756

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

April 9, 1915.

LETTERS TO THE EDITORS.

The Editors are not responsible either for the statements
made, or the opinions expressed by correspondents.

All communications must be authenticated by the name and
address of the sender, whether for publication or not.
No notice can be taken of anonymous communications.

As replies to questions are only given by way of published
answers to correspondents, and not by letter, stamped
addressed envelopes are not required to be sent.

Mime DISCUSSIONS.

Sirs,—I can assure Mr. Halbaum that I do not in
the least regard his notes and papers as self-seeking. I
have read his writings since he began, and I always was
impressed with the idea that he is one of those mining
men who, finding (or thinking he finds) a good idea,
fact, or tool, takes a pleasure in going to the trouble
and expense of passing it on to mining officials, in the
hope that it may help them in their daily task. You
see, mining facts' exert a fact-pressure on mining men,
exert an urging force either to spread or use them.
That’s how facts force their way into meetings, into
the pits, and on to the Statute Book. Just Fact-Force.

If I admitted that the principle of blame applied to
mine officials (and I assume that officials are beyond
blame), I should blame Mr. Halbaum because he is not
self-seeking beyond the mental pleasure aspect.

But we cannot admit these “having a row’’ and
“ hitting back ” notions. They belong to poetry,
fiction, and merely figures of speech—literary phrases.
Admitting absence of blame (the personal intention of
professional injury) we find the usual verbal friction
phrases , due to. temperament, mood of the moment,
verbal eccentricity. Let us remember that a mining
fact exists per se quite apart from notions or opinions
about it. There , are no half facts at the pit, though
statements about things may tell only half the fact.
What happens is this : the average mine official does
not use defective appliances or half facts, but he knows
some of his appliances have limits of service—
deficiencies ; and some of his notions on some points
are not full enough. This self-knowledge added to the
human sympathy, which is at the basis of fact pressure,
urges officials to get better knowledge and things—drives
them into societies, keeps them reading journals and
books, sending for catalogues, getting facts, things,
■ fresh points of view, or looking at old-time facts in
different aspects; and all with an intention to learn and
progress. The cool, careful, sympathetic thinker
absorbs, digests, and uses the facts, or dockets them for
use at particular times, but others interpret words by
the tone of their own mind; hence misunderstanding
and verbal fireworks. This “ toniness ” of the reader or
the listener is the bulwark of lack of progress or thing-
fact discussions and business; it.is the cause of neglect
to prevent injury to thousands of miners, the cause of
loss of millions of mining profits.

This “toniness’’ must be discouraged; it sent Sir
Isaac Newton into exile; it punished King for inventing
the detaching hook; and it provides a cat-o’-nine tails
for any man who thinks out a new fact or invents a
fresh thing.

A written statement or a speech on mining uses
definite words, having a definite plain meaning (either
technical or dictionary meaning); it has no means of
giving any other meaning, or to explain a reader’s wrong
conceptions. If a reader cannot grasp a statement, his
business is to go to the dictionary, and not pretend the
words “ imply ”, or mean anything else but what they
say. . Any sort of a twist or turn or fresh meaning is
good enough for the “ tony ’’ class; using fact as they
use fiction; reading a mining fact in the same attitude
of mind that they use to read novels or plays—-the atti-
tude of culture—looking at the art aspect instead of the
solidity and certainty of the fact, and its ordinary signi-
ficance gets overlooked, with loss of life and profit as a
result. Notice how many papers are read — a little
desultory discussion follows, and the significance of the
facts pass unnoted; the aim of the paper swamped, the
reader’s time and trouble thrown away.

Once upon a time, when a new tool was invented, a
man would be asked to put it to a meetin“ so that
we can sift the matter through before adoption,’’ and if
the reader of a paper or inventor was alive (commer-
cially and professionally), after being steam-rollered, the
thing was right, and the fact that so-and-so appliance
on fact had been placed before a professional meeting,
and no essential objection found in it, or to its use, such
was evidence to all men of the probable usefulness of the
thing or fact, and after that no man could claim to desire
safety or economy if he neglected to use the obvious
means commonly known amongst the profession. Is it
so to-day? I fear not. '

Every man has his own method of phrasing or stating
a fact. So long as the fact is get-at-able, that’s all that a
listener or reader needs. Mining facts have no ethical
value, they just have certainty (easily ascertain able or
demonstrable), significance and utility in proportion to
their life and profit-saving value.	M. C.

April 3, 1915.

Sirs,—Mr. H. W. Halbaum, in your issue of April 1,
says, “ I am ready to learn from anyone,” and in that
case I propose, with your permission, instructing him as
to the object and nature of criticism. It seems almost
incredible that a gentleman who has written so much
and so. well should need this lesson, but his latest effort
puts all doubts aside. He says : “,It gives me a chance
—which I never fail to utilise—of putting the ‘ devil ’ or
the ‘ baker,’ as the case may be—in his proper place.
But I never start the row myself.” What fustian is

this? If words mean anything} then it follows that in
Mr. Halbaum’s view—first, a discussion or controversy
is a “ row,” that is, a squabble—a brawl; second, he is
always right, otherwise he could not put his adversary
“ in his proper place ”—the wrong; third, he never fails
to embrace the opportunity of, etc. (proving himself
in the right presumably).

