"It appears in response to some application made by some of you the Owners' Committee have agreed that where a majority of deputies on any colliery are not members of ours, they will recommend that such deputies be freed from the recent reduction. Call this offer by what name you will it is neither more nor less than a special kind of bribery held out to you and we regret to hear, that some of you have been imprudent enough to accept it. Why make this difference between those who belong and those who do not belong to our Association? It is not because they respect the one party more than the other, or that the party who have left us are any better workmen or in any way more useful to the owners than those deputies who still belong to our Association. The most unknown amongst you as to your past history, or the most casual observer of present doings, ought to know that the motive which has induced the Owners' Committee to make this offer is not respect for you as a class, is not because they think your responsibilities are increased more than heretofore, neither is it because they think you underpaid, but it is because they want to induce you to sever your connection with an Association which has hitherto been able to gain many advantages for members and for none more than for your class. They offer you an inch now in order that they may take from you a foot hereafter. Most of you can remember the time (only five years ago) when your wages varied from 3s. 4d. to 3s. 8d. per day of eight hours' working, while with the recent reduction of six per cent. your wages are now 4s. 8d. for 7½ hours' working, or an advance in time and money of 39.58 per cent." The circular then draws attention to a portion of a letter from the deputies who had left the miners to those of another colliery, and to the resolution of the Owners' Association. The portion of the deputies' letter said: "If any member of our [the Deputies'] Association leaves and starts to hew, and has to go back to the Hewers' Association, the two pounds' entrance fee will be paid out of the Deputies' Association." The resolution of the Owners read: That this Association thinks that deputies, like overmen, should be the agents of the masters, and that under these circumstances it is imperative that they should not be restricted by any Trades Union resolutions. In relation to these the Committee point out that they (the deputies) could not honestly be members even of the Deputies' Association, for by the stipulation of the employers they were not to be restricted by any Trade Union regulations. "It will thus be seen that if you do this, you sell your birthright, your independence, your manhood, your all, not even for a necessitous 'mess of pottage' but for an insignificant present advantage, in order that you may bring upon yourselves a future permanent and great evil."