ABSTRACT
Adamson, it should be added, had, after six years in Parliament, blossomed into Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party when all usable men, not out of the running as “pacifists”, had been invited to take office. The resulting Inquiry, under the Chairmanship of Mr. Justice Sankey, is one of the most curious in British official records for, as the pitmen had postponed their strike till March 22nd, they eventually succeeded in getting vital proceedings, only begun on March 3rd, terminated by March 17th. And the Sankey Inquiry, if unique for the haste enforced under miners’ ultimatum, must also be unique in the fact that the members nominated to the Commission by the Miners’ Federation had almost more to say than all the witnesses. Ultimately, despite the dangers of delay, Asquith waited until the beginning of 1920, when the Paisley Liberal Association determined to invite him to fill the place left vacant by the death of one of the thirty.