Now, I submit that (1) a discussion is not a “ row ”;
(2) Air. Halbaum, being mortal, is not always right; (3)
he did fail even to try to put a certain humble “ baker-
devil ” into what Air. Halbaum considers his “ proper
place ”—quite recently. The great difficulty one feels
in criticising Mr. Halbaum’s letters is that one comes
across a sentence or two like those quoted which leaves
one in doubt as to whether he has written in hot temper,
or if he means it as pant of some obscure elaborate joke,
or if one has got into a land of topsy turvydom, where
words have lost their meanings, or whether it is just—
Air. Halbaum’s way.

But to the lesson : An author writes some original
matter. He does so for no selfish end, but for the good
of his fellows. He writes because he believes he has a
truth or truths. They are anxious to hear for that
reason, since all thinking men are ever searching for
truth.

This may seem all very simple to Air. Halbaum, but
even he will see that there is some difference between
the fact that a normal horse has so many legs and that
z other fact that the earth is so many miles in circum-
ference. They are arrived at in totally different ways.
Facts determined from other facts can be so determined
by inference only, and contrary to what Mr. Halbaum
seems to imagine, the world was not wakened one morn-
ing and informed by a great philosopher of his discovery
that the earth was so many miles in circumference.

It is something inferred (after many fallacies and
errors) from other inferences. Take this homely
syllogism :—

All men eat cheese,
All mice eat cheese,
All men are mice.

Suppose now that Mr. Halbaum’s author had thus shown
that men are mice. A wondering world is entitled to
test the statement. Hence the critic, for he also strives
for the truth, enters, and sets forth that in certain dis-
tricts of Central Africa cheese is not eaten. Further,
he shows that certain mice do not do so. Therefore, the
syllogism should read :—

Some men eat cheese,
Some mice eat cheese,
Some men are mice.

And the world believes this till some author critic dis-
covers the false inference, and then the world knows
that no men are mice. Mr. Halbaum will now see that
the search for truth requires both authors and critics,
accurate observation, and sound reasoning — and that
the whole operation bears not the slightest resemblance
to Donnybrook Fair. The author, if wrong, has the
advantage of being kept from going further astray. If
right, he cannot be successfully criticised. In either
case mankind benefits, because the truth is established.

Air. Halbaum next contends that some authors are* of
a retiring disposition, and cannot stand criticism, and
should not be criticised, lest others of like nature be
deterred from writing.

The colossal absurdity of this takes one’s breath away.
To say that a man knows something that his fellows are
thirsting to know, but that he refrains from giving his
message lest the truth and accuracy of it be tested!
Your correspondent cannot know the history of English
literature. Why, criticism is the breath of life to the
author. To be “ damned with faint praise ” is his
worst fate. Had Mr. Halbaum been conversant with
English literature, scores of cases would have been
present in his mind, and kept him from this, “ his last
and worst—until his next ” blunder. Jeffrey criticised
Byron’s first volume. This gave occasion for the reply,
which placed the poet first among English living poets.
Macaulay criticised Robert Montgomery, whose work is
now long buried and abolished, largely in consequence
thereof. Keats died of consumption, not of criticism.
Wordsworth lives in spite of Shelley’s slashing satire.

Examples could be adduced in thousands to show that
criticism must be — and that the capable author has
nothing to fear from it. The world has no direct use
for the incapable.	John Gibson.

Fairview, Irvine-road,

Kilmarnock, April 2, 1915.

COAL PRICES : DEPARTMENTAL
COMMITTEE’S REPORT.

Sirs,—May I, in justice to the coal owners, be allowed
to make a -few observations on the above report in your
valuable paper?

The report, as recorded in the newspapers, is calcu-
lated to produce the impression on the public mind that
the coal owners are benefiting largely by the high prices
prevalent in London for house coal. As the controller
of several collieries in the counties of Derby and York,
raising about three million tons of coal per annum, I
think it right to say that, owing to contracts made at
the low prices prevailing last year—in many cases as
much as 90 per cent, of the output—the average selling
price at the collieries in February (the last period of
ascertainment) did not yield an increase of more than a
few pence per ton, as compared with the average of 12
months ago; and from my general knowledge of the
districts from which a large proportion of the coal sent
to London is derived, I am satisfied that, the majority
of those collieries have not benefited to a greater extent.

When it is borne in mind that the cost of production
has been greatly increased, owing to the largely decreased
output consequent on the large number of men who have

enlisted—probably from 20 to 30 per cent.—'and to the
increased cost of pitwood and other stores, it will be
at once seen that, so far, the coal owners have benefited
only to a very small extent, if at all.

