March .5, 1915.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

497

heavy enquiry has not been without its influence on
prices. In Scotland, values continue to advance, the
market being in an active condition. .

The Central Mining Rescue Station, which has
been erected at Edinburgh in connection with the
Heriot-Watt College, has been formally opened.

A meeting of the Manchester Geological and Mining
Society will be held at Manchester on Tuesday next,
when Mr. E. N. Siddall will contribute a paper on
' roof support.

On Thursday, the 25th ult., 12 men lost their lives
in an underground fire which occurred at the New
Hem Heath Colliery, Chesterton (Staffordshire).
The victims include Mr. Claude Hodgkinson, of
Messrs. Hodgkinson Bros., the . proprietors. The
inquest has been opened, and adjourned until
Tuesday next.

The special committee appointed by the Govern-
ment to consider the rise in the retail price of coal
has now heard evidence of the producers and retailers.
In the House of Commons Mr. Runciman stated that
there was nothing in the terms of reference which
would preclude the committee from considering the
advisability of stopping coal exports during the war.
Two new members, Mr. I. Rowlands and Mr. J.
Boyton, have been added to the committee.

The recent Wharncliffe Silkstone explosion formed
the theme of a paper read by Prof. L. T. O’Shea, on
Tuesday, before the Midland Institute of Mining,
Civil, and Mechanical Engineers.

At Hamilton, last week, Messrs. Robert Addie
and Sons Collieries Limited asked for permission to
dismiss the check weigher at one of their collieries on
the ground of his having interrupted the working of
the mine. The case was adjourned until the 15th
inst.

The Home Secretary has issued revised schemes
of training and practice for those engaged in rescue
work.

At a mine near Leyland, (West Virginia) on
Tuesday, 171 men were entombed as the result of
an explosion of gas.

The President of the Board of Trade on Wednesday
received a deputation, representing electrical and gas
undertakings, regarding the shortage of coal. Mr.
Runciman promised careful consideration.

A conference of coal exporters will be held at
York on Wednesday to consider the question of pre-
war contracts.

The English Coal Conciliation Board met again on
Wednesday, the men submitting amended proposals
for a new wage agreement. The matter was
adjourned until Thursday next to enable the owners
to consider the proposals.

In view of misapprehension that has arisen, the
terms of reference to the Coal Mining Production
Committee have been amended as follows :—“ To
enquire into the conditions prevailing in the coal-
mining industry, with a view to promoting such
organisation of work and such co-operation between
employers and workmen as, having regard to the
large number of miners who are enlisting for military
and naval service, will secure the necessary production
of coal during the war.”

Mr. Runciman, replying to Mr. James Hope in the
House of Commons yesterday, said the quantities of
coal and coke exported from the United Kingdom to
neutral foreign countries in the last two completed
calendar months were as follow :—Coal, 1,864,000
tons in January and 2,066,000 tons in February;
coke, 81,000 tons in January and 64,000 tons in
February.

A serious strike has occurred at the Loanhead
Collieries, in the Lothians, on a demand for increased
rates of pay for surfacemen. It is feared that the
trouble may spread to other pits.

The Miners’ Federation of Great Britain has
summoned a national conference to meet in London
on March 17, and the miners’ agents in the various
districts are now consulting their members as to the
advisability of taking immediate action for securing
a substantial wage advance in view of the high war
price of coal.	. c	- j

Nearly 6,000 men employed in the Scottish steel
trade are .involved in claims^ for, increased wages.,
The Board of Trade has appointed-an Arbitration,
Court to sit on Monday to discuss a claim for 25 per

cent, increase by 2,000 steelmakers. Nearly 4,000
men in the blastfurnace trade have applied for a
50 per cent, increase, regarding which the employers
are to submit an offer.

The coalheavers’ strike at Liverpool was settled

The schemes of training and practice
Rescue hl connection with rescue work,
Schemes, which have just been issued by the
Home Office, are the offspring of the
Amending Rescue and Aid Regulations of May 19,
1914. It will be remembered that early in last
year the attempt of the Home Office to stereotype
the self-contained apparatus and to prohibit the use
of the smoke helmet for the purposes of the original
regulations led to a stiff fight before Lord Mersey.
In Northumberland and Durham a permanent staff
of men is maintained at each of the rescue stations,
who, like a fire brigade, are available to be called to
any colliery where their services may be required.
In other cases—e.g., in Lancashire and Cheshire—the
rescue station is used merely for purposes of affording
instruction to the brigades regularly maintained at
the collieries. It was urged, with much reason, that
to debar the use of smoke helmets for the purposes
of the regulations would not only deprive the
industry of a very useful apparatus, but would
render a system such as that carried out in the North
of England altogether impracticable.

It will be fresh in the recollection of our readers
that a compromise was eventually arrived at, the
Regulations being framed so as to provide for
the retention of the North of England system,
with certain safeguards. One .result was to render
the scheme of training originally laid down by

the Home Office inapplicable to all cases, and
different schemes have now been devised for the men
working under the respective systems; at the same
time, the opportunity has been taken to revise the
existing scheme of training in the light of
experience.

