The miners, however, refused to listen to these proposals, and the
conference broke up.

Both miners and owners declare that there is no present prospect of
reaching an understanding, and that there is nothing for it but to fight
the battle to its end.

The owners intend to try to open the mines with non-union men. The
miners are preparing to prevent these men from going into the mines.

* * * * *

There has been great excitement during the past few days over the sudden
rise of the wheat market.

Nearly all of the great countries of the world, with the exception of
the United States, have had poor wheat crops this year. Our crop has
been considerably larger than any we have had for several years past.
People cannot do without bread, and in consequence of this failure of
their crops, other countries have had to come to us and buy. They have
of course had to pay whatever price we asked, and as a natural
consequence the price of wheat has gone up enormously.

All the people who were clever enough to foresee this demand from
abroad, and buy up the wheat before the orders came in, have made
fortunes during the past few days. They refused to sell their grain
until its price had gone up to nearly double what they had paid for it,
and are now smiling and happy, and thinking that prosperity has come at
last.