January 16, 1914.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

143

was decided to ask the Home Secretary to meet the
■committee with a view to the introduction of special
legislation dealing with the question of stone-
dusting in mines in order to prevent the spreading
of coaldust explosions.

A meeting of the representatives of coalowners and
miners on the Lancashire and Cheshire Board, under
the Coalmines Minimum Wage Act, 1912, was held on
'Thursday, 8 th inst., to consider suggestions on behalf of
the miners to make alterations in the award made after
the passing of the Act by the Board. The meeting
was adjourned until February 5 next.

The West Biding magistrates, at Doncaster, on
Saturday, dismissed the summons of the Home Office
against the Cadeby Colliery officials, in which colliery a
serious explosion took place in July 1912, for breaches
of the Mines Act in not providing sufficient space in
certain roads and places where tubs are coupled or
uncoupled.

A meeting of the Manchester Geological and
.Mining Society was held on Tuesday last, when
Mr. James Lomax gave some further details of his
research work with the microscope on the elements
of coal.

The Lord Mayor on Tuesday opened the new
headquarters of the Institution of Mining and
Metallurgy.

Much interest will doubtless be taken by the
mining community in the conference to be held at
fihe Mansion House, on Monday next, to consider the
advisability of establishing a national fund for the
relief of distress arising from fatal colliery accidents.

The manager of the Maypole Colliery was
summoned at Wigan, on Thursday, at the instance
of the Miners’ Federation, by a checkweighman
named Seth Blackledge for not affording him proper
facilities according to law to carry out his duties. A
second summons was at the instance of a collier who
alleged that mineral gotten by him was not weighed
as near the pitmouth as reasonably practicable. He
■ contended that two instead of one weigh-cabin should
be used. The first summons was dismissed and the
.Bench reserved their decision on the second.

After a somewhat prolonged
The enquiry into the circumstances of the
''Senyhsnydd Senghenydd disaster, the jury have
Inquest. come to the eminently satisfactory
conclusion that no charges of
culpable neglect can be maintained ; and no one
who has read the evidence brought forward at the
inquest can doubt the justice of that finding.

There is much, however, to comment upon with
regard to this enquiry. Last week we drew atten-
tion to the remarkable attitude assumed by the
Home Office towards the inquest. An unseemly
struggle for precedence at the outset resolved itself
finally into a deliberate boycott, which the Home
Office has attempted to justify in a letter to the
■Coroner. While it may be admitted that it would
be premature on. the part of the Home Office to
advance a theory as to the cause of the explosion
before considering the scientific and technical
evidence bearing upon the case, it will be generally
agreed that the Home Office has not in this case
maintained that correctness of attitude which is
looked for between two official departments of the
State. The Secretary of State regrets that the two
enquiries should have overlapped. Why then did
he not prevent such a contingency ? He had hoped
that some arrangements might have been made, as
has been done in other cases, to minimise any
inconvenience and embarrassment which might
result. Why was so little effort made to secure
arrangements of this kind ? The Chief Inspector
reluctantly agreed to adjourn the Home Office
enquiry. Why was he reluctant to remedy a position
which should never have arisen ?

We cannot avoid the impression that a grave
mistake has been made in this official conflict.
Possibly the overwhelming nature of the disaster has
caused responsible people to lose their heads some-
what, and they may perhaps be forgiven for so doing.
But on calm reflection it will be clear to everyone
that the magnitude of a colliery accident, measured
by the loss of life entailed, bears no necessary

proportion to its importance from the legislative
point of view. The technical investigation con-
ducted by the Home Office is for the purpose of
deciding upon the need of further precautionary
measures, while the object of the coroner’s inquest is
to fix criminal responsibility, if any such should
exist. To a large extent these two enquiries could
proceed pari passu; and such a proceeding would
probably be to the advantage of each.

Coming next to the inquest itself, there are some
special points to which we may perhaps direct
attention. In the first place, with regard to breaches
of the Act, it was abundantly clear that where these
had occurred—and it was freely admitted that in
some minor instances there had been infractions of
the written law—they had absolutely no connection
with the cause of the explosion. One of these
breaches may be mentioned by way of example—i.e.,
the failure on the morning of the explosion to record
the height of the barometer at the pithead. There
appeared to be some uncertainty as to the require-
ments of the Act with regard to this matter.
Section 71 (2) of the Act, however, clearly states
that both barometer and thermometer should be read
at such intervals and by such persons as may be
prescribed by general regulations. And definite
instructions in this respect have been laid down in
General Regulation 104 by which—

every person on whom responsible duties are imposed
with respect to the ventilation underground and who is
required to make a daily report in a book to be kept at
the mine for the purpose, shall, immediately before going
into the mine and after coming out of the mine, read the
barometer required to be placed near the entrance to the
mine.

