London Evening Advertiser
- Strikers Reject Baldwin's Offer
- Mourn Death of Ex-Ald. Wm. Gerry
- Royal Property Pact Is Signed
The London Evening Advertiser of 7 October 1926 led this reading with a cable from London, England: a Miners' Federation delegate conference, having rejected the government's latest offer to end the coal stoppage, voted 594,000 to 194,000 on a South Wales motion to pull safety men out of the pits, which the paper treated as a direct answer to a government ultimatum. It also mourned William Gerry, a pioneer mill operator and alderman for seventeen years who died at his Craig Street home in his 85th year; the column then runs into farmers' complaints that one Toronto firm controlled the cattle export trade and a note on Ontario cattle winning prizes at Detroit. From Berlin it reported that the Prussian cabinet and the Hohenzollerns had signed a compromise on the former royal family's property claims, with most parties expected to support or at least not oppose ratification.
This is a partial reading of three articles transcribed from page images because the OCR is heavily garbled. In the miners' report the second vote figure is hard to read (its leading digit is unclear), and the '[?]' stands where the transcription could not read the text between the two numbers. The Gerry obituary as transcribed runs into unrelated items from an adjacent column (Toronto cattle-trade complaints and a Detroit prize headline). As printed, the obituary gives an 1855 marriage date that cannot be squared with the stated 1841 birth and 27 years spent in England. The World Series scoreboard, text cut off at tile edges and a torn lower section are not covered. The commentary does not address William Gerry or London, Ontario, because the fetched background page on London contained no text.
Translation
STRIKERS REJECT BALDWIN’S OFFER
Then Vote to Withdraw Maintenance Men. VOTE IN BOTH CASES OVERWHELMING WHEN ACTION IS BACKED BY 594,000
London, Oct. 7. — A delegate conference of the Miners' Federation today adopted a resolution presented by South Wales delegates to withdraw the safety men from the coal mines. The vote was 594,000 to 194,000. The delegates had previously rejected the Government's latest proposal to settle the long drawn out coal strike by a district vote of 737,000 [?] 12,000. Announcement of today's vote was a definite answer to the ultimatum issued by the Government yesterday in which it was stated that the Government offer would be withdrawn immediately unless it were accepted by the miners.
MOURN DEATH OF EX-ALD. WM. GERRY
Member of Council For Seventeen Years — Always Took Active Part.
William Gerry, pioneer mill operator, and for many years prominent in London's civic life, passed away at his late residence, 41 Craig street, this morning. Mr. Gerry was in his 85th year. Up to last spring he had enjoyed splendid health, but during the last few months suffered failing health, which took a serious turn three days ago. Born in Devonshire on Nov. 27, 1841, Mr. Gerry spent the first 27 years of his life in England. He then left for Canada and came direct to London. It was at Delaware he met Miss Fannie Baker, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Baker, who two years later, in 1855, became his wife, and who survives him.
Farmers state that one large firm in Toronto, a branch of a New York house, practically controls the export trade of Canadian cattle. At the present time there is a drug of beef cattle on the Toronto market, and the price is down from the normal price at this time of the year. This leads to the reason advanced by many of the farmers that the combine exists.
CANADIANS WIN PRIZES AT DETROIT
Ontario Cattle Carry Off More Prizes Than Any State in Union.
ROYAL PROPERTY PACT IS SIGNED
Prussian Cabinet and Hohenzollerns Reach Agreement On Former Holdings.
Berlin, Oct. 7 — The compromise agreement of the Prussian Government with the Hohenzollerns for a settlement of the claims of the former rulers for lands and properties seized has been signed by both the Prussian cabinet and the legal representatives of the Hohenzollerns. The agreement will be presented for ratification to the Prussian council of state and then to the diet. Party caucuses indicated that the Democrats, Centrists and People's Party will support the measure actively; that the German Nationalists and Socialists will not oppose it, the Nationalists voting acceptance and the Socialists possibly abstaining from voting.
Context
How the coal dispute reached the October vote
The Miners' Federation vote reported from London came after five months of deadlock that followed the General Strike. A University of Warwick archive timeline records that on 14 May 1926 Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin sent the miners and coalowners proposals less favourable to the miners than the Samuel memorandum, and that the Miners' Delegate Conference rejected them on 20 May. On 5 July the coalowners posted new terms of employment based on an eight-hour day; on 19 August talks with the owners broke down because they would accept only unconditional surrender; and on 26 August ministers, Winston Churchill among them, told the miners' representatives there would be no further subsidy for the coal industry. The 'latest proposal' and the ultimatum the paper describes in October belong to this sequence of hardening positions. The timeline does not list the October offer or the vote on safety men, so the 594,000-to-194,000 figure and the rejection margin rest on the paper's cable report alone.
