1336

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN

December 24, 1914.

Mr. Thomas Jones, C.E., an Official Referee under the
Finance Act, 1909-10, has published his decisions in the
appeals by the Brodsworth Main Colliery Company Limited
and the Kiveton Park Coal Company Limited, against three
assessments of annual increment value duty on minerals
made by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. The
question at issue in the appeals was whether there are any
words in the Finance Act, 1909-10, making increment value
duty payable on minerals, ’the appellants’ legal argument
being that sections 22 and 23 were not charging sections,
only collecting; and as section 1 was the only charging
section, the two companies were not liable. It was further
contended that there must be an actual increment value
before the duty could be charged, whereas here there had
been an actual loss. The minerals subject to the Brods-
worth Company’s appeal were the Barnsley seam at Brods-
worth, Lower Strafforth (two assessments), and those of
the Kiveton Company’s appeal, the Barnsley seam at Upper
Strafforth and Tickhill. The appeals were heard in London
on November 24, when Mr. Cockburn argued the case for
the appellants, and Mr. F. W. Kingdon for the Commis-
sioners. Mr. Jones, in his decision, has found that in each
of the appeals the assessments are correct, and the appel-
lants are the persons chargeable, being the proprietors who
have acquired and worked the minerals since April 30, 1909.
In each appeal the Referee added that, with regard to costs,
the point at issue being, in his view, substantial, and one
which the appellants were justified in raising, their costr,
incidental to the appeals should be paid by the
Commissioners.

The work of raising a second Barnsley battalion for Lord
Kitchener’s Army is being actively proceeded with. At a
recent recruiting meeting in the town, Sir Jos. Walton,
Bart., M.P., expressed pleasure at the class of men who
were coming forward. The Durham miners had, he said,
sent 25,000 men to the Colours, and the Yorkshire miners
had contributed 16,000 men. He asked Yorkshire not to
be behind. Six hundred men had joined the Colours from
Wombwell, and in proportion Barnsley should contribute
the second battalion. It has been asserted that Doncaster
has not sent nearly as many recruits as it might have
done. Early in January, therefore, a determined effort is
to be made to alter this, and meetings are to be held
throughout the Parliamentary division of Doncaster.

There will be no dinner of the Yorkshire Coal and Coke
Trades’ Wagon Representatives next month. The wagon
representatives have decided that, with the country at war,
it would not be fitting and proper for them to make merry
around the social board.

In spite of the adverse conditions due to the war, the
last 12 months’ working of the Sheffield and district branch
of the Coal Trade Benevolent Association has been extremely
satisfactory. The receipts for the year totalled £281 12s.,
an increase of about £60 on the previous year. Mr. H. A.
Longbotham has been elected president for the ensuing year.
The Duke of Norfolk has kindly accepted the position of
president of the whole association for the ensuing year.

A fire occurred at the Bullcroft Colliery on Saturday last,
causing slight damage to the lamp room and store room.
The origin of the fire has not been discovered.

Lancashire and Cheshire.

Important Pollution Case—Employment of Belgian Miners.

In the Chancery Court at Manchester on Monday, the
Vice-Chancellor, Mr. Stewart Smith, K.C., had before him
an action brought by the Laburnum Spinning Company and
five other firms carrying on business as spinners, manufac-
turers, or dyers, against the Hulton Colliery Company
Limited. Mr. Cunliffe, K.C., and Mr. Radford appeared
for the plaintiffs, and Mr. Atkinson, K.C., Mr. Roberts,
and Mr. Higson for the defendants. Mr. Cunliffe stated
that the action was tried by his Honour on July 1, 1913,
when the defendants admitted that water of a polluted
character had been allowed to flow from their pits, known
as the Arley, School, and Pretoria, into the Carr Brook. It
had then been taken by the plaintiffs for use in their works,
and considerable damage was caused. The importance of
the matter to them would be realised when he stated that
the damages up to that time were put at £10,000. The
defendants said that the effluent from the Arley and School
pits was not worse than it was in 1891, and they had
acquired a prescriptive right. That did not, however, apply
to .the Pretoria pit, which had been sunk within recent
years, but they said it was their intention to execute certain
works .and put in purifying plant which would remove the
evil complained of. Under those circumstances an order
was drawn up, part of the terms being that the defendants
should pay the costs, and that there should be an enquiry
as to damages. Since then the defendants had completed
the works to which reference had been made, but in the
view of the plaintiffs they failed to comply with the obliga-
tion imposed by the order. They did not in any way affect
the water from the School and Arley pits. As regards the
Pretoria, it was true that if they worked very carefully and
conscientiously, part of the pollution would be got rid of,
but in place of that another element .had been introduced of
an obnoxious character, because the chemical substance
used in the purification process had a very deleterious effect
upon the boilers and machinery in the premises of the
plaintiffs. Sometimes it dyed the banks of the stream a
bright red. The plaintiffs therefore submitted that the
defendants had not complied with the order of the Court,
and an injunction should be granted against them. A dis-
cussion took place which ended in the trial being fixed for
January 20, and the issues to be tried were defined.