Now this instruction does not appear ambiguous
in any degree. To read a barometer means to note
the height of the mercury, but not necessarily to
record it in a book. If the word record had been
used in place of read, the question would have been
different. The Coroner apparently took the view that
read means to record, with which we do not agree.
But, quibbling apart, we are heartily in agreement
with the Coroner when, in his summing-up, he said
that the barometer was a guide as to whether or
not on any particular day more than the average
precautions should be taken. These words, in our
opinion, have a very special application to the
condition of fiery mines in South Wales. The
Senghenydd explosion was almost certainly initiated
by gas. The meteorological conditions of the West
of England on October 14, the day of the explosion,
were undoubtedly such as might easily be supposed
to be liable to favour an increase of gas. We do not
for a moment suggest that it was so; but the
circumstance seems to illustrate in a clear and
decisive way the utter futility of such regulations
respecting the barometer as are now observed at most
collieries. While the Home Office is looking into
this matter from the technical point of view, we hope
the barometer question will be placed upon a sounder
and more intelligible basis than is now the case. As
soon as colliery officials can understand the use of
barometric records they will not need legislative
action to make them keep them. Besides, a self-
registering barometer would overcome much difficulty,
while its records would be more instructive.

Another point raised in this enquiry was with
regard to analyses of the air by the inspectors. A
number of tests had been made under section 30 (J)
of the Act—i.e., for carbon dioxide; but no tests for
firedamp had been made under section 32. Dr.
Atkinson frankly admitted that the inspectors had
no time to carry out such tests. It is certain that
under the present Home Office arrangements this
section of the Act must remain almost inoperative so
far as any useful result is concerned. By what
conceivable means can adequate tests, as laid down
in section 32, be undertaken systematically through-
out 450 collieries by a staff of 13 under-inspectors
already overburdened with clerical and other duties ?
The Home Office is more attentive to the mote in a
colliery manager’s eyes than to a beam in their own.
They prosecute Cadeby for not doing the impossible,
while they fail hopelessly in carry out their own
duties, also admittedly impossible. The new Act, in
fact, is turning out, as has over and again been
predicted, to be in too many instances unworkable

upon any sort of efficient scale. And unworkable
regulations do more harm than good.

Still another important point in connection with
this enquiry was the existing attitude towards rescue
appliances. Dr. Atkinson confessed that he had not
nearly so much faith in them as many people had.
And when arguments can be found in favour of
keeping such appliances 10 miles away rather than
at the colliery itself, it is time to think seriously of
the position of rescue apparatus in the scheme of
colliery management. The coroner invited the jury
to express any opinion they might hold as to the
delay in rescuing the men from this pit, but they
were silent upon this point, which, indeed, is one far
more suitable for the Home Office enquiry than for a
coroner’s court.

The recommendations made by the jury with
regard to the position of the lamp station, spraying
apparatus and efficiency of inspection were equally
outside their strict functions, but so far as they go
they are perfectly proper expressions of opinion
arising out of disclosed facts. With regard to water
sprays, however, it is now generally admitted that
the coaldust danger in South Wales pits cannot be
adequately met by this means. The whole of the
coalmining industry in this country is, in fact, waiting
for definite instructions upon this point. Stone-
dusting seems to be the best available practical
remedy, but no definite proportions have yet been
officially sanctioned. If the Senghenydd jury had
consisted of mining experts they would probably
have embodied in their recommendations the hope
that colliery managers would be given some lead in
this direction without further delay. A body less
tied and bound with legal restrictions would possibly
have experimented with stonedust on their own
account long before this, but we frankly believe that
many mine managers are afraid to take this step on
their own initiative. Nor are we surprised at this
attitude, for in the event of disaster supervening they
could expect but little commiseration from Mr.
Brace for any want of success of their works of
supererogation. Would not the doubt that is still
felt with regard to the safe proportions of stonedust
to coaldust be dissolved by an examination of
collieries where coaldust explosions are unknown,
and by an analysis of the roaddust with regard to
its ash content ? The Scottish coalfields, which are
subject to gas, but where coaldust explosions are
unknown, would form an admirable field for
experiment.

With regard to the seat of the Senghenydd
explosion the jury preferred the lamproom theory,
notwithstanding the leaning of the mines inspectors
towards the Mafeking heading. Whatever may
have been its place of origin, however, it is still a
matter of speculation whether the gas was fired by a
lamp or by a spark from electrical apparatus, or
produced by friction or percussion of rock. Upon
this point we shall doubtless hear more during the
Home Office enquiry, although we cannot profess to
be very sanguine as to the elucidation of much more
than has already come to light.

Coal and

The decision of the Government in
South Africa to commandeer the coal

the South supply, and the immediate relief in
African financial circles produced by this
Strike. step comes as a reminder that, even
in a country where the glamour
of gold and diamonds somewhat outshines the

“base” mineral, the economic value of coal maybe
under-estimated. Notwithstanding the increased use
of electricity generated by water power, the coals of
the Transvaal and Natal continue to be essential to

the goldmining industry and the railways. As the
Power Commission opined in 1909, “ the reduced cost
in the production of power so expands its use, that
the consumption of coal becomes greater in the
aggregate.” At that enquiry some of the collieries
even claimed that they had a vested interest in the
goldmines of the Witwatersrand.

The South African collieries would indeed be
seriously affected if the goldfield custom were
extinguished, as was feared. In no quarter of the
world has competition been more acute, and the
price of Transvaal coal has fallen as low as 4s. per