Heath Takes His Case to the Voters

Britain this week was a country beset by a crisis on top of a crisis. The nation's 270,000 coal miners walked off the job at the start of the week, and Prime Minister Edward Heath launched a three-week election campaign to fight for his political life. For Britons, the prospect for the lingering weeks of winter was for more sacrifices, as the nation headed toward a divisive election and potentially disastrous coal shortages. While no one was predicting that they would not find the resilience to weather this latest avalanche of troubles, there was no question that the country was plunging into the most fatefully uncertain period in its postwar history.

Stark Choice. The first word that Heath had decided to cut short his five-year term, which expires in June 1975, and seek a vote of confidence was received last week by Queen Elizabeth on the royal yacht Britannia, lying at anchor in Auckland's Waitemata Harbor. The Prime Minister requested Her Majesty to dissolve Parliament and grant permission for a general election to be held Feb. 28. The Queen quickly cabled her ritual assent and returned to her royal tour of New Zealand.

That night, in a television address, Heath pictured the issues confronting Britain as a stark choice between economic survival and the inflationary wage demands of union militants. "The election," he declared, "gives you, the people, the chance to say to the miners and to everyone else who wields similar power, 'Times are hard, we are all in the same boat, and if you sink us now, we will all drown.' "

Much of British industry had already been cut back to a three-day week to conserve fuel before Britain's coal miners began their nationwide strike, which could eventually bring the country to a shattering halt. Coal stocks at power stations (70% of Britain's electricity is generated by coal) are not expected to reach emergency levels for about two months. But the effects on British industry will be swift, and potentially ruinous. Said British Steel Chairman Monty Finniston: "For four to seven weeks you will get a trickle of steel, and then-curtains." The London stock market last week reflected that gloomy prospect when prices plunged to their lowest level in seven years because of what one official called fears of "a catastrophe unparalleled in our postwar industrial history."

Unemployment, said the National Economic Development's Ronald MIntosh, "would be astronomical." The number of workers already unemployed or only partly employed is 2.3 million. The country is now staggering under its greatest trade deficit in history ($5.1 billion). Yet, as steel and other vital products dry up under the impact of the strike, Britain will have to go shopping abroad for even more imports.

The election campaign is likely to be one of the bitterest in postwar Britain. The Tories have made no secret of the fact that they are planning a scare campaign on a "Reds under the bed" ticket, blaming assorted Marxists, militants, Trotskyites and "unpatriotic" union leaders for the country's troubles. Their campaign slogan is "Who Gov erns Britain?"-a hard-lining appeal to the voters to choose between Heath's tough stance and the striking workers. Heath, 57, will also exploit past successes like his handling of Northern Ireland, which resulted in a marked reduction of tensions there, and his early decision to go all out in the potentially highly profitable development of North Sea oil.

Poll Reversal. But Labor, led by former Prime Minister Harold Wilson, 57, has ample ammunition to fire back. The Tory slogan is "a fraud," Wilson railed last week. "The short answer is that for some months now no one has governed Britain." Labor's battle cry will be a "fair society," accompanied by a promise to repeal the hated Industrial Relations Act, which sharply restricts union activities, introduce across-the-board food subsidies and set up a new prices-and-income board under the direct control of Parliament. The party's strongest pitch will be on inflation. Food prices have gone up 18% in the past year, mortgage rates to a record 11%.

When election talk first surfaced last month, Heath deferred his decision for another go-round at a settlement with the miners-and with good reason. British voters are about evenly divided between the country's two major parties, and there was no certainty that Heath's Tories could pull off a victory. The latest Gallup poll last week in fact gave Labor 42%% of the vote to the Tories 39%%. That was a reversal of January's poll, when the Tories led Labor by 40% to 38%. Said the Opinion Research Center's Chairman T.F. Thompson: "Public opinion has never been more volatile than it is at the moment."

Much of that voter uncertainty stems from Heath's inability to solve the three-month-old miners' dispute. From the first, the government's handling of the negotiations with the miners was inept-and last week was no different. After the miners voted overwhelmingly (81%) to strike, -Heath met with the Trades Union Congress, which represents 10 million workers, including the miners, to attempt to resolve the crisis. He promised that if the miners settled, he would appoint a royal commission to hear their grievances. In all likelihood, he added, the commission would recommend an increase, but he could give no assurances that it would be retroactive to the March 1 expiration of the miners' contract.

No Scenario. The meeting ended in failure; the T.U.C. felt that it had been abused, charging that Heath had made an empty offer. Next day the T.U.C. lent its own powerful clout to the miners' walkout: it announced that its members would respect the miners' picket lines. Heath then decided to call for the election, and the National Union of Mineworkers' executive committee, after considering appeals for a postponement, voted to exercise its prerogative to go ahead with the strike this week. As one of Heath's ministers put it: "There was no survival scenario left. We were stuck with an election or what would be regarded in the Tory Party as a humiliating capitulation." From the miners' view, said Union President Joe Gormley, the problem was equally clear-they needed a raise beyond the 7% limit proposed by Heath's Stage III anti-inflation guidelines. "All we need to settle this," he said, "is a cash offer." Inflation alone rose at a rate of 10.6% last year. The miners, moreover, are the lowest paid in Europe. Unskilled surface workers get $55.63 a week, skilled underground workers draw $79.83. With coal more valuable since the boosts in the cost of Arab oil, the union felt miners deserved more too and demanded raises of $17.60 to $28.60 a week.

The government claimed that it was offering a 16% raise-but close examination showed the figure was not quite what it seemed. It actually consisted of an across-the-board 7% raise, or $5.06 to $5.64 weekly pay hikes. The rest of the increase came in the form of compensation for miners who worked overtime ($10.45) and those on permanent night-shift work ($22)-about 5% of the country's miners. The package made no allowances above the standard 7% raise for those miners who do the dirtiest and most dangerous work on the coal face.

Whoever wins the election, the problem of getting the miners back to work will still remain. Wilson has indicated that he would be willing to offer the miners more money and face the inflationary consequences. Heath's hope is that the voters will decisively support his stand and that the miners will bend to such a demonstration of national will.

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