ABSTRACT
Arthur Homer was speaking on behalf of the Reorganisation SubCommittee which the MFGB executive appointed in 1937. Its two members, Homer and Sam Watson from Durham, laboured valiantly for two years. In January 1939 the executive abandoned their blueprint for one national union. Their plans had foundered on the opposition from the district unions affiliated to the MFGB. The different, often conflicting, interests of the district unions originated in the nature of the industry. The official historians of the National Coal Board described coalmining on the eve of nationalisation in 1947 as 'an extraordinarily varied industry in which most national generalisations had to be qualified because of the many differences in natural conditions, working practices, social traditions and business organisations'.2
