The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-19

London August 1s.-Scores of thou sands of railway employees througout the United Kingdom are on strike tonight and traffic everywhere is badly disor- ganized.
 Lenders of the Amalgamated Society of Railway servants declare 220,O00 men, or nearly half the total of employees of the railways of England, Ireland, Scot land and Wales have answered their call to stop work. Managers of the rail- ways, however, say these figures are greatly exaggerated.
 There is no method by which verifica- ton of either assertion is possible but the fact is apparent that the railway service all over the country is completely demoraltzed. even limited passenger service being possible only with the greatest difficulty. Never before have the ministers of a British government made such earnest efforts to ward off a great labor war; yet tonight they have been unable to stay movement that promises to entail inconvenience, pos sible misery to millions of people.
 London has the appearance of an arm ed camp. for on all sides are to be seen  en cartridges in. their belts while from the dome of St. Pauls the engineers are keeping in communication with the gen. eral staff by photographic signals in the day time and by electric flashes at night
 Undetered by their failure on Thurs day to effect a settlement, the whole of today was spent by Premier Asauith. David yd-George, Chancellor of the exchequer and Sydney Buxton. president of the board of trade. In fruitless con- ferences with the leaders on both sides Mir Asquith is far from well and went into the country Thursday night to re- cuperate but he came in town today to aid in the negotiations.
 Official Statement
 An official statement issued at the home office late today says the strike has developed all over the country and produced a widespread though only par tial dslccation of the railway service.
 According to the best available informa- tion, what jeopardizes the negotiations Is less the obduracy of the strike leaders than the impracticability of the strikers themselves as manifested through their provincial and local secretaries, Negoti- ations will be resumed tomorrow.
 The archbishop of Canterbury has issued a special prayer for cessation of the strike which will be used in the churches tomorrow and Sunday.
 Broadly speaking the strike is rlost eff fective in the north of England, where many towns Are isolated. and in the south of Wales. Tt is partly effective in the midlands, but has not caused trouble in the south of England. On only a few of the Irish railways have the men gone out. The situation in Scotland is uncertain. Edinburgh reports that a general strike has not been declared there, but at Glas- gow the men have postponed, deaidiug whether they will answer the call until Sunday
 On the whole there is much less disorder than had been expected, only sporadic conflicts arising from intimidation by pickets, attacks on trains and signal boxes, the cutting of wires, etc.
 Prices of food so far as London is con cerned, either in the hotels, restaurants or in the stores, show but little change and a resumption of work tomorrow by the dockers in unloading 50 ships waiting to discharge their cargoes will tend to bring the food situation here to about normal. Should the strike continue serious aues- tion will be the milk supply, for which London is wholly dependent on the rail- way service.
 ine Stflke IS InTOWlils idiSc ttiHouHt of ektra work on Londops tramway serv- ice and tonight the tramway men 'lre ic- ported to be complaining. There have been serious fears of strike of 'hese employees. and if it should come it would deprive Londoners of almost their last means of cheap transportation.
 Another grave feature of the situation in London is a threatened strike by he employees of the underground railways. Hundreds of thousands of persons use the tubes to get to and from their business and their stoppage would greatly increase the suffering and demoralisltion caused by the strike on the steam rail ways.
 Underground Traffic Weakened
 Thus far. according to the officials of the underground roads, only 500 of their employees have struck. This is but a small percentage of the men but their detection already has curtailed the service and only a few trains were running tonight The underground strikers held a mass meeting tonight and adopted resolution not to return to work until satisfactory terms have 
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