ABSTRACT
The Act which the miners had rejected did little more than lay down in legal terms the principle of the individual minimum wage and establish machinery for subsequent settlement. The ballot papers in the vote for or against continuance of the national strike had to be in the hands of Tom Richards by Tuesday, April 2nd. After the instruction to return to work had been given by a national conference in London on April 6th, a considerable number of pits remained idle in South Wales, due to the enginemen’s strike. When by mid-July all the awards under the Act had been made the time was ripe for the Prime Minister to meet the twenty miners’ representatives. The climax of the great strike had been reached and passed. The overwhelming defeat of reorganisation was a very great disappointment to those inside the Federation who had been urging it for several years.
