[After “the defection of the railway men and transport men” from the Triple Alliance on 15 April, the coal-miners were striking anyway. “If we are to avoid such economic disasters in the future, employers must take care that they understand the real position of their industry and the real condition of their workers before they adopt the non possumus attitude,” the Church Times had commented (29 April).]
AT SHOREDITCH on Tuesday an inquest was held touching the death of William Beadle, who four days before had dropped dead at the Kingsland Labour Exchange on being told that there was no unemployment allowance for him. The principal witness, who had been standing next to the dead man in the queue, said very patiently and simply, “It is a long time, sir, to stand in a queue as so many have to do.” (The deceased man had been standing there over an hour and a-half.) “Only that morning I myself saw four men collapse in the queue, and I was informed by those who had been there longer than myself that in all some ten men fell to the ground that morning in an exhausted and fainting condition through the long wait.” Nothing can add to the poignancy of such a story. Yet it is but the chance revelation of suffering which is already vast in extent and is deepening in its intensity. The Board of Trade returns show that our trade in April dropped to half what it was in April of last year; behind the dull figures we know that there are human tragedies. Unemployment allowances are now drawn by more than two and a-half millions, every day sees more and more men and women unemployed, more homes without sufficient fire and food. Because no coal has come to the pitheads for six weeks men and women are dying. The facts sharply challenge the Christian conscience.
The Church Times digital archive is available free to subscribers
