At this time a question arose which evoked great feeling in the Thornley district in particular, and throughout the county in general. This was the refusal by Mr Cooper, the manager at Thornley, to bind Mr A. Cairns, the Secretary of the Association, who was checkweighman, and Mr J. Jackson, one of the Executive Committee. At that time, it should be remembered, a man to be a checkweighman must be, and remain, a workman on the colliery, and therefore be "bound" as all other men were. The situation is interesting for two points--first, because it was productive of some very strong letter writing by Mr Crawford in defence of the two men; and second, because it is the first recorded instance of an offer from the men to apply arbitration as a means of settling disputes between employers and workmen under this Association. The offer was contained in a resolution passed at a special Council held in the Market Hotel, Durham, on 8th April. The following is a portion of the resolution:-- "This meeting strongly urges on the Thornley workmen the propriety of offering to submit the whole case to arbitration, the members of the Board chosen to be composed of an equal number from both sides; the arbitrators to elect an umpire whose decision shall be final." I quote two sentences from one of Mr Crawford's letters: "The entire transactions both on the part of the masters, and these perfidious hirelings [certain blacklegs] is contemptible in the extreme, clearly showing to working men that where they have not, by combination, the power to protect themselves they will only be endured so long as they are passive slaves in the hands of grasping greediness. Men need to arise, and by an active concentration of organised power frustrate that intolerance so rampant among them, an intolerance diametrically opposed to the spirit of the age, and one that will not hesitate to build its own advancement on the spoliation and desolation, and if necessary the damnation, of myriads of immortal beings." OUR FIRST GALA