defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland ; and, in the event of such a Parliament being forced upon us, we further solemnly and mutually pledge ourselves to refuse to recognize its authority. In sure confidence that God will defend the right, we hereto subscribe our names, and, further, we individually declare that we have not already signed this Covenant.
Sir Edward Carson signed first, on Sept. 28, at the head of a great gathering in Belfast. And when, just afterwards, he crossed with Mr. F. E. Smith to Liverpool, he had a remark- able ovation, violent speeches being made by sympathizers with the cause of Ulster, 1 in favour of supporting her resistance by force of arms. It was announced later that the total signatures to the Covenant were: Ulster, men 218,206, women 228,991; Outside Ulster, men 19,162, women 5,055.
Reference must now be interposed to the progress of the industrial unrest in England, culminating during 1912 in the National general strikes of coal-miners and transport workers. Coal strike. For some time past trouble had been brewing in the I9U ' coal industry. In Dec. 1910 a strike had begun at
the Cambrian Combine Collieries (of which Mr. D. A. Thomas, afterwards Lord Rhondda, was managing director), owing to the failure of the two referees (representing owners and men) appointed by the South Wales Conciliation Board to agree upon a tonnage price for the working of a seam at the Ely Pit, which had till then been worked on day-work. The rates offered by the owners were denounced by the strike committee as a "starvation" wage; but the strike was really a forward move on the part of the younger extremists among the men, who had obtained the upper hand and were influenced by socialistic doctrines. A general lockout of the men working in other seams in the Ely Pit was the masters' reply. The Welsh Socialists then sent delegates to enlist sym- pathy among the English and Scottish miners elsewhere, and to try to bring about a general strike; but the leaders of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain were not prepared to sup- port the action of the Ely Pit strike committee, and financial support was withdrawn, so that the strike collapsed.
The Miners' Federation next put a claim before the owners in the federated area for the fixing of definite rates of pay- ment in the case of " abnormal places " where the men were unable to earn an average day's wage for no fault of their own. At the Southport conference of miners' delegates in Oct. 1911 the following resolution, proposed by the executive, was unan- imously passed:
That the federation take immediate steps to secure an individual minimum wage for all men and boys working in mines in the area of the federation, without any reference to the working places being abnormal. In the event of the employers refusing to agree to this, the 2 1st rule to be put into operation to demand assent.
At a second conference on Nov. 14, at which the refusal of the employees to accept the minim'um wage was reported, an adjournment was resolved on (by 336,000 votes to 238,000) for future negotiations; and on Dec. 21, the situation remaining the same, it was resolved that a ballot should be taken on Jan. io-i2 1912 on the question: "Are you in favour of giving notice to establish the principle of a minimum wage for every man and boy working in the mines of Great Britain?"' A reso- lution was also passed " that each district send to Mr. Ashton (general secretary of the Miners' Federation) a tabulated state- ment of what it desires to be its minimum wage, and that the executive committee of the Federation meet to consider the statements and report to a national conference in Birmingham on Jan. 18 1912." The result of the ballot showed 445,801 votes for giving notice, 115,721 against, majority 330,080,
1 It must be remembered, of course, that " Ulster," as an Irish political unit, did not mean the whole province, but only the N.E. portion, comprising the five counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Londonderry and Tyrone, with the cities of Belfast and London- derry. As a geographical unit Ulster had a pop. (1911) of 1,581,696, but the N.E. portion by itself had 1,188,695. Out of the latter total, those of 16 years old and over were 387,241 males and 438,774 females. As the census classification showed that 33-1 % of the pop. in this N.E. area was Roman Catholic, the number of adult male Protestants in Ulster who might be expected to sign the Covenant was not much in excess of those who actually did so.
South Wales alone giving a majority of 85,107 for stopping work. And on Feb. 2 1912 a definite schedule of the minimum rates asked for was approved.
The coal-owners met on Feb. 7, and the Welsh owners then refused to discuss any minimum wage and retired from the conference. This made a strike inevitable, since the miners were not prepared to settle with any but the whole federated area. Notices were given accordingly, the public being faced with a prospect of a complete cessation of coal supplies. The Prime Minister on Feb. 20 invited both sides to meet him to discuss means of averting a national stoppage, and their representatives met him on Feb". 22, but to no purpose; and on Feb. 26 the first miners went on strike at Alfreton, the rest soon following, in spite of the announcement that the principle of a minimum wage was now adopted by the Government and that they would take steps to give it parliamentary sanction unless an agreement were arrived at. On this point a split occurred between the coal- owners, those of Durham and the federated districts being pre- pared to fall in with the proposal of the Government, and the others refusing. On March i over a million coal-miners were out (Yorks. and N. Midlands 235,000; S. Wales 220,000; Scot- land 130,000; Northumberland 120,000; Durham 110,000; Mid- lands and South 105,000; N. Wales 70,000; N. and E. Lanes. 45,000), and during the whole month the country was con- vulsed by the calamity.
At last, after the Government had made a further unsuccess- ful attempt, by a conference, to bring owners and miners to agreement, on March 19 1912 Mr. Asquith intro- duced in the House of Commons a Minimum Wage bill as their last resort. It provided that, in the coal industry, every contract for employment should involve the payment of a minimum rate, to be settled for each district by a joint board set up under the auspices of the Board of Trade. The bill was read a second time on March 21, after a motion for its rejection by Mr. Balfour, on behalf of the Opposi- tion, had been defeated by 348 votes to 225, and it had passed both Houses on March 28. Having made their protest against a piece of revolutionary legislation which introduced so novel and far-reaching a principle into industrial economics, the Unionists left the responsibility to the Government, and the only parliamentary difficulty was caused by the Labour party, who fought for the inclusion of a precise definition of the minimum in the shape of 55. a day for adults and 2s. for boys; as the Government refused this and insisted on the rates be- ing fixed by the district boards, the Labour party opposed the third reading, which, however, was carried by 213 to 48. There was acute dissatisfaction among the miners at the failure of the Labour party to get their own minimum sched- ule of rates adopted, and for a time the result was doubt- ful; but it was decided to take a ballot (April i) on the question of returning to work, and though a majority still voted for staying out (244,011 to 201,013) it was not large enough (two- thirds being required by the rules).
The fact was, the funds were exhausted and the men had had enough of the struggle. The conclusion of Sir A. Markham, the Liberal M.P. and coal-owner, writing in the Quarterly Re- view for April 1912, is probably the verdict of history; he con- sidered that " the ground of attack was ill-chosen; the men should have stood to their original demand, the payment on account of abnormal places or losses due to bad management. If in addition they had asked for an increase of wages equiv- alent to 10% on the basis rates, to meet the increased cost of living, they would have occupied strong ground. The great mass of men came out to obtain higher wages, and for no other reason; and when they voted for the formula 'minimum wage ' nine-tenths did not know what they were voting for." The result, as the year went on and the minimum rates were settled, hot without friction, was a profound disgust among the coal- miners generally with the operation of the new Act, which was found to do very little to increase the amount pnid in wages; but it had done its work for the moment, the crisis being over. In Oct., moreover, an agreement was arrived at between repre-
