April. 3, 1914.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

743

Mr. G. E Greatbach will read a paper dealing,
with the training of rescue brigades, at Stoke-on-
Trent, on. Monday next, at the general meeting of
the North Staffordshire Institute of Mining and'
Mechanical Engineers.

At a general meeting of the North of England
Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers
•to-morrow (Saturday) at Newcastle-on-Tyne, a paper
will be read by Mr. W. 0. Mountain on the utilisa-
tion of exhaust steam for collieries, ironworks, &c.

Papers on “ Deepening a Shaft by a Pise Method ”,
and “ Safety Air Doors for Coalmines ” will be read
by Mr. H. B. Pilkington and Mr. James Ashworth,
respectively, at the meeting of the Manchester
Geological and Mining Society on Tuesday next.

The Home Secretary has now introduced his
promised amendment to the Coal Mines Act, 1911.
The text will be found elsewhere in this issue.

Mr. Duncan Millar has given notice of a Bill to
secure compensation for injury caused by mineral
workings in Scotland.

Notice has been given by Mr. "Wing that he intends
to introduce a Bill to amend the Coal Mines Act, 1911,
for the purpose of limiting the hours of work of men
employed on the surface at mines.

In the House of Lords, on "Wednesday, Lord
Willoughby de Broke introduced a Bill entitled the
Northumberland Coal Miners’ Bill, which has for its
object the abolition of the three-shift system.

On Friday last, the Committee, recently appointed
to consider the proposal of a national fund for all
mining disasters, decided that such a fund should be
•established.

Mr. McKenna (Home Secretary) has intimated that
he hopes to introduce the proposed Truck Bill soon
after Easter.

In connection with the visit of the King.and Queen
to Nottinghamshire in June next, it is announced
that the itinerary will probably include visits to
several colliery centres.

A White Paper issued by the Board of Trade*
giving statistics of the output from the principal
coal-producing countries for 1912, shows that the
United States again led the way, with the United
Kingdom second and Germany third. The figures
were : United States 447,202,000 tons, United
Kingdom 260,416,000 tons, Germany 172,065,000
ions. The total production amounted to 1,100 million
tons. Provisional figures for 1913 show an increase
of 30 million tons in the United States, and of about
14 million tons in Germany. Figures relating to
value and to the number of persons employed are
nlso given.

About 50,000 men employed in the bituminous
mines of Ohio (United States) are reported to have
suspended work owing to a dispute regarding the
wages agreement.

The South Wales miners’ executive have been
considering the position under the Mines Act in the
matter of the Senghenydd explosion, and urge that
the Home Secretary should at once institute prosecu-
tions for' alleged breaches of the Act, and ask him to
receive a deputation on the matter.

Twelve miners were injured by a set of trams
getting out of control at the No. 1 pit at Merthyr
Vale on Thursday.

The negotiations in the matter of the Yorkshire
minimum wage dispute have, after all, not succeeded
in arresting a strike, and about 170,000 miners in the
Yorkshire district have laid down their tools. During
the last week-end some hope was felt owing to the
truce suggested by the Joint Committee of the
English Conciliation Board, who recommended the
suspension;, of notices pending the result of negotia-
tions. This advice, however, was thrown over by
the council of the Yorkshire Miners’ Association, on
Monday, who refused to suspend notices. Apart
from the men directly involved, it is estimated that
about 80,000 other men in dependent trades will be
made idle. The above-mentioned board will meet
again to-day (Friday) to reconsider the position.

The House of Lords have reserved judgment in
the case of Brown r. John Watson Limited, which
raised the important point, under the Workmen’s
Compensation Act, as to whether it was necessary to
adduce a concatenation of circumstances or a specific
incident as the cause of injury.

The Home Secretary- has just
Proceedings brought in a short Bill to amend the
Under the Coal Mines Act of 1911. The nature
Coal Mines of the Bill was definitely outlined so
Act. long ago as July 2 of last year, when

Mr. Brace moved the adjournment
of the House of Commons to call attention to the
Cadeby Main explosion and the failure of the Home
Office to take proceedings against those responsible
for alleged breaches of the Act.

On that occasion Mr. McKenna, whilst making the
statement that breaches of the Act had undoubtedly
been committed—for which, as we pointed out at the
time, the report made by the Chief Inspector on
the accident provides no grounds—explained that
the Home Office, for various reasons, was debarred
from initiating proceedings in that case.

One of the main reasons was that several of those
who might have been implicated were no longer
alive to rebut the charges, and there was not
sufficient evidence to support a prosecution against
Mr. Chambers, the agent. But, further, he said the
accident had disclosed three serious defects in the
present law. In the first place, under the Act no
action could be taken except within a period of six
months after the accident; secondly, section 11 made
no provision for the holding of an enquiry with a
view to the suspension of the certificate of a person
superior to the manager; the third point related to
the withdrawal of the men from a mine when a
dangerous condition was exposed. The last matter
was left to be dealt with by regulation, and has
formed a preliminary subject of investigation at the
hands of the Spontaneous Combustion Committee.

