike must be manifest to all thinking men.

Passing my life as I do among miners, I know the great majority of them to be a brave, upright and Godearing body of men; and if they had but shown that subordination to and trust in their leaders, which is as necessary to an industrial organisation engaged in a great conflict as it is to an army in the field, the result to-day would be very different from what it is. In view of the great disparities of wealth on the one hand and poverty on the other-many men in some mines earning, through no fault of their own, only a few shillings a week, and under the stress of constant danger-those who know the mining class can but wish them well in their fight for a better share of the division of wealth. The fight has been in the main conducted against the ignorance and prejudice of the owners themselves. Such owners have from the commencement of this dispute failed to understand the economic law that any increase in the cost of production would not come entirely out of their pockets. Although on this occasion the men have been defeated, I am convinced that this is only the beginning of the struggle. If the Government and the public believe that, even after the passing of an inadequate Minimum Wage Act, men will continue to work in mines under the condition that the worst mines are to be taken as the basis of the standard of living, they are labouring under a delusion from which they will yet have a rude awakening. Although I have found it necessary, in the course of paper, to criticise the Minimum Wage Act somewhat severely, I cannot conclude without paying due praise to the manner in which the Prime Minister handled a very difficult problem. He displayed exemplary patience and persistency throughout the prolonged negotiations, and an astonishing grasp of the conditions with which he had to deal. He stood firm against severe pressure and behaved fairly to both parties. That he earned the thanks of neither was only natural.

this

ARTHUR B. MARKHAM.

Art. 14.-THE CHURCH IN WALES.

1. Report of the Royal Commission on the Church England and other Religious Bodies in Wales an Monmouthshire. Eight vols. London: Wyman, 1910. 2. The Church and the Nation: Charges and Addresses By Mandell Creighton, sometime Bishop of London London: Longmans, 1901.

3. Visitation Charges. By W. Stubbs, late Bishop of Oxford. London: Longmans, 1904.

4. A Defence of the Church of England against Dis establishment. By Roundell, Earl of Selbourne. Fifth Edition. London: Macmillan, 1911.

5. The Religious Aspects of Disestablishment and Dis endowment. By Bishop Welldon, Dean of Manchester. London: Smith, Elder, 1911.

6. The Case Against Welsh Disendowment. By a Nonconformist Minister [Rev. J. Fovargue Bradley London: Pitman, 1911.

7. The Welsh Disestablishment Bill: what it means. By the Bishop of St David's. London: The Central Church Committee for Defence and Instruction, 1911. 8. The Establishment and Extension of National Churches. By Thomas Chalmers, D.D. Glasgow: Collins, 1838. WELSH Disestablishment is a question of facts as well as of principles. In order to ascertain the facts a Royal Commission was appointed on June 21, 1906,

'to enquire into the origin, nature, amount and application of the temporalities, endowments and other properties of the Church of England in Wales and Monmouthshire, and into the provision made and the work done by the Churches of all denominations in Wales and Monmouthshire for the spiritual welfare of the people and the extent to which the people avail themselves of such provision, and to report thereon.' Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman said in the House of Commons on July 11, 1906, that no enquiry by Royal Commission or otherwise was made into the condition and temporalities of the Established Church in Wales' before the introduction of the Welsh Disestablishment Bills of 1894 and 1895; and he regarded that omission & unfortunate because, owing to the absence of official

nformation on the questions which have now been submitted to a Royal Commission, the Government of he day were exposed to a good deal of embarrassment in the preparing and conduct of the measure.' * In appointing the Commission the Government had an eye on the conversion of English public opinion; at all events, Mr Lloyd George, addressing the Welsh National Convention at Cardiff on October 11, 1906, clearly anticipated a Report in favour of Disestablishment. 'The evidence and facts' (he remarked) 'collected and sifted carefully by the Royal Commission, they might depend upon it, would be accepted by English public opinion as more or less settling the dispute.'†

The first place in the terms of reference is assigned to the origin of Church endowments. The Chairman ruled that the historic legal origin of endowments was clearly included in the terms of reference (Q. 47133, 47169). Sir D. Brynmor Jones, the present Chairman of the Welsh parliamentary party, put several questions on the subject to two of the Welsh bishops, and intimated that he might introduce paragraphs upon the origin of endowments into the Report (Q. 47141), but apparently he thought better of it afterwards, for all that is said in the Report is: We think that it is not our duty to attempt to perform the almost impossible and very controversial task of ascertaining the historic legal origin of Church property, which includes property of such ancient origin as glebe lands and tithes' (p. 7). This sentence could hardly have been forgotten by Sir D. Brynmor Jones when he told a representative of the Press, 'I signed the Chairman's report, of course, . . . because every sentence in it is true.'§ Nevertheless, it appears from Mr McKenna's speech on January 25 last that he proposes to rest his case for Welsh Disendowment upon the narrow basis of a novel theory of the late origin of tithe in Wales. His words were:

'I venture to say there is not the slightest evidence whatever that there was any tithe system in Wales until after the Welsh Church was absorbed into the English Church. Tithes

* 'Hansard,' 4th series, vol. 160, p. 896.

† 'Western Mail,' October 12, 1906.

Report, vol. iv, pp. 469-474, 497-499.

§ 'South Wales Daily News,' December 3, 1910.