Mr Crawford was instructed by the Executive Committee to inform the employers that, while they did not offer any opinion on the reduction, they would call the attention of the owners to the last portion of their resolution, wherein the date of the reduction was fixed, and said:
"In seeking advances we never yet fixed a date, even when coal was going up in an unparalleled manner and certainly very much more rapidly than ever it has come down. Both in March last and now you wish to fix the date in what seems to us rather an arbitrary manner. Had we in seeking advances pursued this course, you would have been more than justified in doing the same thing, but having pursued a course diametrically opposite, we fail to see the grounds of your justification for the course you are at present pursuing."
A Council meeting was held on August 22nd, when the first question discussed was the owners' application for the twenty per cent. reduction. The following resolution was carried:—
(1) We cannot see where in the Cleveland, or the Coasting, or other markets the prices of coal and coke are down sufficiently low to warrant a further reduction of wages. (2) The stacking of coal and coke may be made to have—but ought not to have—any very material effect on the workmen's wages, seeing that, if too much is being produced, we have no objection to be put on short time, or any other fair process whereby a reduction of wages can be averted.
We fail to see why the employers ought to seek arbitration. We are now in the same position which they were in during the last two and a half years. They were at that time so fully certain that trade would not give any further advance that arbitration was pointedly refused. We are now so sure that the present, as compared with past prices of coal and coke, does not warrant any further reduction, that we think arbitration is only an unnecessary waste of time and money, causing no end of annoyance without any good resulting therefrom.
This resolution was sent, accompanied by a demand for fifteen per cent. advance, to the employers, who held a meeting on 28th August, under the presidency of Mr Stobart, for the purpose of considering it and what action they should take. After considerable discussion a resolution was passed to enforce the twenty per cent. reduction and to give the men fourteen days' notice, to expire on the 19th of September, seeing that their claim and arbitration had been refused. The notices were issued in keeping with that resolve, but not to all men alike. The form of notice was as follows:—
On behalf of—— Colliery I do hereby give you notice to determine your existing hiring on the nineteenth day of September eighteen hundred and seventy-four, and that the wages and prices heretofore paid at this colliery will from that date be reduced to the rate of twenty per cent. and that if your service be continued, it must be on these terms.
In these circumstances the Executive Committee issued a circular and called a special Council. The lodges were asked to send their delegates prepared to discuss and decide upon three questions:
"1. Ought bankmen, horsekeepers, furnacemen, etc., to give in their notices?
"2. Ought collieries of men (hewers included) who have not received any notice to give in their notices?
"3. The matter of arbitration."
We will quote a portion or two of the circular. It is very serious and impressive:
"It must be clear to all that we are passing through the most important crisis which has marked the history of the present organisation on the need or otherwise of a further reduction; we here offer no opinion, that being a matter which will take the collective wisdom of the county to determine. We wish, however, to point out what seems to us to be one of two ultimatums to the present unpleasant condition of matters in the county. If a stolid and unreasoning resistance be persevered in, a strike is inevitable. We feel certain that nothing can or will prevent a stop. How long such struggle might continue it is impossible to say. But whether it might be for a longer or a shorter period an immense amount of suffering would be entailed. We want you therefore to very carefully consider the whole matter. View the entire position with an unbiased mind, not from the standpoint of mere abstract justice, but from that of probabilities or even possibilities. We are offered arbitration. If we refuse, the press and public will most assuredly say that our position is untenable. If we persistently refuse to submit the entire matter to arbitration, we must prepare to cope with the following difficulties in conducting a struggle.
"(1) The strongest combination of employers the North of England ever saw.
"(2) Stacks of coal and coke laid up in every direction of the county.
"(3) Coal and coke brought from other districts to supply what we may be short of supplying from our own heaps.
"(4) The press and public opinion would be against us."