Britain: They Just Cannot Go On

"They are often good union men who support the campaign, but they say they just cannot go on." So explained Matt Hall, financial secretary of a National Union of Mineworkers local in Ashington, in the north of England, as more than half the country's 186,064 striking colliers went back to work last week. The number of returning miners was the largest since the stoppage began a year ago. On Sunday the N.U.M. leadership made it official: a special conference of union delegates, meeting in London, voted to end the most violent and divisive walkout in Britain since the general strike of 1926.

The strike was sparked by the National Coal Board's plan to "modernize" Britain's coal industry by closing as many as 20 "unprofitable" mines, putting some 20,000 miners out of work. Because none of its demands have been met, the N.U.M. appears to have suffered a humiliating defeat. After Sunday's vote, however, the head of the union's 24-member executive committee, Arthur Scargill, called the strike "a tremendous achievement" and vowed that the union would carry on its struggle against the government's "war of attrition."