Forecast: Cold and Dark

Britain labored under a Dickensian midwinter gloom last week. Off went the garish neons of Piccadilly Circus. After twilight, Big Ben could be heard but not seen. Buckingham Palace was lit by candles and hand torches. Millions of Londoners went to and from work beneath dimmed streetlights. Thirty crews of firemen helped rescue people who were trapped in stalled elevators. Dramatizing the nation's power shortage, one BBC newscaster had to read his bulletin by candlelight. A general synod of the Church of England also was conducted--perhaps fittingly--by candlelight, but that was not what the prelates had intended.

It was Britain's worst power cutback since electrical workers staged a slowdown a little over a year ago. This time the cause of the crisis was the nation's 280,000 coal miners, who were striking nationwide for the first time in 46 years. With 70% of the country's power dependent on coal fuel, the government late last week declared a state of emergency, and power cuts ranging from 10% to 30% and lasting up to three hours began spreading across the country.

For the moment at least, Britons were taking it on the chin. For one thing, they have been enjoying the mildest winter in years, so power shortages have not yet raised public ire. For another, the miners' demands for pay increases of up to 25% have considerable public sympathy. Their basic salaries now range from $47 to $78 a week. Moreover, the government had reacted with something less than urgency to threats of a strike, which had been bandied about since summer.

But that mood is likely to change as unemployment rises. Late last week auto and tire factories laid off 30,000 workers--the first of millions who will be without work when power cuts of 50% go into effect this week in thousands of factories. Prospects of an early settlement appear dim. When talks broke down completely last week, Employment and Productivity Minister Robert Carr turned the dispute between the miners and the National Coal Board over to an official court of inquiry, which will take about ten days to complete its report.

To make matters worse, weathermen issued a none too optimistic forecast: colder. And, they might have added, darker.

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