bill. This means that
everyone is trying to do less work and get more money for it, a very
natural ambition which nobody can blame the miners from sharing. I
suppose that if they all stopped mining and we had to depend for
warmth on wrapping ourselves up in moleskins, the molliers, or
whatever they are called, would strike for a two-shillings rise as
well.

The worst of it is that under-production, say the economists again
(there is no keeping anything from these smart lads), sends prices up.
Obviously then there is only one thing to do: we must take advantage
of the prevailing passion and make mining (and other industries too
for that matter) a form of sport. The daily papers should find very
little difficulty in doing this.

WHO HEWS HARDEST?
CLAIM BY A LANARKSHIRE COLLIER

would do very well for the headings of a preliminary article; and
the claim of the Lanarkshire collier would, I am sure, be instantly
challenged. After a few letters we might have a suggestion, say from
Wales, that no team of eleven miners could hew so hard and so much
as a Welsh one. And from that it would be only a short step to the
formation of district league competitions and an international
championship. Or the old-time system under which cricketers were
matched for a stake by sporting patrons might be revived, and we
should have headlines in the evening Press after this fashion:--

HUGE HEWING CONTEST.
NOTTS FOREST v. NEWCASTLE UNITED.
TREMENDOUS WAGER BETWEEN
THE DUKES OF PORTLAND AND
NORTHUMBERLAND

and all the glades of Sherwood and the banks where the wild Tyne flows
would be glad.

It will be objected, of course, that the hewing of coal is not a
spectacular affair. You cannot pack sixty thousand spectators into a
mine to watch a hewing match, and even if you could the lighting is
bad; but that is just where the skill of the reporters would come in.
After all, we do not most of us see the races on which we bet, nor
the Golf Championship, nor even BECKETT and WELLS. But there would be
articles on the correct swing whilst hewing, and the proper stance,
and how far the toes should be turned in; the chances of every team
would be discussed; the current odds would be quoted, and, whoever
won, the consumer would score, whilst the strongest hewers would
become popular heroes and be photographed on the back-page standing
beside their hews.

I admit that the South of England and London in particular would have
very lit