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THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

April 17, 1914.

Mining Economics: Some Notes and a Suggestion
By JOHN GIBSON.

From a Paper read before the Mining Institute of Scotland,

Where the highest wages are earned, the cost’ of pro-
duction is usually the lowest. It may be held that this
is purely a coincidence, or that good natural conditions
allow of high wages and low costs. On the other hand,
it could be argued, with some degree of success, that
high wage-rates have in the long run the effect stated.
Be all this as it may, there is no doubt that when wages
are low there is no inducement to economy in labour.
Thus, with a certain fall in wage-rates, horses would
become comparatively expensive, and would be displaced
underground by hand drawing. Again, with low wage-
rates such a labour-saving device as a coal-cutter would
become a luxury. The selling price per ton of coal in
Scotland in 1911 was 50 per cent, higher than in 1882,
which fact may be quoted as showing that prices rise in
accordance with wage-rates ; but such a contention will
not stand examination. Actual earnings have risen
more than 50 per cent.; hours of labour have fallen
about 20 per cent.; legislative restrictions have extended
enormously ; stores and materials have risen greatly in
cost; and coal is now got at a profit under natural
difficulties that could not have been faced 30 years ago.
Yet, who will contend that mining science would have
progressed at the same rate if the good seams had lasted,
if miners’ wages had remained low, and the conditions
generally had continued favourable ? On the contrary,
the most backward coalfields are those with the least
natural difficulties and most valuable seams.

It seems fairly certain that whichever party succeeds
at the next General Election, great changes will be made
in the life of the rural worker : big efforts will be made
to stop the exodus from rural to industrial areas. It
seems also fairly certain that the present trade boom
has got over the crest of the wave, and that a depression
will come which will probably send workers from the
industrial areas to the colonies. As Mr. Walter
Hargreaves observed in his recent presidential address,*
labour is none too plentiful in the older districts. In
this case the mining industry will have to contend with
new conditions, and. will have to adapt itself to them.
Better housing, better conditions of labour, &c., will
have to be provided in face of falling prices for coal.

Cost of Production and the Standard of Living.

It will be noticed that large numbers of the mining
population reside in houses of a class similar to those in
which their fathers lived, at rents of as low as Is. 6d. per
week. A greater variety of food is consumed now than,
say, 50 years ago—less wholesome, probably, and costing
little or nothing more ; in short, the standard of life in
the mining village has advanced little or not at all in
the period mentioned. Wages have doubled, the conse-
quence being that in the household where thrift is not
practised there is no incentive to regular working. Three
days per week at the pit keeps the wolf from the door,
and maintains the customary standard of life. The
house is the basis of this standard. The past generation
of miners drank deeply. The present-day miner has no
such expensive luxury to maintain. His sports and
pastimes are cheaper, and, therefore, there is the less
necessity for regular work. Further, his amusements
occupy far more time, to the neglect of his work ; and
Saturdays are now almost useless for colliery purposes.
There is also probably less household thrift and economy
practised, due to lack of education in the value of
money; and, as will be seen, the efficiency of the
domestic economy reacts in various ways on the economy
of the mine.

Reverting to the question of housing, social economists
used to say that 10 per cent, of a man’s income was his
economic rent. Nowadays, the town artisan frequently
pays as high as 20 per cent., whilst the miner and his
two sons, earning together £5 per week, pay Is. 6d. in
rent, or 14 per cent, of their income. Real first-class,
regular, physical work cannot be got from a person who
sleeps in an over-crowded, ill-ventilated room. The
American miner must work harder to maintain the
standard of living practised there. He works generally
60 hours per week ; while the Scottish miner’s maximum
is, through various restrictions, limited to 40 or 44, and
the average works out at about 44 days, or 36 hours per
week.

The importance of local industries as a means of
finding suitable employment for the miner’s family is a
subject that receives less attention than it should, as it
has a most important bearing on the cost of production.
In the industrial district there is employment for all
the members of the miner’s family, whatever their age,
sex, or capability ; while in the rural districts the outlet
is exceedingly limited. The miner’s family is better off
in the town district, and if a strike, lock-out, or trade
depression comes, all his eggs are not in one basket. In
addition, the coalowner benefits very considerably in
lower costs per ton. The provision of suitable auxiliary
industries is a most important question for the owner
of collieries in remote country places, and will repay
close consideration. The employment of girls at the
pit-bank is a step in this direction, but, in the writer’s
opinion, an inefficient and undesirable one.

Take a colliery C, in which the size of the tubs and
the nature of the roads require men of full physical
strength for drawing, and compare it with colliery D,
in which the conditions are such that boys and lads can
do the work. A miner who has a lad of his own will
prefer to work in D for 8s. per day, rather than in C
for 10s. per day, because in the latter case he must send
his lad to some lower-paid work. If the miner has more
than one lad, the difference in favour of D is, of course,

* Trans. Inst. M.E., 1913, vol. xlvi., pages 272-284.

much greater. The writer is quite aware that much
thought is given to the matter of the size of tub to
be adopted at the colliery, and a great many other
points must be considered. He respectfully urges the
importance of the foregoing.

