Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer – Monday 24 March 1919

Mass Meeting of Miners at Goldthorpe

Mr. Fred Hall, M.P., agent of the Yorkshire Minora’ Association, addressing a mass meeting of miners at Goldthorpe, near Mexborough, yesterday, on the coal crisis, urged the rank and file to be patient, and they were not yet out of the wood.

There had been a postponement, but nobody could tell what the day would bring forth. The decision to postpone drastic action was not actually weakness in the miners, but a proof their desire settle possible without a stoppage. There was kind of impression that the miners had only to ask concessions, and such was their power they got them.

We had remember, however, that the miners were not the whole community; there were other classes of labour, some even worse off than the miners, who would suffer to great extent in the event of strike. These people must have consideration. The miners’ leaders were exorting  themselves to the utmost to gain their rightful demands without stoppage, and the final decision had been delayed merely for the purpose thrashing out arguable points in the Sankey report.