September 18, 1914.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

623

In reply to questions in the House
Trading With of Commons, on Wednesday, by Sir
the Enemy. J. D. Bees as to the legal status of
contracts with alien enemies entered
into before the outbreak of war, the Attorney-
General made the following answer:—

Any difficulty which arises in answering the
question to which the hon. member refers is not due
to any doubt as to the principle to be applied, but to
the complexities of each individual case. Conse-
quently, a general statement, even if it were
universally accepted as authoritative, would not
provide a solution, and individuals will find that the
only practicable course is to seek competent private
advice on the circumstances of their own case.

This statement may be taken to answer quite
accurately the much larger question of trading with
the enemy much larger because it embraces not
only past transactions, but future dealings also. The
abstract principle is fairly clear; according to Prof.
Usher, “the Germans refuse to recognise as moral
anything which jeopardises their national existence.”
This may be a dangerous doctrine in times of peace,
but no one can doubt its soundness under the condi-
tions that now prevail ; in a word, trading is not
permissible where it is to the disadvantage of this
country; and this guiding principle must be applied
in a negative as well as in a positive sense; it is
not sufficient to show that we derive direct benefit
from such trading, for international trading can only
exist upon the basis of mutual interest, but it must also
be shown that no direct and immediate advantage is
conferred upon enemies that may sustain them in
their hostile operations against this country. In
practice, however, this is a principle which it is
singularly difficult to apply; the commercial relations
between this country and Germany take so many
forms that we must constantly be in the predicament
of being unjust, or of being duped by clever and
unscrupulous foes. Thus it is left to some unfortunate
to define in each case terms so abstract as the
“public interest,” and, with very imperfect data, to
discover motives and intentions. Really the Bill
which has just passed through Parliament, and the
Proclamation issued last week, which must be read
together with it, leave us very much in the dark, for
there clearly are cases for which these measures
make no provision.

It is important to note that the expression “enemy,”
as used in the Proclamation, “ means any person or
body of persons of whatever nationality resident or
carrying on business in the enemy country, but does
not include persons of enemy nationality who are
neither resident nor carrying on business in the
enemy country. In the case of incorporated bodies,
enemy character attaches only to those incorporated
in an enemy country.”

A British subject, in brief, may not make any
payment in coin or kind to an enemy as defined
either directly or indirectly, nor enter into any
contract with him or for his benefit. Such an
injunction should be unnecessary to patriotic subjects
of the Crown, but the difficulty is that it takes two
to make a bargain, and the bona fides of one party
only can be tested. Thus it is provided that “ where
an enemy has a branch locally situated in British,
allied or neutral territory, not being neutral territory
in Europe, transactions by or with such branch shall
not be treated as transactions by or with an enemy.”

As we pointed out in our last issue, this proviso
leaves a wide loophole for evasion—not by British
consignors but by fraudulent consignees. It enables
German coaling stations to convert cargoes of Welsh
coal to the benefit of the enemy’s navy, and there is
no safeguard that is of any real value, if we except
the vigilance of our Navy.

When we come to businesses in this country, the
difficulty becomes still more intense. When the Bill
was again considered in the House of Commons this
week, Mr. Samuel Roberts asked that there should
be a regular process not only for enemy concerns
with branches or agencies in this country, but also
for companies carrying on business in this country
for the express purpose of undermining British trade.
Indefinite and impracticable though it may be,
this is a very rational request. The organisations
run by Mr. Hugo Stinnes provide a case in point.

Some of these, such as the Mersey and Clyde Coaling
Company Limited, and the Northern JUnion Mining
Company Limited, not only have English titles and
habitations, but boards of directors which give little
clue to their real nature ; yet we have no doubt
that contracts made with either would accrue to the
personal advantage of Mr. Hugo Stinnes, to that
of the Rhenish-Westphalian Kohlenkontor, of which
he forms no insignificant component, and to that of
the Prussian Government, who have always regarded
his vast enterprises as benign.

The amendment introduced by Sir John Simon,
which provides that the Board of Trade may examine
the books of a company where “ one-third or more of
the issued share capital or of the directorate of the
company immediately before or at any time since the
commencement of the present war was held by, or
on behalf of persons who were subjects of, or resident
or carrying on business in, a State for the time being
at war with his Majesty” provides for cases where
shares have been nominally transferred to, say,
naturalised British subjects, and to some extent it
covers the ground, although, curiously enough, it
seems to deal also with British firms who may have
been so unfortunate as to have been running business
establishments in Germany prior to the war. But
there are other reconstructed concerns, which deserve
similar attention; we are not greatly impressed by
the protestations of some of these recognised agencies,
for the “ British ” management and capital now
enlisted may obviously be the result of subterranean
negotiation, and a specious means of keeping an
enemy business intact. And when the Board of
Trade has examined the books of a doubtful
concern, it is not clear that it can take any really
effectual action to prevent goods or money, after
many vicissitudes, frotn reaching the enemy.

