First Tramp. "In this bit o' noospaper it says: 'The 'ole cause of the world's present disorder is the universal spirit of unrest. I wonder if that's true?"
Second Tramp. "I ain't noticed it."
THE COAL CUP.
It seems to me that we all take a great deal of interest in the miners when they strike, but not nearly enough when they hew. And yet this business of hacking large lumps of fuel out of a hole, since civilisation really depends on it, ought to be represented to us from day to day as the beautiful and thrilling thing that it really is. Yet if we put aside for a moment Mr. Smillie's present demands, we find the main topics of discussion in the daily Press as I write are roughly these:—
- (1) The prospects of League Football and the Cup Ties.
- (2) Ireland.
- (3) The prevalence of deafness amongst blue-eyed cats.
- (4) Mesopotamia.
- (5) The Fall of Man.
- (6) The sale of The Daily Mail, whose circulation during the coming winter is for some reason or other supposed to be almost as important to the children of England as their own.
Of all these topics the first is, of course, by far the most absorbing, and almost everyone has remarked how the love of sport, for which Britons are famous, is growing more passionate than ever. It is not only cricket and football, of course; only the other day there was a shilling sweepstake on the St. Leger in our office and, from what I hear of the form of Westmorland in the County Croquet Championship during the past season—but I have no time to discuss these things now.
The point is that, whilst this excitement over games grows greater and greater, the country is suffering, say the economists, from under-production and the inflation of the wage-bill. This means that everyone is trying to do less work and get more money for it, a very natural ambition which nobody can blame the miners from sharing. I suppose that if they all stopped mining and we had to depend for warmth on wrapping ourselves up in moleskins, the molliers, or whatever they are called, would strike for a two-shillings rise as well.
The worst of it is that under-production, say the economists again (there is no keeping anything from these smart lads), sends prices up. Obviously then there is only one thing to do: we must take advantage of the prevailing passion and make mining (and other industries too for that matter) a form of sport. The daily papers should find very little difficulty in doing this.