Manifesto by the Cambrian Combine Workmen

To our Fellow-workers in the Mines of South Wales.

Cardiff Conference on Saturday next, May 27th, 1911.

COMRADES
We issue this Manifesto in the form of an Appeal: but it will probably be a bitter appeal, because it issues from sore hearts.

On Saturday next, you will be expected to send a Delegate from every Lodge in the Coalfield to the Conference at Cardiff. You will further be asked to authorise your Delegate to vote at that Conference in favour of recommending the Cambrian Workmen to accept the proffered terms.

Fellow-workers, for our sakes, for your own sakes, for the sakes of all those who are dear to you, we ask you NOT TO DO THIS, and we will try to give you SOME REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT.

We confidently hope that when you have considered the matter, you will agree with us that THE TERMS OFFERED ARE WORSE THAN DEFEAT. Remember, that we have fought a hard fight against tremendous odds, and we would like to impress upon you that THE METHOD OF FIGHTING WAS NOT OF OUR SEEKING. You decided that for us, for by your ballot vote you told us that MID-RHONDDA WAS TO BE THE COCKPIT OF THE FIGHT. We accepted the position with misgivings, but manfully entered on the fight, and we think you will give us the credit for having fought well, and we are not beaten - far from it! With your assistance (and we ask you to look at the position fairly and dispassionately), we will not only win out, but win something substantial for you as well.

We have been deliberately and FOULLY MISREPRESENTED by a large section of the public Press. We have been BLUDGEONED BY THE POLICE. ONE OF OUR COMRADES LOST HIS LIFE in contending with the police. TWO COMRADES, in the stress of the struggle through illness and privation, COMMITTED SUICIDE. Many of our fellows have suffered IMPRISONMENT. Some are now in prison who have foully had their liberty sworn away, and are as innocent of any crime as any reader of this Appeal. If we could only tabulate even a part of the SUFFERING AND MISERY ENDURED BY OUR WOMEN AND CHILDREN, we feel sure that you will agree with us that the fight has gone too far and the suffering too great, that we should now be handed over to the mercy of the D. A. Thomas Combine.

We ask you to say, friends, that the time has arrived when the surrender policy of our apologetic leaders must stop. They have not realised what it means to us in suffering. We know what questionable use Mr. F.L. Davis and other employers have made of the fact that Mabon and Mr. D. Watts Morgan recommended the terms rather than face the rigours of winter. But this is no excuse for the childlike way that Mabon and Mr. Tom Richards have allowed Mr. Llewelyn (th [sic.] General Manager of the Combine) for the SECOND TIME TO FOOL THEM SO PALPABLY. It is reported that Mr. Llewelyn seemed to be the happiest man of the group on the evening of May 15th, when the proposed Settlement was arrived at. This might well be so. Under this agreement he will get his full pound of flesh; but we, after all our suffering, get ABSOLUTELY NO SECURITY.

We, at some of the Cambrian Pits, know something of the working of these precious Boards. At Clydach Vale in 1901, after a five and a half months' Strike, a Conciliation Board was formed for the Cambrian alone, with the late Judge Owen as Independent Chairman. The working of that Board was the worst thing the Clydach Vale men ever knew. Under it the WORKING CONDITIONS WERE WHITTLED DOWN WITH A VENGEANCE. Mabon and Mr. Tom Richards knew all about this, yet seemed to have conveniently forgotten the matter in the present negotiations. It was this Board that made the reputation of Mr. Leonard W. Llewelyn, and laid the foundation of the present Combine. From 1901 to March, 1905, the conditions of these men became SO EVIL and the men SO DISORGANISED, that the pits were NOT EXAMINED BY THE WORKMEN in their own interests for some 18 months prior to the explosion that occurred in the No. 1 Pit in March, 1905. We have a bitter experience of these tying-up Boards.

The terms now offered have been twice rejected; once through a ballot, now they are again offered with A MOST OBJECTIONABLE ADDITION to them.

We ask you, fellow-workmen, to note that the Executive Council are evenly divided on the question of recommending these terms. 11 voted for the terms, 7 against: and 4 LEFT THE ROOM rather than take part in the recommendation.

When the Executive decided to confine the fight to the Combine area, Mr. D. A. Thomas said that this put him and his company on velvet. In these negotiations Mr. Llewelyn has undoubtedly had our leaders on toast. The employers (represented by four of the keenest men in the country, in the persons of Messrs Davis, Griffiths, Heppel, and Dalxiel) felt it incumbent upon them to call in for consultation Messrs Callaghan, Pullin, and Llewelyn. But our benighted Representatives thought they were more than a match for the seven, hence the present debacle.

We ask you, fellow-workmen, to examine the present terms offered. You will find there is absolutely no bottom to these SPOOF ASSURANCES. See Clause 3 of Agreement, and you will find that the Independent Chairman HAS ABSOLUTELY NO TANGIBLE BASIS to work upon. Mr. F. L. Davis is very anxious that nothing shall enter into the Cambrian Settlement that will imperil the Conciliation Board. Small wonder! The present agreement under the Board is admittedly 15 per cent worse than the worst Sliding Scale we ever had.

We know something, too, of the difficulties of the rest of the Coalfield. We have a shrewd idea of what Mr. D. A. Thomas meant when he said, "He would readily give an undertaking to supplement low wages by allowance as is customary throughout the Coalfield"! We know also that your position has not been better, but rather worse, since we've been out. We know that you find our levies burdensome. But are you willing to have paid all these levies for less than nothing, that we should be worse off and you no better? Would you not far rather that we should win out and you also to get an assured wage when you've worked for it?

Well! fellow-workmen, there is A SURE AND A CERTAIN WAY, and that is not by voting us back to work and STARVATION AND EVERY INDIGNITY, as was and is unfortunately the lot of the Aberdare men through no fault of theirs, because we know they fought valiantly.

For your manhood's sake, DO NOT SEEK TO AVOID YOUR LEVIES BY THIS METHOD. See rather that you send a mandate to Cardiff, not to hound us back against our will, but with a solid mandate that SOUTH WALES SHOULD GO UNITEDLY TO THE CONFERENCE OF JUNE 14th AT LONDON, AND DEMAND THAT NATIONAL ACTION be taken on the resolution now before that Conference, for an 8s. Minimum for all Colliers and 5s. for all unskilled labourers below that point. By these means, and these only, can you save us, save the Aberdare men, and save yourselves.

If you send us back, then the national minimum wage may be shelved for years. But if, on the other hand (as we ask you in all sincerity), you do not send us back, then the Federation must take national action for the 8s. minimum for Wales, England, and Scotland, or they must put up the shutters. A Federation that cannot or will not protect us is not worth supporting.

Finally, avail yourselves of this opportunity on Saturday next at Cardiff, or it may be many years before we again get such a golden opportunity.

Yours on behalf of the Cambrian Combine Workmen,

WM. JOHN.
N.REES.
N.HARCOMBE.
J. IVINS.
J. HOPLA.
T. SMITH.


[Evans & Short, Printers, &c, Tonypandy.]