The owners refused to meet the Federation Board as a whole, and as a consequence the Miners' Committee met them on the 20th, in keeping with the Board Minute, on February 18th. At that meeting the owners modified their demand.
OWNERS' MODIFIED OFFER
February 22nd, 1879.
"1. That a reduction of 10 per cent. in underground, and 7½ per cent. in surface labour, be brought into operation in the first pay beginning March next.
2. That the additional 10 per cent. in underground, and 5 per cent. in surface labour, claimed by the owners in their Minute of January 11th, be referred to arbitration in the following manner, viz.:—
Representatives of the two Associations to meet within the first week of March, and if they can agree on a sole arbitrator, the matter to be forthwith referred to him; and if they cannot so agree, each side to appoint an arbitrator, which two arbitrators shall forthwith appoint an umpire, and if they fail to do so by March 15th, such umpire shall, on the application of either arbitrator, be appointed by Mr Meynell, County Court Judge of Durham.
In the event of there being two arbitrators and an umpire, they shall sit together to hear the case; and the award shall take effect in the first pay in April.
3. The expediency of re-establishing a sliding scale, to be left for consideration after the award has been given."
Representatives of the two Associations to meet within the first week of March, and if they can agree on a sole arbitrator, the matter to be forthwith referred to him; and if they cannot so agree, each side to appoint an arbitrator, which two arbitrators shall forthwith appoint an umpire, and if they fail to do so by March 15th, such umpire shall, on the application of either arbitrator, be appointed by Mr Meynell, County Court Judge of Durham.
In the event of there being two arbitrators and an umpire, they shall sit together to hear the case; and the award shall take effect in the first pay in April.
This was submitted to the Federation Board, who met the modification by the following:—
FEDERATION BOARD'S OFFER
March 6th, 1879.
1st. To offer the owners the 10 per cent. for underground workmen, and 7½ per cent. for bank workmen as a settlement of the whole question.
2nd. To offer them 7½ per cent. from underground, and 6 per cent. from above-bank workmen, and to refer any further claim they might make to arbitration.
The Miners' Committee supported the Board, and did this in a circular which contained some very plain and urgent statements.
"At best, the lookout is but a gloomy one, and we must try to bridge over the difficulty as best we can, and if possible, without the pits being stopped. We have no wish to descant on the generally depressed condition of trade, or the evil effects producible by a large surplus number of men. At the present time, both these things are operating amongst us, and the owners know this, and seem determined to use them in this crisis. Looking at the general condition of things, we would very strongly advise you to adopt one of the suggestions contained in this circular. They are the best we can get at the present time, and a refusal of one of the methods suggested cannot result in better terms for the great body of our members. You must remember that these are times when prudent men do the best, and get the most they can without running all the risks which always attend a stoppage of the pits when trade is paralysed and men both suffering and disorganised."
Immediately these offers were made known there arose a fierce agitation in the county, and on every hand mass meetings were held protesting against the terms. As is the case in matters of this kind, orators vehement if not polished sprang up from every quarter, whose stock-in-trade consisted of foul epithets which they hurled at the Committee and Federation Board. So desperate was the situation that certain of the Committee were in fear, and came into public view as little as possible. A personal incident may be excused here. A mass meeting was held on the sands in Durham. The writer, as chairman of the Wheatley Hill Lodge, marched to it. The first words heard were: "There's one of the——; let us put him in the river." The crowd surged and rocked. What the consequence might have been it is hard to tell, but just when the feeling ran highest and he was most in danger a man was knocked back over on to a drum which stood end up, and it went off with a loud report, and the cry was: "They are firing guns." In a moment a panic seized the people, and, as is recorded of the battle of Stanhope over the moor hen, "those who ran fastest got soonest out of town." There was a low wall (low on one side, high on the other) over which hundreds fell head foremost, and a good, kind lady who had come from Wheatley Hill to take care of her husband (the man whose presence was the cause of all the hubbub) was carried away by the crowd, and was so rushed along by the panic-stricken stream of humanity that she was with twenty others landed in a stable, the door of which stood invitingly open like a city of refuge. And so the result was the meeting was disturbed, and the culprit, one of the malodorous Committee, was left unhurt, Providence in the shape of a drum being the means of saving him.
Apart from the ludicrous incident of the bursting drum the feeling manifested towards the Committee there was only on a par with that found everywhere throughout the county. If one of those at the head of affairs appeared in the street and passed a group of men insult was rampant—slander, being cowardly, feels safe in a crowd. Still the Committee were not to be driven from their task. They regretted the action of the employers in refusing open arbitration, and who, knowing the condition of the Union, were determined to force their full demand; and they were sorry for the opposition of their members, but they knew they were moved by sheer desperation, and played upon by designing men who cared more for popularity, even if it were fleeting, than the welfare of the Union, and who would not hesitate to bring ruin if perchance small gain would come to them from it.
The Committee prepared for the struggle which they saw was inevitable if the employers did not move from the position they had taken up. Knowing this they set themselves to ascertain the true state of affairs in the county. They took the actual average of the hewers and reductions which at each colliery had been suffered at Joint Committee, or had been forced upon them since March 1877, with the hewing prices. It was found that while there was a nominal minimum wage of 4s. 8½d. where the drawing hours were ten, 4s. 10½d. where the hours were ten and a half, and 5s. 0½d. where the eleven hours prevailed, the actual average of the hewers throughout the entire county was only 4s. 6¾d. It was therefore about 5d. per day or seven per cent. below the theoretical minimum. This is worth considering when we are desirous of establishing it again. It may work in the summer of trade, but not in the winter of depression.