November 20, 1914.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

1077

In the King’s Bench Division, on Wednesday, the
Butterley Iron and Coal Company Limited appealed
against a decision of the Alfreton County Court
respecting liability to pay minimum wages to a miner
whose wages were usually paid by a “butty.” The
appeal was dismissed.

The Admiralty have imposed restrictions on
navigation in the Firth of Forth which will have the
effect of closing the ports. This will be keenly felt
by the coal-carrying trade of the district.

In issuing their useful manual on
Construing “ The Law relating to Mines under
the Coal the Coal Mines Act, 1911,” the
Mines, Act. Home Office have certainly shown
great courage. The Act was more
the creation of the Department than of Parliament,
and this official “guide” illustrates, in many ways,
the imperfections of the measure. Apart from errors
in drafting, which are not conspicuous by their
absence, the Act is far from clear in some respects,
and it is not satisfactory that a few lines of text
should, need several times as much explanatory
matter, in order to give the manager an indication of
their true meaning.

In so far as the 1911 Act is new, there is as yet
very little authority for construction. Experience in
working has pointed to the need for interpretation
on certain points in a sense that will find acceptance
by inspectors and managers alike, but few test cases
have been decided in the courts with respect to the
new provisions of the Act. Prosecutions have rather
centred round the Regulations, and the result of
these has generally been to leave the Home Office
without any authority for their views, if it has failed
to alter them. As regards the established law on the
provisions of the 1887 Act, which are reproducedin
the 1911 Act, our old friend “MacSwinney” would
have done ; as we have already mentioned, however,
the Home Office have essayed to place constructions
on numerous debatable points, which can have no
legal sanction until they are tested in a court of law.
If this fact is clearly recognised we can see no great
harm, and much utility, in the book.

Limits of space forbid us from speaking of more
than a few of these interpellations, some of which,
be it said, state views which the Home Office has
been known to hold for some time. In some cases,
it seems to us, the Home Office has actually shirked
discussion. Thus, at the outset, in section 2, it
would be interesting to know what the official
interpretation of “technical management” maybe;
howbeit, a note to section 122 states that the Home
Office is advised that there may be more than one
agent—e g,, one on the financial side and another on
the technical side.

A curious point is referred to in a note to Section
16. The term “workmen” is not defined in the
Act, but in Section 84 (8) it is used in contra-
distinction to the term “ official,” and that is the sense
which it is taken to have throughout the Act. This,
indeed, roughly follows the definition in the Eight
Hours Act. In Section 110 (Workmen’s Compensa-
tion) however, the term “workman” is not limited
to persons other than officials, and it is stated that
the term “workmen” in Section 77 (bathing
accommodation) includes the firemen and other
officials who are employed continuously below ground.

“ Coal mine ” is also without a definition, but is
regarded as including any mine in which coal is
found, whether worked or not.

Another miscalculation is referred to in connection

with Section 35 (2), it being pointed out that the effect
of this subsection is to require a search to be made for
matches on every occasion on which men go down
to work. Such a procedure, of course, was never
contemplated, nor is it followed.

There has been much discussion on a certain point
in Section 29 («). It has been pointed out that
exemption from the requirements as regards
ventilation of abandoned roads and levels might
allow dangerous accumulations of gas to collect. It
is now pointed out that the phrase “ abandoned road
or level ’ ’ does not include a road or level which is
merely temporarily discontinued ; further that the
proviso only has the effect of rendering it unnecessary

to make the abandoned road or level safe for persons
to work or pass in it: it does not exempt the manage-
ment from ventilating the abandoned road or level if
that is necessary to make any adjacent workings,
roads, &c., safe. The legal aspect apart, we agree
that this rendering is wise in view of the Hulton and
Whitehaven disasters.

We note with some interest that the Home Office

has not reproduced the directions given by the Chief
Inspector in Part 2 of his last general report in
regard to the reversal of the ventilation. The Home
Office now take the view that the whole matter
should be left to the discretion of the management.
This is satisfactory, at least in principle, yet there
is probably no provision of the Coal Mines Act on
which the manager feels less sure of himself than
on this.

To the sections relating to shafts and roadway8
there are numerous notes which may be consulted
by the manager with profit; notably a long and
detailed explanation of the obscure provisions
regarding man-holes. “ Travelling road,” which is
not defined in the Act, is held to include every road
on which any person travels in the course of his
duties or for the purpose of reaching his working
place, but not roads fenced off, which officials may
be required to explore ; apparently, it is not
synonymous with the term “ travellable” in the
General Regulations.

Coming to Section 34, the Home Office have not
seen fit to assume the responsibility for the unlocking
of safety lamps at underground stations, but the
deprecation of the practice by the “Court” which
enquired into the Senghenydd disaster is reproduced.

In Section 60 the phrase “an inspector of the
division ” is used, and it may be news to some that
this implies any inspector attached to the division,
and not the inspector in charge of the division.
Personally, we had always regarded the use of the
article as a misprint. Presumably it gives full
powers to a sub-inspector to discontinue the working
of the electrical plant.

