The Shropshire Examiner and all round the Wrekin advertiser. — 1874-08-22 (Wenlock, Shropshire, England)

THE PRESIDENT, THE DRAGON, AND  THE EDITOR.  Mr. Thomas Halliday, the President of the Amalgamated Association of Miners, is no ordinary man; he has been before the public and the mining world for some years, and he has, by dint of hard fighting, kept a position which has been assailed by foes from within and foes from without, by political sects and combinations of capital, by masters anxious for his downfall, and camp traitors jealous of his success—a position which would be untenable by any ordinary man, but a position which " Tom " has rendered into as stubborn and unyielding a breastwork as Gibraltar itself. But all his tact and all his eloquence were needed in Wales on Saturday and Monday last, at Merthyr and Llantwit, and gallantly did the miners' St. George set his face and sis steel to the new Dragon that was threatening the existence of the Amalgamated Association in Wales. The Red Dragon Union is an attempt on the part of unprincipled and jealously-disposed men to establish something that will be of no practical use to the miners of Wales, but which will, in their eyes, have this advantage about it, that it will raise them into temporary power and notoriety. If we were disposed to reason with these seceding traitors, who have eaten the loaves and fishes, provided by the Amalgamated Association, and having picked the bones and gbt out the marrow, are now clamorous for more, if we wished to advise them we should tell them that the formation of their union would be the worst thing that could happen to them, because the existence of such a union would be crushed out with the first strike, and th,y are forming a union in a time of war instead of in a time of peace; or if we wished to injure them we should tell them to form the union, to trot out their Red Dragon, and should look with apathy on the mauling they would get from the claws of the monster to which they desire to give birth. But we have another task to do, and that is to warn men against hearing the voice of the charmers who would delude them into leaving a recognised, a valuable, and a successful union to join one in which no more dependence can be placed than in any of the schemes of Utopian government. Nay, we need not even do that, for has not Mr. Halliday &me that for us ? Let our readers turn to his speechs at Merthyr and Llantwit, and see for themselves what trust to place in any union so devoid of meaning, so ill-advised, so badly led, so suicidal in policy, and so utterly selfish in meaning. It needs nothing but the commonest of judgments to discriminate between the Amalgamated Association of Miners and the Red Dragon Union of Wales. If there be men in the background superior to Halliday and Kane let us see those men. If they be better able to conduct the Welsh coal and iron miners thiough their difficulties, why are they not pushed to the front ? Who are they ? Let them come forward and show us what they can do, and if we be satisfied that they, and they only, are the men for the present crisis, we will be the first to request Messrs. Halliday and Kane to retire, and give place to better men. But what do we learn from Mr. Halliday's speech? Why, that the very man who is endeavouring to found this Red Dragon Union is a man who, during the South Wales troubles refused to pay his union levy, was expelled from his lodge and was refused admittance into any other. Should not this be enough to show reasoning working men the utter fallacy of listening to the ravings of a fellow like this? We are almost sorry that we are wasting time and ink over such a man, but we have our duty to perform, and whether it be the smiting of a Dragon or the crushing of a viper we must and will go through with it.  Mr. Halliday had another enemy to contend with n Wales, and that enemy he attacked sith all the :Ave and energy of which he was capable. The  South TVales Daily News, the so-called Liberal i organ of South Wales, falls foul of Mr. Halliday, and the Western Mail together. The Western Mail is a Conservative paper published in South Wales 1 under very spirited and enterprising management; throughout the whole of the '73 struggle in Wales it acted in tile most honourable manner ' between master and man. It stood fairly between the combatants, and advised or blamed each party as they needed it. To its healthy influence we must in a great measure attribute the termination of that disastrous strike, and we have the best opinion both of its opinions and its great utility both to masters and men. Yet because this honest and straightforward course has been taken, and because Mr. Halliday's speeches have been sometimes expressive of gratitude to such a straightforward mental arbitrator, he is accused by the South Wales Daily News of being subsidised 1 by the Westera Mail to "preach up the paper." Mr. Halliday's answer speaks for itself; it is an indignant denial of the allegation, and not only that, but a terrific shoulder hit at the subsidy hating South Wales Daily News. He asks with marked and undisguised scorn whether the South Wales Daily News can say that it is not subsidised by the wale wners and ironmasters of Monmouthshire and South Wales to "preach up" their cause. What reply this "Liberal" organ may think fit to make to this very straight question we know not, but this one fact we do know that all sensible men of either party will acquit the President of the Amalgamated Association of Miners of any such nefarious transactions. It is tantamount to a charge of dishonesty to allege that Mr. Halliday, being paid to do the work of the Amalgamated Association,  and to devote his whole time and energies to that work, accepts gratuities from other individuals for doing their work as well. Not a man in the union believes it, unless he be wholly insane or insanely jealous The advice we shall give to the South Wales Daily News is to leave Mr. Halliday and the Western Mail alone. If the Red Dragon Union be formed to make itself the official organ of that body, so that the existence of both may be coterminous, And to Welshmen our advice is to listen neither to the insidious tales of the promoters of the Red Dragon Union, nor to thebaseless insinuations of the " Liberal " oigan of South Wales.