§ The PRIME MINISTERI am dealing here with the Report of the miners' representatives on the Coal Commission, and they did not accept the scheme which Mr. Justice Sankey regarded as the basis of his recommendation. Now I come to my second reason. Since then we have bad the Yorkshire strike. What is the theory of those who say that nationalisation will promote harmony? It is the theory that, while they would ask the worker to strike against the employer who is making profit, he will not strike against the State, which has only the common interest of all to look after. But there was the Yorkshire strike. The Yorkshire strike was a direct strike against the Government.
§ The PRIME MINISTERI know all about that. The Yorkshire strike was a strike because the Government said they would pay only a certain percentage. We were told that if we had left it to be settled between the miners and their employers, it would have been all right.
§ The PRIME MINISTERWell, there you are! I do not require any further explanation.
§ The PRIME MINISTERI am coming to that.
§ Mr. GRUNDYThe Coal Controller came into the Yorkshire strike after a settlement was made.
§ The PRIME MINISTERIt was a strike against the Government, and I thank my hon. Friends for saying so. I am not going into the merits of the question at the present moment. The Government intervened to protect the taxpayer and the consumer. The Yorkshire miners struck against the State. Where 2005 is the promotion of harmony if you have State control and State ownership so long as that is the case? Take another case. There is no doubt at all that the railways at the present moment are run at the expense of the State. The increases in wages and the cost of the diminution in hours come straight from the tax payers pockets. The control is the State. I have not seen the harmony! My right hon. Friend (Mr. Thomas) has given us just as much trouble as my right hon. Friend (Mr. Brace) sitting on the same bench. I cannot distinguish between them—demands for higher wages, demands about hours, and so on. We have had, I think, a few strikes. I do not see the harmony that is to come under State control.
§ Mr. HARTSHORNThose things will happen under private ownership.
§ The PRIME MINISTERI do not say it will be worse under State ownership, but I say it will not be any better. There is an hon. Member sitting on that bench, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Lunn). The hon. Member is under no delusion about this. He made a speech to the Scottish miners.
§ The PRIME MINISTEROh, then the hon. Member is all right. But there was one of the hon. Members for Scotland—[HON. MEMBERS: "Bothwell"]—I think for Lanarkshire. He was speaking at a meeting of the National Union of Scottish Miners. This is what he said, and I ask special attention to it. It is a speech delivered before the question is settled—
If the mines become the property of the nation, the miners would need to be more determined than ever in their policy, and more vigorous in their trade union organisation, be cause, instead of fighting local employers, they would be fighting the Government. Previously the Government had been more or less secretly behind the employers, but nationalisation would bring them out into the open, and the miners would have to organise both politically and industrially to maintain the position in whatever fight they were engaged with the Government.Harmony!
§ Mr. BRACEWill my right hon. Friend be quite fair to the Miners Federation. This is only the opinion of the individual Member.
§ The PRIME MINISTERI am told that he is the political organiser of the Scottish Miners Federation. He was speaking at a miners meeting, as far as I can see with out protest, and this is the interpretation 2006 of someone who is, I believe, a miners' representative. He said, "So far from there being fewer fights, we will have more fights than ever. We shall want more organisation in order to conduct them, because we are fighting a Government."
§ Mr. R. RICHARDSONMay I ask the right hon. Gentleman—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"]—to take notice of some other speeches that have been made on quite different lines, which did indeed point out that harmony would tome through nationalisation.
§ The PRIME MINISTERThat is the sort of speech 1think I should expect to be made at any rate before the nationalisation question was settled, but I thank the hon. Member for his candour. It is quite in keeping with all our experience. In Yorkshire, within the last few weeks, in a fight against the Government by the miners, the whole of the industries of York shire were brought to a standstill. Millions of tons of coal were not put into the market when the world is thirsting for coal—Italy and France, as well as this country.