(iii) _District Coal Boards._--Sir Arthur Duckham's scheme of statutory companies known as District Coal Boards requires consideration. Without necessarily adopting his districts or his uniformity of type throughout the country, there are many areas where it might be found that voluntary amalgamation was impracticable, and that the desired result could only be attained by an Act of Parliament providing for the compulsory amalgamation of persons and companies working a specified area and the issue of shares in the new corporation in exchange for the previous holdings. (iv) _Public Authorities._--I should very much like to see, sooner or later, in some area, a lessee in the form of an organisation which, though not national--not the State--should be at any rate public--something on the lines of the Port of London Authority. It may well be that in one or more of our coalfields a public authority of this type, though with larger labour representation upon it and with a large measure of joint control from top to bottom, would be a suitable lessee of the minerals in that area. The important point is that public management need not mean bureaucratic State-management with the disadvantages popularly associated with it. (v) I have mentioned several types of possible lessees, but it will be noticed that there is nothing in these suggestions which would prevent the National Mining Board from making the experiment of working a few mines themselves. To sum up. There _is_ a problem of the Mines. No sensible person should be deceived by the quiescence of the last twelve abnormal months. Without using extravagant language, the coal-mining industry is a volcano liable at any moment to erupt and involve the whole community in loss and suffering. Therefore, as a body of citizens, we are under a duty to seek a solution which can be effected between the occurrence of the recurring crises. As a body of Liberal citizens we shall naturally seek a Liberal solution, and the foregoing suggestions (for which no originality is claimed) are inspired by the Liberal point of view. They apply to the industrial sphere principles which have been tried and proved in the political sphere, both in the central and the local government. Apart from State acquisition of the minerals, about which there can surely be no question, these suggestions merely develop tendencies and organisations already existing within the industry. They involve no leap in the dark, such as has been attributed by some to nationalisation of the whole industry, and they provide for great flexibility and experimentation. The fact that the official spokesmen of neither miners nor colliery-owners may like them need not deter us. They have had numerous opportunities of settling the problem amongst themselves, but the "die-hards" in both camps have always prevented it. It is time that the general public outside the industry took the matter in hand and propounded a solution likely to be acceptable to the vast