February 12, 1915.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

337

A special conference of the South Wales Miners’
Federation was held at Cardiff on Saturday, when it
was decided to give notices on April 1 to terminate
the present coalfield agreement and to open negotia-
tions with the owners upon the national programme.
It was agreed to demand a minimum wage of 5s. per
day for surface workers, and an improvement of the
present standard rate.

The meeting of gas works authorities at Man-
chester, last week, to consider the scarcity of coal
supplies, decided to send a deputation to the Govern-
ment, urging the temporary suspension of the Eight
Hours Act.

The “ Training of Mining Engineers ” forms the
subject of a paper to be read by Mr. John Gibson
to-morrow (Saturday) at the general meeting of the
Mining Institute of Scotland at Edinburgh.

The South Staffs and Warwickshire Institute of
Mining Engineers will hold a meeting on Monday
next when Mr. S. H. Cashmore will contribute a
paper entitled “ The Reduction of Working Costs at
the Coal Face.”

To-morrow (Saturday) two papers will be read
before the North of England Institute of Mining
and Mechanical Engineers. The first by Mr.
H. W. G. Halbaum is on “The Lateral Friction of
Winding Ropes,” and the second by Mr. AV. H.
Davis deals with winding engine signals.

By an accidental flooding of the South Wellington
Coalmine, Nanaimo (British Columbia), on Tuesday,
22 men were drowned, including the manager, Mr.
Joseph Foy.

At a conference between owners’ and men’s repre-
sentatives in connection with the dispute in the West
Yorkshire coalfield at Leeds on Tuesday, a settlement
was arrived at, the owners eventually conceding the
men’s demands until the conclusion of the war.

The Miners’ Federation of Great Britain have
presented Sir Daniel Burnett with a silver salver in
gratitude for the services he rendered by raising a
relief fund of £128,000 for the sufferers by the
Senghenydd Colliery disaster.

The debate on the price of necessaries of life was
opened yesterday in the Flouse of Commons, when
the Premier made a long statement. Referring to
coal, he said the increase had only been 15 per cent,
as compared with February 1914, and 14 percent, as
compared with the average of the three years. He
attributed the rise chiefly to freights and to the
shortage of labour at the pits. In addition to the
vessels already released for the conveyance of coal,
several ships now used to accommodate prisoners of
war are shortly to be liberated. Goods wagons have
now been pooled, and the payment of demurrage has
been temporarily suspended, and other steps are being
taken to expedite goods traffic. Mr. Bonar Law and
several private members spoke, and the debate was
adjourned until next Wednesday.

Further meetings have been held during the week
of the sub-committee appointed by the Conciliation
Board in the Federated Districts of England and
North Wales to consider the renewal of the wages
agreement which expires at the end of next month.

The latest developments in labour
affairs in Australia remind us

Labour somew’hat of the heroic tragedy of
Paradise. “Pyramus and Thisbe”; when
the Government “roars” it is
careful to explain that it is only “make-believe.”
New South Wales some years ago adopted the
compulsory arbitration system first introduced by
New Zealand, which was to make strikes impossible,
and the principle has since been embodied in the
statutes of the Commonwealth. One of the means
towards this delectable end was that persons who
stopped work before the industrial courts had finished
considering a dispute were to be liable to all sorts of
dire penalties.

But Labour interests have acquired ; so great an
ascendancy in the Antipodes that few judges have
been found to apply the industrial acts fearlessly
and impartially ; consequently strikes have taken
place as of old, the latest being a serious dispute,
over what is known as the “afternoon shift”
question in the northern district of New South

Wales, in the course of which several impudent
infractions of the law have occurred. For once, how-
ever, the men’s leaders counted without their host,
for Mr. Justice Heydon, president of the State
Industrial Court, inflicted the maximum penalty of
£1,000 in each of two cases against the Miners’
Federation, and also the maximum penalty of £50
upon each of 10 officials of the Federation. In
addition, he cited three of the officials to appear on
a charge of contempt of court.

At the'same time this intrepid judge delivered a
scathing judgment, in which he declared that “a
more formal, explicit, deliberate, and continuous
defiance of the law” than that which had occurred,
it would be impossible to conceive. The Federation
and its members and officials had practically “ gone
to war with the Act,” and if the powers given by the
Legislature were not fully used, the Court would
“ practically be trying to amend the Act, and declaring
that, in its opinion, the Legislature has done wrong
in the penalties it has authorised.”

One result of this unexpected blow to Labour was
that the New South Wales Government was placed
in the awkward predicament of having to override
the judicature or of mortally and materially offending
the Labour party. Not even in a time of war could
such a situation be faced. The Government, how-
ever, had an artful expedient; it neglected to collect
the fines. The expedient was not original, for when,
in connection with the same dispute, Mr. Justice
Scholes, in July of last year, fined 500 miners the
sum of £4 each, the Government absolved itself
from the uncomfortable duty of collecting the fines
on the ground that they could only be enforced by
garnishee, and as the men continued to desist from
work and were earning nothing, it was impossible to
do anything.