Irregular Attendance of Miners.

At a small colliery of which the writer has charge, he
made it a condition of employment that every person
should attend every working day, or if absent should
give a personal or written reason for absence within the
course of the shift. Despite a little occasional grumbling,
he held firmly to this ground, with astoundingly
gratifying results. In the case of a large pit, the local
trades union would probably not have accepted the
arrangement, and he did not try it there, but the
economy of good attendance can hardly be over-
estimated. It might be pointed out that of the collieries
0 and D previously mentioned, the attendance in
D will be the better. If the miner in 0 takes a day off,
he loses his pay of 10s.; but if the miner in D takes a
day off, he loses not only his own, but his lad’s pay—a
total of 13s. The moral to be drawn from this is that
the colliery which supplies employment for the greatest
variety of labour has the best attendance and the
cheapest costs.

In the writer’s opinion, a manager is sure to learn
something useful if he listens sympathetically to the
miner’s reasons for leaving his employment. It may
very well be that the work is unsuitable for the man’s
capabilities—but it may also happen that the work,
through preventable causes, is quite unsuitable for the
man of ordinary capabilities, and this point requires
immediate attention.

False Economics.

At a pit top recently the writer saw a female worker
employed to stand at a certain point where empty tubs
hauled by a creeper passed. It was cheaper to, pay the
attendant than to run the risk of delay, and, as the wage
paid was low, it was not deemed advisable to devise a
mechanical safeguard ; but the manager is quite wrong
if he is contented to maintain the economy by these
means, and without adopting labour-saving devices to
attain the same objects, because these economies cease
to be economies whenever the output through any cause
falls. Real economy means economising labour; but
the temptation to economise in the matter of extra
attendants is very great—and the cumulative result is
disastrous, because a colliery managed on these lines
depends for its very life on keeping up output at all
costs. A fall in output is disastrous.

Wages are usually paid on a piecework basis or on a
time rate. The defects of the former system are no
incentive to regular attendance and scamping of work ;
of the latter system the chief defect is inefficiency,
unless supervision is close and stringent. The premium
system, such as has been so successful in the engineering
industries, has not been much practised. The writer
has used this system for several years. It encourages
the good men to work steadily, and consoles the
mediocre man for the introduction of a third workman
into the working-place, and so the section is wrought at
high pressure. The great difficulty is in fixing the
premium line. If too high, it is no incentive; if too
low, it is costly.

The Economic Output.

The economic output of the ideal colliery is when the
full productive capacity of the faces is hauled and
handled without undue hurry and strain on the plant
and the managing staff. Few collieries are, however,
ideal. Shafts are sunk and plant installed to handle a
large output which, from natural and unexpected causes,
the faces cannot produce, and in less well-equipped and
in some old collieries coal can be got in quantities that
cannot be handled. In both cases the output fluctuates.
Undue strain, in the one case, is put on the faces ; in the
other, on perhaps the winding plant. In bygone times,
when things were done in a less strenuous fashion than
nowadays, it is probable that underproduction' was
common; at the present time, overproduction is a usual
practice. In the writer’s opinion, every colliery should
have its economic output determined ; this output should
be maintained at that predetermined figure, and neither
lessened nor increased until after deliberate considera-
tion. Every manager knows the little tricks by which
output may be stimulated, but every agent does not
know the primary causes of subsequent increased costs.
If the handling of the output is the chief difficulty,
breakdown, delay, and heavy repair bills are the con-
sequence. If, in a troubled field, output is forced above
the capacity of the faces, lean months follow the fat
ones, and the average cost per ton is higher than it need
be. If double or treble shifting is adopted as a perma-
nent policy, the reduced individual efficiency may be more
than compensated by the increased aggregate output pro-
duced without increased capital; but where such shifting
is adopted as a temporary measure, there is, besides
other reasons, a danger of overworking the managing
staff.

The cost of hand drawing, which the writer terms
the uneconomic gap, represents the most expensive item
on the costs-sheet. A very common practice in Scotland
is to pay the miner a hewing rate which includes
drawing to a lye perhaps 500 yards outbye. It will
usually be found that two men are engaged in each
place, one of whom hews the coal, throws it to the road-
head, stows the debris, and sets the timber. The other
man fills the coal and draws it to the lye. Then if the

tonnage rate is 3s., and 5 tons are produced daily, the
wage rate is 7s. 6d. If Is. per ton be taken as fair
remuneration for the actual filling of the coal into the
tubs, then the 3s. per ton is apportioned as under:—
Hewing, &c., Is. 6d.; filling, Is.; drawing, 6d.; total, 3s.
If the road is 220 yards long, the rate per ton-mile is
equal to 4s. This is very high compared with endless-
rope haulage at 3d. or 4d. and horse haulage at 6d. per
ton-mile. Hand drawing is the most expensive service
rendered to the colliery.

