Looming Settlement

The national delegates' conference of the British Coal Miners' Federation virtually acknowledged last week that the six-months-old coal strike (TIME, May 10 et seq.) is a total fizzle, by empowering the Miners' Executive Committee to make peace entirely upon its own responsibility on the best terms to be had.

The Committee pursued its negotiations with Premier Baldwin and a settlement appeared looming on the basis of district agreements between the miners, owners, subject to revision in individual cases by a national coal tribunal under Government auspices. There was every prospect that the miners will have to accept longer hours and lower wages than was their lot before they struck.