I may also state that the increase in prices referred
to in the report has not been brought about in these
counties by any combination or conference of the coal
owners, and that the advances made by the coal owners
have followed those made by the merchants.

With regard to the, statement in the report that coal
owners have failed to deliver their contract quantities, I
wish to state that, so far as the collieries with which I
am connected are concerned, this is not the case, and I
doubt whether there is any substantiality in the state-
ment as regards the majority of collieries.

Attention is drawn to the sliding scale system of con-
tracting, by which the coal owners and the merchants
share equally in any upward movement in prices, and
complaint is made that this has the effect of forcing
prices up. As-the result of upwards of 30 years’’experi-
ence in the working of this system, I do not remember
any ocasion upon which the price of coal has been abnor-
mally increased by this reason; in fact, it is manifest
that it cannot be so, when it is borne in mind that only
a small proportion of contracts are made in this manner,
and that competition with those who have contracted at
fixed prices must render it impossible for those mer-
chants who have contracted on the sliding scale method
to realise a higher price than those who have purchased
at fixed prices.

It is clear, therefore, that neither a combination of
coal owners nor the sliding scale system has had any-
thing to do with the high prices of house coal, and that
the reason is to be found in the excess of demand over
supply, due to the other causes to which the report
refers"	M. Deacon,

April 5, 1915.	Managing Director of the

Sheepbridge Coal and Iron Company.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE.

COURT OF APPEAL.—March 30.

Before Lords Justices Buckley, Pickford, and Bankes.
Fillers and the Minimum Wage.

Churm v. The Dalton Main Collieries Limited.—In the
last issue of the Colliery Guardian a brief report appeared
of this important appeal. In view of the importance of the
issues involved we give the judgments at greater length.
As before stated, it was an appeal of the defendant company,
proprietors of various South Yorkshire coal mines, from a
judgment of Mr. Justice Bailhache, and was a test case
under the Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act, 1912, similar
to two other cases that have been before that Court—
Richards v. Wrexham Main Collieries Limited and Higgin-
son v. Blackwell Colliery Company Limited. The plaintiff
in the present case, Isaac Churm, of; Rotherham, was a
filler, employed at the defendants’ Silverwood Colliery, and
the question was whether the company or the collier with
whom he worked contracted to pay his wages. Mr Justice
Bailhache held, on the facts of the case, that the company
contracted to pay the man his wages, expressing the view
that the difference in the method of remuneration as between
a day rate and sharing was crucial.

The appeal was allowed, with costs.

In delivering judgments, Lord Justice Buckley said : The
plaintiff in this action is a filler who worked with a collier
called Fuller in the mine of the defendant colliery company.
In this action he sues for a declaration that he is entitled,
under the terms of his contract of employment with the
defendants as filler, to be paid by the defendants, wages at
not less than the minimum rate or/and that the defendants
are the employers of the plaintiff within the meaning of
section 1 (1) of the Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act, 1912.
It was decided by this court in Richards v. Wrexham and
Acton Collieries and Davis r. the same in 1914 (2, King’s
Bench, p. 497) that the employer mentioned in section 1 (1)
of the Act is the person who employs the workman at wages,
and the whole point to which we have to look in this case
is whether the plaintiff in this action was employed by the
defendant colliery company at wages. It is not disputed
that it is the fact, as was the fact in the Wrexham case,
that certain contractural relations subsisted between the plain-
tiff and the defendants. But what is to be searched for is
this : Did these terms include an obligation as between the
defendants and the plaintiff that the defendants would pay
the plaintiff wages? Now the materials for determining
that question are largely documentary, but they are assisted
by certain oral evidence. I think the clearest way to state
the case is to take the documents in order and see exactly
what is the contract.

This his lordship proceeded to do. He first of all took
the “ contract signature book.” According to this, it was
agreed “that the company are empowered, but not bound
to make advances or supply to any of the said persons any
of the articles, matters, and things, or to perform any
work, or to make any payments specified and set out
opposite such person’s name hereunder, and to deduct from
any wages from time to time due to any such person
the amount of such advances and the value of any such
articles, matters, and things, or work, or the amount of
any such payments, together with the rent (if any) of any
house or land occupied by any such person.” Upon this
document there was clearly a contract between the
defendants and the plaintiff, and it was a contract which
included a right in the defendants to deduct from any wages
from time to time due to the plaintiff certain sums indi-
cated, including, amongst others, rent, in case the plaintiff
should be a tenant—as he was not in fact—of one of the
cottages of the defendants. That document was plainly
one which contemplated the case of a person who might
be entitled to wages from the colliery company, and the
filler himself would be a person to y/hom it would.apply
under the circumstances, because under certain circum-
stances he would be entitled to sums from the colliery
company, but it was impossible to get any further than
that. The second document was the “ signing-on ” book.