In the case of a coal-cutter, the manager who instals
one in a section where the draw is over 100 yards long
is courting disaster, because the cost of drawing more
than swallows the prospective economy; rapid clearing
of the faces cannot be done; and he has to commence
with a high rate which he may find difficulty in breaking
when the length of draw is lessened. As a matter of
fact, the question seldom arises, as the air-pipes or
electric cables are at hand, a large output from a
comparatively short face is ready, and mechanical
haulage is easily adopted: hence hand drawing is
practically eliminated. The writer would venture to
say that the advantages and economies of mechanical
coal-cutting do, in very many cases, depend entirely on
the large output per face and the short draw. The
machine is, in fact, the occasion, not the cause, of the
economies.

In passing, the writer would express this opinion—
that unless in very hard or thin coal, or other exceptional
circumstances, if the face is so short that a minimum of
60 tons per shift cannot be got by a machine cutting to
an ordinary depth, cheaper coal can be got by hand,
the same drawing facilities being given in each case.

The conveyor face is another instance. A close
examination will show that the conveyor, where
successful, is so simply because it puts all the coal from
a given face at one point, from which point efficient
haulage can be applied, thus dispensing with hand
drawing. Again, if inefficient haulage is used in
conjunction with the conveyor, fewer men can be
employed at the face, a lower rate of advance is got,
more debris is required to maintain the face, and all the
economies disappear.

But as coal-cutters and conveyors cannot be uni-
versally applied, hand cutting of coal must continue,
and mechanical haulage being out of the question from
a hand-worked face, the drawer must be employed still.
The question of the size of the tub has already been
touched on as one of great importance, the objects being
to employ as cheap labour as possible, and to see that a
minimum of the drawer’s time is spent actually away
from the face. The conditions, such as dip of the seams,
nature of the roof, extent of the sections, and presence
of faults, vary so much in different collieries that no
particular method of economy could be universally
applied. However, it may be laid down that the
drawing-roads should be kept as short as possible, and
in the highest st de of efficiency.

A Suggestion.

In order to make the roads efficient, the writer
suggests that the contour of every road in the pit over
which 20 tons or more per shift is drawn, and on every
road which costs extra money for drawing, should be
known. By contour is meant, not the fixing of spot-
levels on the plan, but a regular systematic detailed
contour of each road. That is the first requirement
necessary, in order to minimise the use of mere physical
oi’ mechanical force in transit. The roadsman has
hitherto ruled supreme by rule of thumb on the drawing-
road, the cuddie-road,* the cousie,f and the horse-road.
Let a very little modicum of intelligence be introduced.

The writer has used such a system for several years,
with very good results. The information cannot always
be made use of for economy, and where “ creep ” is
taking place difficulties intervene. But, if the horizontal
plan is practically and legally necessary, why should not
the vertical plan (the contour) be determined and known?
The system practised is as follows:—A straight-edge
10 ft. long is used, and levelling is started from the
outbye end at a bench mark, or point, the height of
which with reference to the datum line is known. At
every third length levelled, a mark is chalked on the
side of road thus—3, 6, 9, &c. . The levelling is never
plotted, the improvements to be wrought on the road
being determined entirely by arithmetic. In a table
used the total column shows at each point the total
height above the starting point. Column A shows the
height above the starting point at each point on a mean
gradient. In column B is shown with a plus sign each
point where the rails have to be raised, and with a minus
sign that where they have to be lowered.

If the contour is found before the road is brushed,
first the gradient is determined, and, of course, the
ideal is a mean gradient throughout. Before fixing the
gradient, it is well to consider that part of the road with
reference to the part outbye, the gradients of which
may be modified, and so effect the part under considera-
tion. Then the probable contour to be got inside has
to be thought of, as it might well happen that, in order
to get on a given length of road a gradient of 1 in 10,
2 ft. is ripped out of the pavement within 50 yards of
the face. Then an upthrow is got, and, when improve-
ments are next wrought, it may be found that a mean
gradient throughout the old and the new parts of the
road is what is wanted—which, by the way, means not
only filling up the place where the pavement was ripped,
but taking extra height from the roof to raise the level
2 ft. higher at this point than the original pavement
level. Assuming that the mean gradient of 1 in 60 is
determined on, this means a rise of 2 in. in 120, the
length of the straight-edge. These figures are then put
in column A, and in column B is shown the
amount in inches at every point by which the road has
to be raised or lowered. A note is handed to the man

* Cuddie-road — jig-brow. f Cousie = a self-acting
incline.