" Tin-Panning"

Britain's four-month-old "million miner coal strike" entered at last the stage of mob violence as 18,000 miners returned individually to the pits, last week, in defiance of the Miners' Federation.

At once "tin-panning" began. Crowds of strikers, their wives, children surrounded the houses of miners who had returned to work, kept up hour after hour a din upon tin pans, kettles, pails, until the family of the absent "scab" or "blackleg" promised to do their utmost to dissuade him from work. Once the worker returned home, usually besmeared with mud balls and rotten fruit, the tinpanners not only resumed their din but nailed down the windows and tied shut the doors of "blackleg houses."

Such tactics reduced the number of miners who resumed work to a scant 1,000 by the end of the week. No deaths due to mob violence were reported.

Much of last week's "tin-panning" was fomented by Miners' Federation Secretary A. J. ("Emperor") Cook, virile Communist, who motored through "weak" striking areas, stump-speaking almost continuously. On his return to London, Mr. Cook telephoned the Ministry of Labor, urgently requested Government mediation between the miners and owners. Since

Premier Baldwin was taking his annual cure at Aix-les-Bains, Minister of Labor Sir Arthur Ramsay Steel-Maitland hastened from his vacation in Scotland. At the Premier's residence, No. 10 Downing Street, Sir Arthur and Chancellor Churchill of the British Exchequer conferred for an hour and a half with Mr. Cook and President Herbert Smith of the Miners' Federation, arrived at no compromise.

The King-Emperor, apparently convinced that peace was not in sight, summoned Parliament to reassemble long enough to ratify an extension of the Emergency Power Act. The House of Commons under Premier Baldwin's firm hand, complied by a vote of 332 to 91. Laborite J. J. ("Jumping Jack") Jones became so excited that he had to be suspended again.