The debate in the Commons in the same year over Lord Penrhyn's dispute with his quarrymen found _Punch_ decidedly hostile to the young Tory lions who supported that inflexible peer. When in 1900 the Coal Mining Companies in Fife declared a dividend of 50 per cent., and the price of coal was still rising, _Punch_ castigated the greed of the owners. In 1907 the miners are exempted from any share of the responsibility for the high cost of coal. The triple Cerberus who dominates the situation is made up of the colliery owner, the coal merchant and the railway company. But as the price this joint monster exacted was only 30s. a ton--exorbitant for the time, no doubt--it is hard for this generation to share _Punch's_ sympathy for the consumer. As late as 1912, when the coal crisis again became acute, _Punch_, though resenting the increased resort to the strike weapon, represents the merchant profiteer as in clover while Britannia is the victim of his avarice. [Sidenote: _Underpaid Women Workers_] On behalf of _unorganized_ labour, when it was unfairly exploited by the employer, _Punch_ continued to lift up his voice in the old strain. In 1893 the hard case of the shopgirls, slave-driven by exacting masters, always standing, too tired at the end of the week to profit by Sunday, prompts him to a plea for a true Day of Rest. The verses, like the "Cry of the City Clerk," are vitiated by their sentimentality. There is more vigour in the lines "'Arriet on Labour" in the same year, which show that the new type of woman was not confined to the upper classes. 'Arriet is a workgirl who works hard, loves her freedom and nights off, has no respect for spouting Labour candidates, and no envy of married drudges:-- Labour? Well, yus, the best of hus must work; yer carn't git quit of it; And you and me, Poll, like the rest, must do our little bit of it. But oh, I loves my _freedom_, Poll, my hevenings hoff is 'eaven; But wives and slavies ain't allowed even one day in seven. Jigger the men! Sam spouts and shouts about the 'Onest Worker. That always means a Man, of course--_he's a smart Man, the shirker. But when a Man lives upon his wife, and skulks around his diggings, Who is the "'Onest Worker" then? Yours truly,_ 'ARRIET 'IGGINGS.