The point that has arisen under Section 65 with
regard to examinations in the case of continuous
shifts is referred to. The Chief Inspector gave his
views on the subject in Part II. of his General
Report for 1912, and a note to this effect is given.

Many of the regulations and orders contemplated
under the Act have yet to be issued, including those
under Section 17 (1), 18 (1) (<Z), 30, 42 (3), 42 (4) and
62. In most cases the delay will not cause much
heart-burning. As we have mentioned above, the
text of the Act contains several literal errors, and it
is somewhat surprising that the opportunity was
not seized to correct these when the amending Act
was passed during the present year.

The Mining and Geological Institute
The of India has done good service in
Raniganj publishing a revised edition of Dr.
Coalfield. Blanford’s well-known map of the
Raniganj coalfield. This map was
made as a result of a re-examination of the coalfield
by the Geological Survey of India in 1858-60, and
was published in 1861 in the Memoirs. In 1905
this map was revised by Mr. G. A. Stonier by the
addition of information derived from mining develop-
ments, and has been published by The Colliery
Guardian in successive reprints in order to fill the
continued demand for copies created by the exigencies
of mining activity in India. The present is, there-
fore, the third edition, and it bears the authority of

Messrs. R. R. Simpson, H. Walker, and a committee
of the members of the institute, to which we should
have liked the date of publication to have been
added.

It is a remarkable tribute to the accuracy of
Dr. Blanford’s work that it has been found
necessary to correct but little of the surface
information, and the lithological descriptions in
the original memoir require but little amend-
ment. Such alterations as have been considered
desirable in the light of present knowledge are
admirably summarised in a paper by Mr. H.
Walker, published in the Transactions of the Mining
and Geological Institute of India in May of last

year, while the map itself was being prepared for
publication.

It would be useless here to refer in detail to those
points upon which the committee responsible for the
present edition of this map find themselves at
variance with previous issues ; but a few such cases
may be briefly mentioned. In fixing the boundary
between the Barakar series and the Ironstone Shales,

Dr. Blanford’s reading is restored, and this line
now runs north of the Grand Trunk road instead
of south as represented in the second edition. A
further tribute to the original mapping is to
be found in the fact that the disputed age of the
rocks outcropping at Samlah on the Adjai was due
to an error of colouring to which Dr. Blanford called
attention in the Memoir without effect, for the error
was repeated in the 1905 edition, and is now for the
first time put right. Mr. Walker refers to the impor-
tant question of the extension of the coalfield eastwards
beneath the laterite and alluvium, predicted as not im-
probable by Dr. Blanford, and now proved to be the
case at Chora, Bowla, Sanpore, Ukra, and elsewhere.
But that distinguished geologist, in the absence of
borings, was somewhat too cautious in his estimate
of the continuity of the coal seams. A great deal
more is now known respecting the occurrence and
correlation of these seams, and Mr. Walker concludes
that the thick seams in the lower horizons in the east
merge into thinner seams in the west; and while
some seams, such as the Dishargarh, thin out east-
ward, one, the Sanctoria seam, is thickest in the
centre of the field.

An attempt is also made in this edition of the map
to differentiate the igneous dykes into basalts and
mica-peridotites. These dykes have considerable
economic importance from the fact that many of them
run flatly along the coal seams, often spreading out
as sills on the top of the coal. As regards faults, too,
much new knowledge has been gained. Dr. Blanford
got the impression that faults are more numerous and
the throw greater in the Lower Damudas than in the
Raniganj beds, a view which is not altogether con-
firmed by the information gained in the colliery
workings.

With reference to the cartography, the committee
have adopted a scale of I in. to the mile for the small
map, and of 4 in. to the mile for the large map, which
is in 24 separate sheets, Preliminary large scale
sheets were supplied to managing agents and mine
managers throughout the coalfield for the purpose of
plotting underground information afforded by the
separate workings—a procedure which guarantees, as
far as possible, accuracy of the details. The colours
selected for the formations are delicate and artistic,
but it would have been wise to have had a distin-
guishing letter—both on the outcrops and on the
key—to facilitate rapid identification of the various
shades. On the whole this map does great credit
both to the Institute and to the Geological Survey of
India, whose early work, under Dr. Blanford’s
guidance, has stood so thorough a test after a lapse
of more than half-a-century.

The
Workmen’s
Compensation
Act.

More than ordinary interest
attaches to the returns of Work-
men’s Compensation for 1913. In
1912 there was the general strike
of coalminers; and so great is the
influence of the mining industry

upon the general returns that, leaving out of
account the unemployment caused in trades dependent
to a greater or less extent upon coalmining, the

figures for that year could not be regarded as affording
an index of the correlated growth of disablement
and compensation.

No one has been able to forecast with any certainty
the normal cost of the Workmen’s Compensation
Act; by normal cost we mean the cost that will be
arrived at when those coming upon the list of disabled
shall be balanced by the removal of old pensioners
by death. Actuaries may be able to tell us when
this will take place; but that we have not yet reached
that point the returns for 1913 clearly show, and it
is not impossible that, as in the case of the older Act,
fresh legislation may again prevent us from acquiring
this knowledge.