Into the other provisions of the Bill we shall
not enter here, but we venture to say that it will
fail in many instances to serve the principle by
which it is dictated. It is contrary to all common
sense, of course, to wage unreasoning and indis-
criminate war against all industry that has sprung
from German sources, so far as to throw British
labour on the streets and destroy British capital, or
to endanger the existence of our own industries in
the satisfaction of an ultra-patriotic ideal. But our
enemies do not live only in the Fatherland, and it is
probable that we shall continue to give our protection
and patronage to inimical interests, on the sole
condition that no money for the present is
transmitted to Germany or Austria; we may still
allow German agencies, to engage in the distribu-
tion of British goods, and enable German capital
concerns, by maintaining “ so-called ” works—
where the manufacture consists only in the
assembling of parts—to keep going until the end
of the war, when the custom will again be handed
over to the real sponsors. Even the interests of
British labour and capital must be sacrificed at times
where these conflict with the safety of the nation.

Some satisfaction, however, may be derived from
the fact that, although it may be difficult for the
Board of Trade to arrive at the true facts of the
case without recourse to “ biassed and jealous
competitors,” on the other hand the risks attendant
upon subterfuge and the penalties for infringement
may make it difficult for our enemies to obtain the
human tools necessary to carry on this vicarious
work.

If there should exist any doubt
Rescue respecting the utility of the enquiry
Apparatus, by the Doncaster Coal Owners’ Com-
mittee upon the efficiency of self-
contained rescue apparatus it should be dispelled by
an unprejudiced study of Dr. J. S. Haldane’s
Second Report, describing the efforts of manufac-
turers to remedy the defects which had already been
discovered in the first series of tests. It will be
remembered that the First Report was not altogether
encouraging, every one of the appliances having
exhibited more or less grave defects, some of which
were positive sources of danger to the wearer. This
report came at an opportune moment when the Home
Office were contemplating the compulsory use of
self-contained breathing apparatus at every colliery;

and it cannot be doubted that the straightforward
manner in which Dr. Haldane showed up the weak
points of these appliances as then available was
largely responsible for the more reasonable attitude
since shown towards the smoke helmet. But it has
done more than this. It has served to emphasise
vital defects, thus enabling manufacturers to concen-
trate their attention upon their eradication, and on
the whole with quite gratifying results ; for the tone
of Dr. Haldane’s report is far more encouraging with
regard to several forms of breathing appliance in
which, one way or another, development appears to
be proceeding upon sound lines.

A useful and highly interesting feature of this
report is the investigation carried on at Doncaster
upon the behaviour of the apparatus in hot air. This
involved special arrangements calculated to reproduce
as far as possible conditions likely to be encountered
in dealing with underground fires. The physiological
effects of hot air had already been demonstrated by
Dr. Haldane, who had shown that it is the wet-bulb
temperature which is important in this connection.
Neither the temperature of the air, its moisture
content, nor its relative humidity matter much so
long as the wet-bulb temperature is sufficiently low.
In these earlier investigations, however, none of the
wet-bulb temperatures exceeded the body tempera-
ture, and it was therefore necessary to examine the
effect of still higher wet-bulb readings. The results
entirely confirmed Dr. Haldane’s previous conclu-
sions. Under these conditions there was a rapid rise
in the body temperature leading, even after a few
minutes of exertion, to a dangerous subjective
condition which could be produced either by the rise
in body temperature or by the air furnished by the
apparatus becoming too hot to breathe. The latter
condition was particularly experienced in some cases,
owing to the heating of the caustic-soda purifier.
For these reasons it was found that a wet-bulb
temperature higher than 80 degs. Fahr, rapidly
curtailed the working power of a man wearing the
rescue apparatus. Great importance thus attaches to
methods for keeping the purifier cool, and this result
already promises to be successfully attained in
various ways.

It might perhaps be thought that this particular
difficulty would be entirely overcome by the use of
liquid air in the place of oxygen cylinders, but
Dr. Haldane found that very little advantage was
derived from the coolness of the air in this class of
apparatus, although the improved liquid-air apparatus
lately installed in Durham hnd Northumberland is
far more satisfactory than previous types of this
class, and is stated by Dr. Haldane to be the first
really successful application of the liquid - air
principle to mining conditions. The practical
difficulties involved in the use of liquid air, however,
still render this class of apparatus, in the opinion of
Dr. Haldane, inferior to oxygen cylinders both in
convenience and in adaptability to mining conditions.

We cannot for obvious reasons follow Dr. Haldane
through all the merits and demerits of the machines
tested by him. As stated above, the results in
certain cases seem to be highly promising, and
manufacturers are deeply indebted to these Doncaster
investigations for valuable guidance in the further
perfection of these appliances.

It was quite to be expected, in a report of this
nature, that some comment would be forthcoming
upon the position created by recent legislation, to
the embarrassment alike both of mine managers and
manufacturers, by attempting to enforce regulations
in advance of the progress of invention. Two equally
undesirable results have been thus produced. As
matters stand, any sort of breathing appliance would
fulfil the requirements of the Act, and a condition
has arisen which might have had serious consequences
as regards the safety of rescue brigades in collieries.
These two investigations have done much to mitigate
the mischief which might have arisen from ignorance
of latent defects the practical importance of which
had not previously been recognised either by mine
managers or by manufacturers.

Mine managers are still confronted with a difficult
problem in the selection of rescue apparatus. In
the case of the Doncaster rescue station, Dr. Haldane
has practically reduced the choice to two only of the