April 17, 1914.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

849

As was to be expected, the provincial markets
have suffered from the disturbing influence of the
Easter holidays. On the Tyne and Wear the prompt
markets exhibit a quieter disposition, and prices rule
lower owing to the more favourable position in the
matter of the Yorkshire strike. In Lancashire and
Derbyshire, however, the demand has been main-
tained. In Yorkshire the rush for supplies has been
checked, and prices have fallen in consequence. The
position at Cardiff has not changed during the past
week. A good demand has caused prices to rule
firm in Scotland.

On Tuesday Mr. T. Wing introduced his Bill to
amend the Coal Mines Act, 1911, with the object of
limiting the hours of surface labour. The second
reading has been fixed for Monday next.

A meeting has been arranged for the 25th inst.
between Lord Willoughby de Broke, who recently
introduced into the House of Lords a Bill to abolish
the three-shift system in Northumberland, and the
joint committee, which is co-operating with the
Newburgh miners in the attempt to abolish the
system.

The new Safety Lamps Order amending that of
August 26, 1913, has now been issued, and will be
found elsewhere in these columns.

The annual meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute
has been fixed for May 7 and 8 in London.

The Home Secretary has now made general regu-
lations under the Coal Mines Act, 1911, amending
the provisions as to rescue appliances and rescue
brigades. As already foreshadowed, the use of self-
contained breathing apparatus will be made com-
pulsory, but an alternative system for the establish-
ment of rescue brigades will be allowed.

The report of the Home Office enquiry into the
Senghenydd Colliery disaster, which occurred in
October 14 last, has now been laid upon the table of
the House of Commons. It is stated that summonses,
returnable at Caerphilly on May 5, have been taken
out at the instance of the Home Office against the
owners and management of the mine for alleged
breaches of rules and regulations of the Coal Mines
Act, 1911. With regard to the relief fund, which
reached about £120,000, it is expected that there will
be sufficient to provide each widow with 10s. a week
for life and 5s. for each child until it reaches the age
of 14 or 16. A trust has been created for the
administration of the relief.

An interesting paper on mining economics was
read by Mr. 3 ohn Gibson, on Saturday, at the annual
meeting of the Mining Institute of Scotland. A
second paper on the sinking and equipment of the
Blairhall Colliery, Life, was contributed by Mr.
Archibald Bussell.

The costly dispute in the Yorkshire area on the
question of the interpretation of the minimum wage
award has now been settled, and, according to the
agreement reached by the joint committee of the
Conciliation Board yesterday, the men will recom-
mence work on Monday. Certain proposals were
submitted to the men at the beginning of the week,
and a majority in favour of accepting the proposals
and resuming work resulted.

Commerce and industry in these
The civil	modern times have come into such

Service..	close contact with the executive

departments of the State that not
even a business man can regard with unconcern the
enquiry recently conducted by a Boy al Commission
into the methods of making appointments to and
promotions in the Civil Service. The Fourth Beport
of this Commission, which is in the nature of a final
report so far as concerns the Civil Service proper,
has now been issued, and contains much, valuable
information and many practical suggestions respecting
the methods of selection by which this Service is
recruited. There is an uneasy impression abroad
that latterly there has been far too pronounced a
tendency on the part of the Government to revert to
the practice of 60 years or so back, when political
patronage played far too prominent a part in filling
these appointments.

The expression 11 open competition” even now
appears to be hardly applicable to the Civil Service
as a whole, for it is stated in the report that out of

about 60,000 appointments only about one-third are
filled by this method; 2,000 obtain access by the
method of “limited competition,” 8,500 by nomina-
tion and a mere qualifying examination. This
accounts for only one-half the total. Among the
rest there are about 1,200 professional appointments,
and 250 permanent heads of administrative depart-
ments and other officials appointed either directly or
indirectly by the Crown. About 25,000 situations
still remain to be accounted for, and consist of
temporary, occasional and subordinate posts, such as
the many ramifications of modern State employment
demand.

The importance of the questions investigated by
this Commission is enhanced by the fact that the
Civil Service is now required to take a greater share
than formerly in the burden of administration. As
the Commissioners say, “the success or failure of
much legislation of a controversial character depends
now much more largely than formerly upon admini-
strative action.” The conduct of civil servants
certainly comes more frequently under public notice
than ever before, a fact which in the coalmining
industry is exemplified by the appearance of H.M.
inspectors of mines in public courts of enquiry, by
the prominence in labour disputes of representatives
of the Board of Trade, and by the ubiquitous
activities of factory inspectors and other State
officials.

Like every other established institution in these
socialistic times, the Civil Service has come in for its
share of attack on the score of class preference and
an alleged undue bias in favour of university training
as a method of selection. Upon this point Mr.
Arthur Boutwood has something to say. He
insists that some of the chief administrative qualities,
such as tact and capacity for bearing responsibility,
are not results of education such as can be tested by
an examination. Although the results of selection
by open competition, as in the Class I. examination,
have been highly successful in the discovery of the
right sort of men for administrative posts, he regards
this as being not due to the examination, but as a
concomitant result of nurture and training in a parti-
cular social milieu. Such men have been formed by
a process of ethological assimilation, and he regards
the influence of the newer universities as tending
to encourage a class of men who are strangers to
the administrative tradition and in some cases ill-
prepared to receive it. For this reason he thinks that
the educational tests now need to be supplemented,
since administrative ability is not wholly a question
of intellect, but makes larger demands upon character
and manhood than upon qualities depending upon
cleverness only.