The first two points only are dealt with in the new
Bill. Clause 1 deals with the second, and Clause 2
with the first. With regard to the former, it may be
admitted at once that there is some justification for
giving the courts power to annul the certificate of an
owner or agent who engages in the technical manage-
ment of a mine, although the Act does not greatly
help us to define the word italicised. After all, the
new provision is more of a harmless sop to those
who look upon every captain of industry as a criminal
in posse, than a practical requirement to deal with
any active abuse.

The second clause also is a makeshift, for it is
clear that, under the existing law, the Home Office,
where it is anxious and daring enough to prosecute
an individual or a company, can do so no w by issuing
an interim report.

It may here be observed that the Coal Mines Act
of 1911 is by no means explicit as to the limitation
of the term within which proceedings shall be taken.
The Coal Mines Regulation Act of 1887 was much
more definite, for, according to section 62, any
complaint or information had to be made or laid
within three months from the time when the matter
of complaint or information arose. We can only
conclude that the procedure under the 1911
Act is governed by the general statute, presumably
the Summary Jurisdiction Act; we are not able
at the moment to consult the latter, nor do we
suppose . that it will be found in the library
of the colliery manager. It is remarkable that the
Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, upon which the
Coal Mines Act is so largely modelled, is
quite definite. Section 146 (1) provides that
“the information shall be laid within three months
after the date at which the offence comes to the
knowledge of the inspector for the district within
which the offence is charged to have been committed,
or, in case of an inquest being held in relation to the
offences, then within two months after the conclusion
of the inquest, so, however, that it be not laid after
the expiration of six months from the commission of
the offence.” It has been held that the “ offence ”
must be construed as the particular offence with
which the defendant is charged, notwithstanding
that some other offence arising out of the same facts
has previously existed to the knowledge of the
inspector.

There are grave objections to the course which the
Home Office are now anxious to pursue in regard to
mines. When both a formal investigation and a
coroner’s inquest are held, the intention, no doubt,
•is that the time shall date from whichever is con-

cluded last; now, it will be noted that the critical
date is that upon which “ a report is made ”
by an inspector or the court, and we surmise that this
means the date when the report is rendered to the
Secretary of State ; otherwise, if it means the date
of publication, a Secretary of State who. desired time
to prepare his case or to revolve in his mind the
expediency of action, might keep the unfortunate
manager on tenterhooks for an indefinite period.

More serious, however, is the general implication
of this new clause, for it practically endows the court
of enquiry with all the quasi-criminal attributes of a
coroner’s court. We can understand now that the
consuming desire to hold the Home Office enquiry
into the circumstances surrounding the Senghenydd
explosion, at the earliest date possible, without any
regard to the coroner’s functions, was to pre-
pare a possible case for a prosecution within the
period allowed by law. We must protest most
strongly against the suggestion that a court of
investigation composed of mining experts is fit to
assume the character of judge and jury; at an
inquest the coroner can always intervene to prevent
incriminating questions on the part of inspectors and
others, but at the formal investigation the witnesses
have no guardian of their interests. On the other
hand, the result must be to detract greatly from the
utility of the formal investigation in its proper
sphere, the true purpose of which is not so much to
fix criminal responsibility as to elucidate means
of preventing the recurrence of accidents.

In the strike that has broken out in
The Strike South Yorkshire over Sir Edward
in South Clarke’s minimum wage award the
Yorkshire, moralist may find abundant food for
consideration.

In the first place comes the disturbing reflection
that with our highly developed system of industrial
organisation it is possible, after many hours of
travail, to arrive at so-called decisions and awards
that no two people can interpret alike. The facts of
this dispute, so far as they can be stated with
certainty, were set forth in these columns a fortnight
ago, and they now remain very much as they did
then. The two main points seem to be : (1) Did
the independent chairman . in South Yorkshire
intend his new award to supersede the advances
agreed upon by the Conciliation Board ? and
(2) did the arrangement come to by the Con-
ciliation Board as to additions to the minimum
remain operative, after alterations had been made
in the minimum rates in the various districts?
As to (1) we cannot, of course, say what was present
in Sir Edward Clarke’s mind; properly speaking,
the powers of the independent chairmen under the
Minimum Wage Act are limited to the basis wages;
with regard to (2) we have no doubt. Whatever the
legal interpretation of the disputed clause may be, it
is clear that the Conciliation Board’s, decisions have
absolutely nothing to do with the minimum wage
awards. Moreover, we consider that the Midland coal-
owners, in the first instance, acted far from wisely in
consenting to any arrangement that may lend any colour
to the contrary view. Much has been made of the
apparent anomalies that must arise in certain cases
if the owners’ construction is accepted as correct, but
where an Act like the Minimum Wage Act is con-
cerned, such anomalies are to be expected. Even
when we have agreed that a minimum rate was
necessary—we do not agree, of course—this method
of giving effect to it was about the worst- that
could have been conceived, and we, think that the
miners themselves will agree that, if the ** abnormal
places” question had been settled by direct negotia-
tion, instead of by Parliamentary intervention, a much
more practical system could have been devised.
Certainly, the difficulty that has arisen in South
Yorkshire would never have occurred.

. The second and more serious consideration that is
evolved from this dispute is the position occupied by
the men’s leaders in the matter. The terms issued
as the result of the meeting of the, sub-committee of
the Conciliation Board last week were not merely, as
first reported, the proposals of- the owners, but had
received also the approval. of the pieh’s" section, who
recommended, that no stoppage of work should take