How the lockout ended after the safety-men resolution
The paper presented the withdrawal of safety men as a defiant reply to the government, but the miners' resistance did not last long afterwards. The Warwick timeline records that between 27 and 30 November 1926, roughly seven weeks after this report, the miners returned to work on lower pay and longer hours, an outcome the archive calls a total defeat. The bitterness carried into 1927: at a conference of trade union executives in January 1927, the Trades Union Congress blamed the miners for not accepting the Samuel memorandum, the same benchmark against which Baldwin's May proposals had been judged less favourable.
Prussia's long bargaining with the Hohenzollerns
The pact signed in Berlin ended years of failed attempts. According to Wikipedia's account of the expropriation dispute, Prussia's first attempt to reach agreement with the House of Hohenzollern failed in 1920 against Social Democratic resistance in the Prussian parliament, and a second failed in 1924 because the Hohenzollerns themselves objected. A draft put forward by the Prussian finance ministry in October 1925 was heavily criticized because it would have returned about three-quarters of the disputed real estate to the princely house, and it was opposed not only by the SPD but also by the DDP, which turned against its own finance minister, Hermann Hoepker-Aschoff. The stakes were large across Germany: the former royal houses' demands totalled 2.6 billion marks. Against that background, the paper's report that the Democrats would now actively support the compromise and that the Socialists might merely abstain shows how far the parties' positions had moved by October 1926, as the paper reported them.
The failed June 1926 referendum and the turn to separate settlements
Months before this pact, Germans had voted on taking the princes' property without compensation. The petition, started by the Communists and joined with some reluctance by the Social Democrats, drew 12.5 million signatures out of 39.4 million eligible voters in March 1926. On 15 March President Hindenburg added a hurdle by treating the expropriation as something the constitution did not permit, so the measure needed the support of half of all eligible voters, about 20 million people. In the referendum of 20 June 1926 a large majority of those voting said yes, but turnout of 39% was too low for the proposal to become law. Expropriation without compensation was then replaced by individual compensation agreements dividing the estates between the states and the former ruling families. The Prussian–Hohenzollern compromise reported here is Prussia's agreement of that kind, and the Socialists' possible abstention, as the paper forecast it, came from a party that had backed the referendum only months earlier.
Original
STRIKERS REJECT BALDWIN’S OFFER
Then Vote to Withdraw Maintenance Men. VOTE IN BOTH CASES OVERWHELMING WHEN ACTION IS BACKED BY 594, 000 London, Oct. 7. - A delegate conference of the Miners ' Federation today adopted a resolution presented by South Wales delegates to withdraw the safety men from the coal mines. The vote was 594, 000 to 194, 000. The delegates had previously rejected the Government's latest proposal to settle the long drawn out coal strike by a district vote of 737, 000 [?] 12, 000. Announcement of today's vote was a definite answer to the ultimatum issued by the Government yesterday in which it was stated that the Government offer would be withdrawn immediately unless it were accepted by the miners.
MOURN DEATH OF EX-ALD. WM. GERRY
Member of Council For Seventeen Years-Always Took Active Part. William Gerry, pioneer mill operator, and for many years prominent in London's civic life, passed away at his late residence, 41 Craig street, this morning. Mr. Gerry was in his 85th year. Up to last spring he had enjoyed splendid health, but during the last few months suffered failing health, which took a serious turn three days ago. Born in Devonshire on Nov. 27, 1841, Mr. Gerry spent the first 27 years of his lfe in England. He then left for Canada and came direct to London. It was at Delaware he met Miss Fannie Baker, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Baker, who two years later, in 1855, became his wife, and who survives him. Farmers state that one large firm in Toronto, a branch of a New York house, practically controls the export trade of Canadian cattle. At the present time there is a drug of beef cattle on the Toronto market, and the price is down from the normal price at this time of the year. This leads to the reason advanced by many of the farmers that the combine exists. CANADIANS WIN PRIZES AT DETROIT Ontario Cattle Carry Off More Prizes Than Any State in Union.
ROYAL PROPERTY PACT IS SIGNED
Prussian Cabinet and Hohenzollerns Reach Agreement On Former Holdings. Berlin, Oct. 7-The compromise agreement of the Prussian Government with the Hohenzollerns for a settlement of the claims of the former rulers for lands and properties seized has been signed by both the Prussian cabinet and the legal representatives of the Hohenzollerns. The agreement will be presented for ratification to the Prussian council of state and then to the diet. Party caucuses indicated that the Democrats, Centrists and People's Party will support the measure actively; that the German Nationalists and Socialists will not oppose it, the Nationalists voting acceptance and the Socialists possibly abstaining from voting.
Source: Holding institution