We are not, in these columns, so much concerned
with the examinations for the Class I. appointments,
as with the professional and technical branches of
the Civil Service, in which case selection by exami-
nation alone is still move unsatisfactory. As a matter
of fact these appointments are now too largely in the
hands of the Minister responsible for the department
concerned, and we are glad to see that the Boyal
Commission advocates a new Order in Council to
systematise the present diverse methods of procedure,
and apparently designed to curtail the unfettered
discretion of his Majesty’s Ministers.

On the whole, we find much in this lengthy report
which is equally germane to the question of the
selection and education of colliery officials. The
qualifications required by the latter are in no way
different from those possessed by a capable servant
of the State. There is the same tendency towards
democratisation, the same kind of clamour for the
“ open door ” from pit boy to colliery manager, and
the same disposition to discount the advantages of
a liberal education, to say nothing of a growing
contempt for nurture in a suitable social milieu.
Every page of this report (and there are more than
150 of them) contains abundant food for reflection.
Some of the reservations by particular members of
the Commission are specially valuable in this respect,
and we recommend every person who has any interest
in perfecting our methods of discovering truly capable
persons to fill administrative posts, whether in the
State or in private enterprise, to study the conclusions
contained in this volume.

The study of mining problems has
The United so far assumed an international
States character, that the records of work
Bureau Of done at foreign testing stations
IVIines. possess no little interest for British
mining engineers. The third annual
report of the United States Bureau of Mines on the
whole provides an ample vindication of the scientific
method, for Dr. Holmes, the director, is able to point
to beneficial results of the most definite nature that
can only be traced to the educational labours of the
Bureau.

The Bureau has spread its net very wide, possibly
too wide, and up to the present the Government has
not been able to supply the funds necessary to carry
to finality even a few of the varied investigations.
These have ranged from the study of explosions to
the testing of fuel for the use of the Government, and
even when it be admitted that, in the interests of
practical utility, it is necessary to withstand obdu-
rately the inclination to follow up the attractive
by-paths of investigation, it seems plain that lack of
money has seriously destroyed the efficiency of the
Bureau in regard to the matters that are of real and
immediate concern to the industry. How far the
spacious new home of the Bureau—an illustration of
which has recently appeared in the Colliery Guardian
■.—will repair the deficiency time must show. At the
same time, if we may offer a word of friendly
criticism, we believe that a considerable saving in
expense would be effected if the reports issued by the
Bureau were abbreviated to some extent by
excluding matter that is merely a repetition of
former work and a less scrupulous regard for detail.
At present the reports smack rather of the well-
ordered notebook.

To turn to the work of the Bureau, it would appear
that the coaldust investigations have so far been
largely of an educational nature, and no outstanding
result has been independently established at the
Pittsburg station or the Bruceton Mine. Since the
date of the report, however, a series of important
tests to determine whether Pennsylvania anthracite
coaldust is explosive in the presence of mine gas has
been concluded. The tests proved conclusively, it is
stated, that anthracite coaldust will not explode,
whether or not gas is present. The tests even showed
that the coaldust tends to lessen the length of flame
when the mine gas ignites. The chief interest of
this result lies in the fact that the British experiments
indicated that the Welsh anthracite is inflammable
under certain conditions. This illustrates the fact
that “ anthracite ” is an indefinite term.

It cannot be doubted that these coaldust investi-
gations, coupled with the more rigorous use of
explosives, have been greatly responsible for the
reduction in the fatalities from explosions in the last
year or two. The report states that “as a result of
these researches and the educational' campaign
carried on by the engineers of the Bureau with the
co-operation of State mine inspectors, mine operators-
and the miners, the proportionate loss of life from
mine explosions decreased from 30*3 per cent, of the
total deaths in 1907 to 12*7 per cent, of the total
deaths in 1912.” This relative decrease has not
been brought about by an increase in the total
number of deaths from all causes; whereas 947
men were killed by gas and dust explosions
in 1907, or 1*39 per 1,000 employed, and in
1910, 518 or 0T7, in 1912 the total was 301 and
the rate OTO. The successful establishment of a
“permissible list” of explosives has probably had
much to do with this result; this is quite a feat on
the part of the Bureau, for the adoption of the list
has been purely voluntary and based on persuasive
influence. The use of these short-flame explosives
has now become general in fiery mines, and during
1912 no less than 18,000,000 lb. were used. Users
of “permitted” explosives in this country will be
interested to learn that the Bureau is now concen-
trating its energies on effecting such improvements
in the composition of these explosives as shall reduce
the quantity of poisonous gases given off in firing
shots and the shattering effect of the shots. This is
to proceed on rational grounds.

Electricity is very largely used in American
mines, and sometimes under conditions that would