The men on the Clyde had no sooner gone back to work, reluctantly and sullen after a "compromise" settlement, when the dockers of Manchester, Birkenhead and Liverpool struck on the overtime issue. Lord Kitchener, while reviewing troops in the district, formally notified the Dock Laborers’ Union that if they "did not do all in their power to help carry the war to a successful conclusion," he would have to "consider what steps would be necessary" to hammer patriotism into their souls. "K.’s" unambiguous language signally failed to impress the dockers. They remained on strike. A deputation of shipbuilding and shipowning firms now waited on Lloyd-George. They told him that drink, more truly the curse of the British working classes than of any other in the world, was at the bottom of the rebellious, lazy spirit of the men. They urged prohibition for the period of the war. The deputation declared that eighty per cent. of avoidable loss of time could be ascribed to drink. Lloyd-George sympathized with that view. "We are, plainly," he said, "fighting Germany, Austria and drink, and as far as I can see, the greatest of these three deadly foes is drink." Now the miners became restless. They demanded a revision of the wage scale in accordance with the mine-owners’ notoriously swollen war profits. Their Federation decided that notice should be given on April 1st to terminate all existing agreements at the end of June. There were hints that the miners intended pressing not only for a "war bonus," but for an advance of twenty per cent. on current wages. From the pits of South Wales comes the coal which is the navy’s black breath of life. A week’s idleness meant one million tons unproduced. The Government summoned the Miners’ Federation for conference. Coal prices were already soaring. Here and there there was a shortage of supply. Germany was jubilant. Labor’s temper in the Clyde country, the docker districts and in the colliery regions was far from improved by Lloyd-George’s support of the suggestion that drink was the root of the industrial evil. The Chancellor of the Exchequer essayed to play a trump card. He announced that King George, "deeply concerned over a state of affairs which must inevitably result in the prolongation of the horrors and burdens of this terrible war," was himself prepared to set an august example to Labor by giving up all alcoholic liquor, "so that no difference should be made as far as His Majesty is concerned between the treatment of rich and poor in this question." Working-class Britain committed wholesale _lèse-majesté_ by paying no attention to the King’s decree of self-denial.