An examination of the schemes shows that the
training of the central corps and that of the brigades
working under the older regulations are now prac-
tically alike in all respects ; the requirements in the
case of men from individual mines attached to a
central corps are also very similar, but each man is to
undergo at least 12 practices in the first year,
whereas in the other cases no time limit is put to the
course; again, men coming from mines where smoke
helmets are kept are to be given two additional
practices with this type of apparatus, and, after being
reported to be efficient, each man is to undergo
at least one practice with breathing apparatus each
quarter. It is urged that men from the central corps
should be present at the first few practices.

The object evidently is to bring all men engaged
in rescue work up to the same standard of efficiency,
and it must be obvious that this is a sine qua non,
as the employment of half-trained men in work of
this nature would be criminal folly. From this point
of view, the changes now made in the system of
training are all to be commended. Emphasis is laid
upon the necessity of carrying out practices in a hot
atmosphere in contradistinction to one that is merely
irrespirable. This has been clearly dictated by the
researches of Dr. Haldane. Formerly, after the
first practice, all training had to be conducted in an
irrespirable atmosphere ; it is now provided that the
progress shall be gradual. The course of training
has been amplified somewhat, and it is interesting to
note that the men are now to be instructed in “ the
rapid establishment of telephonic communication”;
the latter is a not the least important factor in the
efficient organisation of rescue work. The record of
practices is in future to include a report as to the
condition of each man after the practice, and, if
anything abnormal is observed, a statement as to
whether it is due to a defect of the apparatus or
to the man himself. Had such ,a..course been
religiously pursued in the past,. ■ it is probable
, that several* valuables lives 'might, have* been saved, j
< jfor it is'important to reCogpise that, apart fromAheir j
Jinhej^jnt,. defects,.. these apparatus, are extremely:,
,T ^susceptible tfl ’derangefiients * due to neglect or j
improper use.

Colliery managers will not fail to observe the
elasticity of these schemes. The Home Office clearly
recognise that it is impossible to devise inflexible
systems to meet all requirements, and they seem to
be willing to consider variations where necessary.
This latitude is probably due to their collaboration in
this case with representatives of the industry. In
some other directions much happier results would
have been obtained had a similar course been
pursued.

There has been a notable disposition
The recently on the part of the mining
Reduction institutes to give greater prominence
in Costs at to discussions on what may be
the Face. termed the economics of coal mining,
and even to speculate upon develop-
ments, for which the present state of the art of
mining may seem to give but the flimsiest pretexts.
Speculative thinking may be dangerously liable to
error, but the latter-day struggle of science against
a rearing bulwark of cost necessitates a greater
breadth of view than in the past, when the colliery
manager had little to trouble him beyond the routine
problems inseparable from his occupation.

A complete justification of papers, such as that
read by Mr. S. H. Cashmore before the South
Staffordshire Institute and reported in our last issue,
lies in the nature of the discussion evoked. It
would almost seem that the mining engineer, modest
man that he is, has been diffident about airing his
troubles in public, although he recognises the great
value of this free interchange of views to himself and
others.

The discussion at Birmingham illustrates both the
dangers and the uses of general discussions of this
nature. Mr. Cashmore’s object was to draw attention
to the economies made possible by the use of coal-
cutting machines and conveyors:' Our impression,
after reading the paper, is that this is just the point
that he has failed to establish as a general principle,
although his arguments are attractive and probably
capable of being sustained in actual practice under
certain conditions. But the author, as Mr. John
Gibson points out in a letter published in another
part of this issue, overlooks the bearing of the rate of
wages upon his calculations. Several years ago,
when the Royal Commission on Coal Supplies were
investigating the prospect offered by the machine to
get exceptionally thin seams, Mr. J. B. Atkinson
pointed out that with a reduction in wages, the
advantages of the machine would, to a large extent,
vanish, there not being the same degree of elasticity
in regard to cost as in the case of manual labour.
That is an unassailable statement, which, incidentally,
explains very largely the fact that machinery has
been employed in the United States to a much
greater extent than in this country. On the other
hand, we are still looking for that reduction in
wages, and Mr. Cashmore may philosophically have
resigned himself to a permanent rise in the labour
cost.

We are not sure that we follow Mr. Gibson in his
further argument as to the effect of machinery upon
individual efficiency. He says : “If the loss due to
inefficiency is 10 per cent., and a machine or conveyor
is introduced which increases the output 10 per cent.,
the loss due to inefficiency still exists.” This is
hardly true; the inefficiency of the hand labour
displaced by the machine may give an adventitious
“ puff ” to the machine, and cause disappointment
in other cases, because the same results are not
obtained, owing to the greater relative efficiency
of the hand labour displaced in those cases; but
the fact still remains that it is the introduction of
machinery that has cured the , evil, . and it may
have been the only means of doing so. If
the inefficiency of the man is communicated,
under the same influences, to the machine, the case
maybe different, and the really interesting'feature
of the discussion on Mr. Cashmore’k.paper was the
evidence afforded of the persistence of the prejudice
against labour-saving appliances of1 any* sort. This
attitude usually ^predicates a hostility t6v honest work
under any guise? Some of the speakers 'spoke jn
'uiimeaSured’ teriiis ot “ the increasing inefficiency of
the coal face staff.” The same high rate of wages