Of the 4,049 employees of Messrs. Andrew Knowles and
Sons Limited, colliery proprietors, Pendlebury, at the com-
mencement of the war, some 585 have now joined the
Colours, or 14 per cent. Two or three casualties have been
notified. Mr. Wm. Chadwick, one of the workers, has
been awarded the French Legion of Honour for conspicuous
bravery in saving the guns of his battery.

A number of Belgian refugees are now employed in coal
mines in the Manchester and Bolton districts, where
recruiting has caused a serious shortage in the ranks of
local colliery workers.

Improvements, it is stated, have been completed at the
coal tips at Boothstown, near Walkden, on the Bridgewater
Canal, belonging to Lord Ellesmere, with a view to
facilitating the conveyance of coal on that waterway from
his lordship's extensive Mosley Common Collieries. With
the opening out of additional working places at the
Pilkington Colliery Company’s new pits at Astley Green,
larger quantities of coal are now being exported from here
ria the Bridgewater Canal, which is but a short distance

from these pits. A considerable amount of coal is also being
carried on the Bolton and Bury Canal drawn from the Lady-
shore Colliery Company’s pits, Little Lever, near Bolton,
which are situated on the banks of that canal.

Notts and Derbyshire.

Trent Navigation Scheme : Important Development.

“ Electricity and Its Application to Mining ” was the
title of a discourse delivered by Mr. A. E. Clayton, B.Sc.,
A.M.I.E.E. (of the Leicester Municipal Technical School),
at Ashby-de-la-Zouch on Saturday evening, December 12.
The lecture was the first of a series of three arranged by the
joint committee of the Leicestershire and Derbyshire County
Councils, the South Midland branch of the National Asso-
ciation of Colliery Managers, and the Midland Mining
Officials’ Association, and the fact that South Derbyshire
is once again embraced in the scheme doubtless accounted
for the increased attendance. Mr. J. W. West, C.C., pre-
sided. In the course of his lecture, Mr. Clayton dealt with
the more important applications of the electric motor to
colliery work in detail, and a number of fine illustrations
were given of actual installations by Messrs. Siemens
Brothers’ dynamo works, the British Westinghouse, and
the British Thomson-Houston companies. He dealt also
with the use of reduction gears. He also considered the
use of electricity for winding and the driving of auxiliary
plant. The lecture was illustrated by a number of excellent
lantern slides thrown on the screen by Mr. S. A. Warburton,
and many interesting experiments carried out by the
lecturer.

An important development has taken place in connection
with the Nottingham City Council’s scheme for deepening
the bed of the River Trent from Newark to Nottingham,
with a view to making the latter place an important trade
distributing centre for the Midlands, and at the same time
finding employment at a very critical time in the history of
the county. The scheme is estimated to cost .£150,000. In
view of the withdrawal of the offer of the Development
Commissioners to grant a loan of £50,000 on the under-
standing that the Council would not be called upon to repay
the principal or interest until the scheme was profit bearing,
the City Council, at their meeting on Monday, Dec. 14,
decided not to proceed with the scheme. Since that
meeting further legal advice has been obtained, and the
supporters of the proposal have been informed that there
are precedents under which the Local Government Board
had waived the strict interpretation of the Borough Funds
Act, under the provisions of which it had been sought to
proceed. Another special meeting of th§ Council is to be
held on December 30, and it is confidently anticipated that
the scheme will be adopted. In the meantime, the Bill
has been deposited in accordance with the requirements,
and the Corporation are going forward in the matter as
though nothing had happened.

