Church coal initiative 'welcomed

by Jack O'Sullivan WITH THE MINERS' strike still holding solid in Wales this week, the National Coal Board has given a guarded welcome to proposals from Welsh Churchmen for the setting up of an independent review body for the coal industry.
But the national Union of Mineworkers has endorsed the proposals, contained in a letter to Mrs Thatcher, signed by all nine members of the Council of Churches for Wales and Archbishop John Ward of Cardiff.
The letter to the Prime Minister, which contained warnings as to the seriousness of the consequences of the strike which "may last for generations", called on her to initiate the setting up of an "independent review body", composed of representatives of the NUM, the NCB, the Government and the public.
This would look at the coal industry "in the context of a long-term energy policy, which is not subject to the vagaries of an undisciplined free market system". The Church leaders stressed the importance of "the
needs of the receiving and producing communities" and the urgency of acting quickly.
The letter was sent to Mrs Thatcher on December 20, and although Church leaders have received an acknowledgement they have yet to be given a reply.
On Tuesday, four Church ministers, including Dr Neil Davies, General Secretary of the Council of Churches for Wales, met the NCB's South Wales coalfield area director, Mr Philip Weekes to discuss the proposals.
Emerging after an hour and a half of talks, the NCB chief said he "welcomed any attempt to heal divisions in communities" but emphasised that "the focus of initiative must come from a national level."
Privately, coal board officials were sceptical that any real progress could be made. They said that discussions about longterm energy policy would not solve the strike, which required discussion and compromise on very specific issues.
Meanwhile, on the same day in Pontyfridd, the area executive of the South Wales NUM unanimously endorsed the Churches' peace formula and mandated the area president Mr Emlyn Williams to take the resolution to the union's national executive in Sheffield for approval.
The initiative by the ten Church leaders came as a result of discussions held by Welsh Church leaders with the leadership of the NUM and the NCB on November 19. As a result of that meeting, "there was agreement that there were fundamental issues which were beyond the scope" of the NUM and the NCB, remarked the signatories in their letter to Mrs Thatcher.
The Church has become increasingly involved over the past few months in encouraging fresh negotiations between the estranged parties. In November Archbishop Derek Worlock of Liverpool joined three other Christian leaders in discussions with miners' leaders.
Later Archbishop Ward, the son of a miner, made an impassioned plea for the valley communities of South Wales "threatened" by pit closures.
• Meanwhile Archbishop Worlock has revealed that donations to the TUC Miners' Hardship Fund are approaching L750,000. The fund, of which Archbishop Worlock became a trustee in November, is, he stressed in reply to a donor, "clearly earmarked for the relief of hardship to families in coalmining communities and in no sense directed towards the official fighting funds of the NUM".