After the strike, the federation had lost public sympathy and the economic slump that followed affected miners' wages and working conditions. The MFGB's membership declined and by 1931 unemployment on the coalfields reached more than 40% and wages were poor for working miners. Hunger marches in the 1930s highlighted the plight of mining communities. A disaster at Gresford Colliery demonstrated poor working conditions and breaches in the law by employers. A Royal Commission into mines' safety was started after the 1934 disaster but no new law was passed until the Mines and Quarries Act of 1954. Fatalities in the mines had fallen in the years before 1926 but coal industry deaths rose to the 1900 level after the strike.