Before Mr. Justice Darling, in the King’s Bench Division,
last week, the record was withdrawn in an action for damages
for slander brought by Mr. John P. Houfton, managing
director of the Bolsover Colliery Company Limited, and
Liberal candidate at the by-election for North-East Derby-
shire in May last year, against Mr. Sam Smith, ironmonger,
Creswell, Mansfield. Mr. Barrington Ward, who appeared
for the plaintiff, said that defendant, in the election, had
espoused the Labour cause with some vigour, and, speaking
at a meeting at Creswell, he gave vent to expressions of
such a nature that Mr. Houfton had to bring the present
action. When the time came Mr. Smith put in a formal
defence, and, acting upon good advice, accompanied it with
an apology, in which he said : “ I hereby apologise to you
and express my deep regret for having used false and
malicious statements concerning you at a public meeting
to the effect that you, as managing director, provided bad
and insanitary houses for workmen, and extorted high rents
for inferior cottages, that you voted against the Feeding of
Children Act, that you disregarded the provisions of the
Minimum Wage Act, and that you were endeavouring to
break up the Derbyshire Miners’ Association.”

The Midlands.

A model of a new type of “ tub-squeezer ” for use in
collieries was exhibited by Mr. E. P. Turner at a meeting
of the North Staffordshire branch of the Colliery Managers’
Association last week at Stoke. The model exhibited has
several interesting features. It does not require any
mooring posts between the floor and the roof, and the
rubbing blocks work on the wheels of the tub, and not on
the sides of the body. The adjustable side of the squeezer
is operated by a wedge, which can be worked from a distance
by means of lever and wire. In its present form it has been
in use in one of the North Staffordshire collieries for about
nine months. Mr. Allott, in moving a vote of thanks to
Mr. Turner, said the model had many advantages over the
ordinary type, and Mr. Turner could rely on other managers
copying it.

Kent.

The deeper sinking which is to be carried out at Snowdown
Colliery will be taken down to the Seven-feet seam already
proved by the boring, and which there is every reason to
hope will prove good household coal. The Snowdown hard
is a coal of entirely different texture to the Beresford seam,
although at a distance of only 700 ft. lower. It is therefore
hoped that the opening out of the Seven-feet seam will
fully bear out the sample from the borehole, and prove to
be household coal of an excellent quality. This would mean
a great deal in putting the Kent coalfield on a substantial
financial footing, as the field would have a decided advantage
in the London household supply on account of its
geographical position. The shareholders’ committee propose
to call up the necessary new capital for the work in easy
calls of about 2s. 6d. in the £ from the shareholders as
required. The output at the Snowdown Colliery is now
steadily increasing weekly, and the colliery is now stated
to be making a small profit.

At the first annual meeting of the Whitstable and
Canterbury Coalfields Limited, it was explained by the
chairman that the reason the projected boring at Tyler Hill,
near Canterbury, has not yet been started was that the
board have not been able to make a contract with any
English boring firm. They are hoping to do so, after they
have obtained the consent of the landowners to an extension
of time for the mineral options.

Scotland.

Railway Rates Advanced—Earthing Problems.

The five Scottish railway companies announce that from
January 2 the railway rates between Glasgow and Ireland
will be advanced. The increased rates will range from
lOd. to 2s. 6d. per ton. Shipping companies have made a
similar intimation. The advances are a set-off against
increased expenses consequent upon the war.

A largely attended meeting of the West of Scotland,
branch of the Association of Mining Electrical Engineers
was held in the Royal Technical College, Glasgow, on
Saturday evening last. Mr. A. B. Muirhead, the president
of the branch, was in the chair. A paper of striking
practical interest on “ Surface Earthing of Scottish Mines ”
was read by Mr. Percy S. Glover, Glasgow (Messrs. Walter
Dixon and Company). The author emphasised the point
that it was of little use having an elaborate earthing
system unless the paramount importance of obtaining and
keeping an efficient earth was appreciated by the manage-
ment and acted upon. If this was not done, the endeavour
to ensure safety in working by earthing became largely
impaired if not altogether neutralised. The best way to
secure an efficient earth was to instal two or more plates,
and then to take steps for carrying out periodical tests to
ensure that the efficiency was always maintained. In the
course of a written contribution to the discussion, Mr. H. A.
McGuffie, Glasgow, said that, on looking over his records,
he found that in about two out of every 25 collieries were
the requirements met with as to an efficient earth.
Generally speaking, he had usually found the condition of
the earth plates at the average colliery much worse than
mentioned by the author. The discussion was also taken
part in by Messrs. Smellie, Anslow, Anderson, Simon, and
Stevenson.

