June 26, 1014.

fHE OOLLIEBY GtTAKMAtC

1485

be read before the meeting of the South Staffordshire
and Warwickshire Institute of Mining Engineers on
Monday next, at Birmingham.

The Railway and Canal Commission Court heard
another application on Wednesday regarding the
validity of the recent increase in railway rates. It
was agreed between the parties that the Court should
deliver formal judgment on July 6 on points which
have already been taken by the Court, and that
upon that judgment the matter should be taken to
the Court of Appeal.

A terrible mining disaster has occurred at Hill
Crest, Alberta, Canada, in which 189 persons perished.
Of these, the bodies of 181 have already been
recovered, although rescue operations appear to have
been carried out under great difficulties.

An agreement, to render workable the new sliding-
scale system of regulating the wages of miners in
Northumberland, has now been drafted. •

The Cumberland coalminers, much against the
wishes of the owners, have decided to take a holiday
during the first week in August. About 7,000 men
are affected.

The question of the wages of Scottish miners is
very much to the fore at the present moment. An
application has been made by the men to the Scottish
District Joint Board under the Coal Mines (Minimum
Wage) Act for an increase of the minimum from
5s. lOd. to 7s. 6d. per day. The decision of the
chairman lias been promised in the course of a week
or so.

A conference of the Scottish Miners’ Federation at
Glasgow, on Tuesday, decided to inaugurate a four-
day working week in order to restrict the output
and thus maintain the level of wages. Another
conference will be called within the next fortnight to
decide when the policy should come into force.

Yesterday, the Home Secretary received at the
Home Office a deputation from the Mining Associa-
tion, representing the mine owners, and trades unions
of colliery enginemen, who asked for modifications
of the new regulations for signalling in coal mines,
which are to come into force on July 1. At the
suggestion of the Home Secretary, the deputation
appointed a committee to discuss the matter in detail
with him.

Of all the badly-drawn Acts of
Thg Parliament, Part II. of the National
Insurance Insurance Act, which relates to unem-
Act and ployment, is perhaps the mostinarticu-
Colliery late. It essayed to provide benefits
Maintenance f°r unemployment for a number of
workmen who are particularly subject
to fluctuations of trade. To carry
out this laudable object several typical trades
were selected, and the workmen engaged in these
were compelled to insurej but since industries
are generally complex, it was found that to
look merely to the business of the employer as
an index would give rise to difficulties, not to
say injustice. Consequently it was laid down
that the index should not be the business of the
employer, but the occupation of the workman. As
we pointed out at the time, this provision was
calculated to give rise to some “comic opera”
situations; and the decisions of the unfortunate
Umpire, whose duty it is to decide doubtful cases,
have been both numerous and meticulous, as, indeed,
they must needs be.

The Board of Trade have now fastened on to one
lacuna—-viz., the omission of men engaged in the
repair of “ works of construction,” and to remedy
the deficiency they have issued a draft Order, which
has been the subject of enquiry before a Commis-
sioner during the past two weeks. The real reason
has been the difficulty of dealing with the cases of
men who are continually 44 in and out of ” insurance,
the optional clauses of the Act to deal with such
cases having proved quite inoperative. The method
followed is ingenious but confusing; practically a
new trade is created, i.e., li works of construction,”
and apparently the legal gentlemen who represent
the Board of Trade prefer to leave it to the harassed
Umpire to decide what these words really mean. At
the same time exception was granted in the instance

of permanent-way men, and, since the reason given
for this exclusion is that these workmen are in no
need of protection, the case of the Board has been
sensibly weakened ; for immediately a host of cases
almost indistinguishable from those of the per-
manent-way men have arisen—notably those of
colliery mechanics and canal repairers.

Sir Thomas Ratcliffe-Ellis, who represented the
Mining Association at the enquiry, not only put
forward strong arguments for the exclusion of
colliery mechanics, but succeeded to a great extent
in showing that, if the Order itself is not ultra vires,
the powers of the Commissioner are restricted to
direct affirmation or negation, which would palpably
throw the whole matter back on the shoulders of
Parliament, if justice is to be done.

Taking the whole staff of the colliery, there is
probably- no class of workmen who is less in need
of State regulated benefit for unemployment than
the blacksmiths, carpenters and joiners, who are
affected by this Order. The miner, who is not
insurable, may be laid off through slack trade,
breakdowns of machinery, &c., but this is just the
time when the maintenance man has to work his
hardest. The president of the Northumberland
Mechanics’ Association showed that over a consider-
able period of years, the amount expended in out-
of-work benefit on a scale comparable with that
provided by the Act amounted to much less than
Id. per man per week. When the State asks these
men to give them 2-Id. a week, and the employers to
give a similar sum, it is begging trouble. To those
involved it looks like an audacious attempt on the
part of the State to fleece a section of the community
to make up for its miscalculations. There is reason
to believe that Parliament, when the Act wras passed,
were fully conscious that these men did not belong
to a class to which the Act could be properly applied.