One of the largest firms engaged in the industry—
Messrs. J. and A. Brown, owners of the Pelaw Main
Colliery—have now caused a writ to be served on the
Northern Colliery Employees’ Federation, claiming
£100,000 damages for loss of trade, demurrage and
detention of vessels, loss of profits on the sale of
coal, and other matters. This action is reminiscent
of the Denaby Main and Welsh “ stop-day ” cases,
which followed upon the Taff Vale judgment, during
the short interregnum in which British trade unions
really did appear to be responsible in law for their
actions. Of course, they can form no precedent in
Australia, where the atmosphere is different, but it
is interesting to note that the Judicial Committee of
the Privy Council last month granted special leave
to appeal in regard to a dispute in the Australian
building trade, in what was practically an application
by the masters for a mandamus against the President
of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and
Arbitration. We are surprised that the people of
Australia are content to suffer fools so gladly, and
tolerate the continued existence of legislation that is
compulsory only in the sense that it compels one side
and not the other.

But those who have, been able to take a clear and
detached view of the development of the labour
question in the Crown colonies must have been
impressed by one fact—namely, that the much-
vaunted arbitration systems of Australasia and
Canada are, so to speak, reverting to type. The
one thing that the authors of these Acts overlooked
was the irrational behaviour of the human being
when his path is crossed. In a very significant
paper read before the British Association at Melbourne
on “ The Artificial Regulation of Wages,” Mr. G. S.
Beeby, late Minister for Labour and Industry and
Education in the State of New South Wales, makes
some remarkable admissions. Industrial arbitration,
in Australia, he says, has chiefly been of value from
an educational standpoint, but it has increased the
number of minor strikes, and has contributed to a
decline in the standard of efficiency in two ways:
firstly, by largely increasing the wages payable
to unapprenticed- juniors, thereby reducing the-
incentive to follow fixed trades; and secondly, by
prescribing high minima, which become “ standards,” ’
thereby removing the competitive incentive • to ■<
inefficient workmen to' improve their earning capacity.:
In many occupations, notwithstanding, the increase,
of wages, the average output per employee has

substantially decreased. The elaborate codes which
the Arbitration Courts substitute for ordinary
contracts of employment, and the persistent increases
in minimum wages, will shortly, says the ex-Minister,
begin to encroach on profits. When this happens,
and shrinkage of enterprise follows, a general
reconsideration of the whole scheme of industrial
regulation is inevitable. Mr. Beeby’s forecast is as
follows:—

The elaborate machinery now existing will give way to
a Board of Trade, which will each two or three years
prescribe a general living wage. The attempts to
penalise strikes and lock-outs will give way to simple
conciliation machinery, under which every threatened
industrial upheaval will be openly enquired into, and the
parties encouraged and assisted to settle their differences
voluntarily. The worker will before long realise that we
have reached the limit of artificial regulation of wages,
and that his energy in the future will be better directed
to increasing the purchasing power of his sovereign,
rather than to adding another sovereign to his weekly
wage.

This means that Australia, by a devious route, has
arrived at very much the same point as we have in
this country. Her experience should be w’arning to us.

The paper read before the Manchester
Mminy Geological and Mining Society, on
Education Tuesday, by Mr. N. T. Williams,
and the revived many of the old arguments

War. respecting the efficacy of our system
of mining education ; but the subject
is of such vital importance to our industrial proficiency
that no harm and much benefit may be expected
from renewed discussion and criticism of our educa-
tional methods. No one will pretend that we have
produced a perfect system: few will deny that we
have improved upon older systems. Indeed, the fact
that we have any system at all is a considerable step
in advance compared with times within the memory
of those now living. There must still, be many a
mining man who can recall the conclusion of the
Royal Commission of 1845, in which attention was
called to the ignorance and inefficiency of many of
the officials in mines. Since that date, tests of
competency have been getting gradually more and
more stringent, and we believe that the colliery
official of the present day is at least as highly trained
and as efficient as present circumstances permit; for,
as Sir Thomas Holland remarked in the course of
the discussion upon the paper referred to above, .we
have to look upon this question of mining education
in the light of existing conditions. We may have
our ideals still, but these must be subordinated to
practical considerations. ,

One of the most important of these, at the present
time, is, we think, the probable effect of the war
upon the future supply of colliery officials. A large
number of colliers have gone to serve their country,
and amongst these will be found the very best Of the
men, the men possessing just those physical and
mental qualifications which go to make efficiency and
success. It may be presumed that the majority of
these men will return to the pits in due course,'. but
the break in the continuity of their work, will severely
handicap them in any aspirations they may have had
to obtaini certificates. It is only by maintaining a
plentiful supply of candidates that the official ranks
can be supplied with recruits of therequired calibre.
Are the inducements to follow a certificate course
sufficient to . attract the men ? The answer may
appear doubtful, for there is much truth in the state-
ment made during the discussion that the extra pay
of a colliery manager is scarcely equivalent to the
increase in responsibility and personal expenses
which the higher grade demands. Surely some con-
cession should be made to meh who' have 'dropped a
year or so by serving His Majesty in > the present
emergency. ................... •	- -......

Upon the general * question whether the average
collier thinks the game is worth the candle much may
be said. The tendency has been towards increasing
the working man’s facilities by all. sorts of devices,
and scholarships and bursaries/ intended to, .provide
the necessary ladder to the university, are in some
danger of being abused. ■ The ladder, as Sir Thomas
Holland aptly remarked, should not be expected to
become a hydraulic lift; but a long and steep ladder
with but little standing room at the top, will be
unattractive to the ordinary miner, who can scarcely
.be expected to. try to scale it for-the mere pleasured
climbing.