The following comprises, so far as is known, a list of the
“ roll of honour,” so far as the West of Scotland Branch
Association of Mining Electrical Engineers is concerned :—
W. R. Cooper, locked up in Germany; E. S. Calder, Lothian
and Border Horse; T. C. Lowe, acting engineer at Govern-
ment stations; David Martin, 5th Scottish Rifles (the
secretary of the branch); J. Wilson, Lowland Divisional
Engineers; James Wilkie, Glasgow Highlanders; K.
Higgins, formerly of Mount Vernon; and Lieut. James
Millar, Scottish Rifles.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE.

KING’S BENCH DIVISION.—December 16.

Before Justices Lush, Atkin, and Rowlatt.

Right to Suspend a Workman.

Hanley v. Pease and Partners Limited. — In this case
the appellant, Thomas Hanley, a coke quencher, of Howden-
le-Wear, Durham, appealed against a decision of the
magistrates of Bishop Auckland in favour of respondents.
On Sunday, June 14, the appellant did not go to work, and
on the following day his employers suspended him for one
day. He sued the employers for 6s. 2d., one day’s wages.
As a result of his suspension 40 other workmen ceased work,
and the employers claimed damages on this account. The
justices found that the respondents were justified in
suspending the appellant, but that there had been no
damage to respondents. For the appellant it was now
submitted that the contract between the parties being one
which only contemplated dismissal, the respondents had no
right to punish a man in this way by suspending him. To
acquire such a right they must have it expressly stated in
their contract.

Mr. Justice Lush, in giving the judgment of the court,
said a master had a right to dismiss a workman, but if he
chose to treat. the contract between them as a continuing
contract, as in this instance, notwithstanding the workman’s
breach of duty, his remedy was to claim damages from the
servant for breach of duty. Here the masters suspended
the man for one day, thereby assessing their own damages.
There was no possible right to do that, and the case must
be remitted to the justices.

The appeal was allowed, with costs.

SCOTTISH JUSTICIARY APPEAL COURT.
December 18.

Before the Lord Justice-General and Lords Dundas
and Anderson.

Pit Cables Test Case.

Shotts Iron Company Limited v. Wm. Thomson.—
Judgment was given in an appeal by plaintiffs, who were
convicted in the Sheriff Court at Hamilton on a complaint
at the instance of the Procurator-Fiscal of Lanarkshire,
charging them with having, between March 1 and April 24,
1914, in Rimmon pit, Shotts, with respect to two single-core
electric cables, not being either flexible cables for portable
apparatus or signalling wires, used during said period in
the stone mine haulage road, which stone mine haulage
road was then being used for mechanical haulage, failed to
have each of the cables protected by a metallic covering,
contrary to the Coal Mines Act, 1911, section 60 (4), 86, 90,
and 101, and to General Regulation 129 (c.) The appellants
maintained that they were released from compliance with
the existing regulations because the cables were in use in
the mine prior to June 1, 1911, and were so adapted as to
comply with the regulations then in force. Sheriff-Substitute
Hay Shennan imposed the nominal penalty of <£1, holding
that the Regulation 137 (6) merely authorised the continued
use of an existing installation, and that when the appellants
in January last proceeded to lay a cable on a mechanical
haulage road, they were not entitled to use for this purpose
any existing cable which had complied with the regulations
before June 1, 1911, but were bound to provide a cable
which complied with the new regulations.

The Court dismissed the appeal, and found the respondent
entitled to expenses modified to 7 guineas.

Calendars and Almanacs.—Calendars and almanacs have
been received from the following :—Geo. Cradock and Com-
pany Limited (Wakefield); United States Metallic Packing
Company Limited (Bradford); The ” Ceag ” Miners’ Supply
Company Limited (9, Harp-lane, E.C.): Partridge and
Cooper (Chancery-lane, E.C.).