A case in the Chesterfield County

The	Court, reported in last week’s

Stallman	Colliery Guardian, raises a point of

and Wages, great importance. According to
the decision of his Honour Judge
Macpherson, in the event of men working under a
stallman failing to make the minimum wage, they
can look to the owners of the colliery to make up
their earnings to the minimum rate.

Over the large area of the Midland coalfields in
which the stallman system prevails, many variations
are to be found which may profoundly affect the
locus standi of the proprietor. Thus we recently
called attention to two apparently conflicting
decisions in the High Court relating to the liability
of the colliery company in the event of default on
the part of the stallman. We then showed that it
was entirely a matter of the terms upon which the
workman was engaged. The same rule probably
applies here.

The stallman wrns badly hit by the Eight Hours
Act, he seemed to be in some danger of suffering
from the effects of the Minimum Wage Act, and he
belongs to a class which the majority of employers
would not like to see hardly treated. But if the
contractor has no incentive to see that the men under
him work honestly and diligently, one of the raisons
d'etre of the system vanish. We shall be interested
to see how this matter goes when it reaches a higher
tribunal, as it is certain to do.

On Friday last, Sir William Crookes,
The national president of the Royal Society,
Physical presided over the annual meeting of
Laboratory, the General Board of the National
Physical Laboratory, of which he is
ex officio chairman. This laboratory was opened in
1901, and its rapid growth both in the importance
and scope of its activities is sufficient evidence that
it fills a real want in the general scheme of national
routine. Perhaps the best conception of this institu-
tion is to be obtained by regarding it as a kind of
British Charlottenburg, where every kind of physical
test can be carried out under standard conditions.
The institution, however, is still only in its infancy,
and its further growth depends largely upon the
financial support which it obtains. At the present

time it exists upon a Government grant-in-aid,
amounting to only £7,000 per annum. In addition
to this there is a considerable income derived from
fees for work done, which, with the grant, made up
last year a total sum of nearly £44,000, enabling all
expenses to be met and leaving a balance of £2,745
to the credit of the institution. The Royal Society
has undertaken a large share of responsibility in
financing this concern, having made itself liable for
any deficit, and also providing a guarantee for
working capital in the shape of a bank overdraft
up to the amount of £3,500.

It is felt on all sides that the time has now come
when the Government should increase its annual
grant and should also take over the liabilities hitherto
borne by the Royal Society.

The question thus assumes a larger measure of
public importance than heretofore, and it will be
necessary to examine more closely the functions which
this institution fulfils at the present time as well as
the part it might be called upon to play under a
more liberal subsidy from the State.

We do not propose to discuss these matters in this
column any further than they come directly or
indirectly into contact with practical coal mining,
and perhaps one of the most obvious of these is what
has been so long known as the Hew test. During
the past year the work of testing physical instru-
ments, which had been previously carried on at Kew,
has been transferred to the National Physical
Laboratory. Thus the Kew certificate, so long
established in regard to sextants, theodolites and
clinometers, as well as thermometers and other
meteorological instruments, will presumably be
replaced by a Teddington certificate, although the
term “ Kew ” tests is still retained in the prospectus,
and a special room, called the c ‘Kew” room, has
been set apart for this portion of the work.

A particularly interesting division of the Teddington
routine is that relating to photometric measurements,
and tests of the “life ” of glow lamps, a subject of
great interest to makers of electric safety lamps at
the present time, because manufacturers - of these
appliances can now avail themselves of a kind of
court of appeal in any case where a confirmation
might be desirable of an Eskmeals verdict.

It is, in fact, somewhat doubtful whether a separate
Home Office lamp-testing station at Eskmeals is
really necessary. Already at Teddington there is a
room equipped for the Home Office Committee on
Factory Lighting, and we can see but little advantage
in a separate testing station for safety lamps, beyond
such as are inherent in the special requirements for
these appliances, which it certainly should not be
beyond the capacity of the Teddington staff to
investigate.

Another important branch of the National Physical
Laboratory deals with electrotechnics. There are
complete arrangements for all kinds of tests of
electrical apparatus, including a heavy test room
for machines, transformers and other apparatus.
Electrical standards are also carefully investigated
by the institution, and an interesting feature is the
possession of the original standard resistance coils of
the British Association, dating from 1864, together
with those of quite modern date. The standard cells
number more than 300, mostly of the Weston
type, but there are also exchange cells from the
standardising laboratories of America, France, Russia
and Japan.

The pyrometer equipment provides a furnace
capable of being heated to a temperature of
3,500 degs. Cent., with the necessary measuring
appliances, and the Department of Metallurgy has
already achieved a wide reputation. There is here
much that concerns coke manufacturers, and the
regulation of temperatures in distillation retorts.

These are a few only of the activities of this
growing establishment, of which Dr. Glazebrook is
the able director. There are many others which are
perhaps more showy and appeal more directly to the
popular imagination, such as the William Froude
national tank, the departments of aeronautics,
radium and wireless telegraphy, but we think that
those more particularly mentioned above are alone
enough to establish the claim of this institution to
more liberal recognition by the Government, and