May 14, 1915.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

1023

13s. 3-4d. The mean value of the coke exported
was 18s. 11T d. per ton, and of. the manufactured fuel
18s. 5-5d. per ton.

On Tuesday last, at the Manchester Geological and
Mining Society meeting, Mr. J. Drummond Paton
read an interesting paper dealing with the thermal
efficiency of mining steam plants.

The Coal Trade Benevolent Association held their
22nd annual festival dinner at the Hotel Cecil,
London, on Monday evening last, under the
presidency of his Grace the Duke of Norfolk. The
total collected on the list of the chairman (Mr.
Thomas King Pox) reached the record sum of
£1,353 12s. 6d.

In the House of Commons on Wednesday, Mr.
Asquith intimated that the Committee which had been
considering the question of the organisation of the
coal industry with a view to meeting the natural
requirements hoped to report shortly.

The Committee of Control of the Cardiff Coal and
Shipping Exchange have decided to exclude members
of German, Austrian, and Turkish birth.

It is reported that the German Government have
decided to limit the amount of coal exported to
neutral countries.

Yesterday (Thursday) the prohibition of coal
exports Order came into operation. Endeavours
have bfeen made to have the Order postponed, but
without success. Concessions to assist the expedition
of licences have, however, been granted.

A meeting of the Coal Conciliation Board for the
Federated area took place on Monday at Manchester
to consider the request of the miners for a war bonus
of 20 per cent. No agreement was reached, and the
matter was referred to the chairman, Lord Coleridge.
His lordship has fixed a meeting for to-day (Friday)
in London.

On Monday, at Newcastle, a meeting of repre-
sentatives of Northumberland coalowners and miners
was held, when the former agreed to grant an
advance of 15 per cent, on basis rates in view of the
cost of living. A settlement on the war bonus
question in Durham also occurred on Tuesday, when
at a meeting of the Conciliation Board for the
county an advance of 15 per cent, on the 1879 basis
was agreed to. The Black Country miners have
refused an offer by the owners of an advance of
15 per cent., and the matter is left over until after
Lord Coleridge has made his decision. The South
Wales and Monmouthshire Conciliation Board were
also unable to agree, and the matter was referred to
Lord St. Aldwyn, who has granted an advance of
17J per cent, on the 1879 standard. An advance of
18J per cent, on the 1888 basis, equal to 9d. per day,
has been obtained by the Scottish miners.

Negotiations have now been completed between
the National Federation of Colliery Surface Workers
and the South Yorks coalowners whereby the
members of the former will receive increased minimum
wages. It has been decided to approach the West
Biding owners with the same requests.

The President of the Board of Education, in
introducing the estimates for his department in the
House of Commons yesterday (Thursday), outlined a
scheme for the appointment of an advisory council
on industrial research, and expressed the hope that
the new body would be at work in a few weeks.

It is reported that Col. C. L. Robinson, H.M.
inspector of mines for the Scotland division, has been
killed in France.

It may be remembered that when
Danger one of H.M. inspectors of mines, in
and fit® course of the prosecution against
the Law. the owners of the Bentley Colliery,
was asked by counsel, “Don’t you
think withdrawing the men would constitute a great
danger?” his reply, as reported, was : “It is not a
question of danger ; it is a question of the law.”

It might have been hoped that such an attitude,
characteristic though it may be of the dull and
starchy intellects that are to be found in every
department of State, would not be palliated by our
inspectors of mines, who, after all, have some
acquaintance with the practical realities of the mine.
It is disheartening, therefore, to find that much the

same issue has been raised in the appeal of the Home
Office in the action brought against the manager of
the Universal Colliery, as a sequel to the disastrous
explosion which occurred in October 1913. What
is more satisfactory is that the Lord Chief Justice
has, in a very few words, destroyed this altogether
unwholesome conception of State regulation.

At Senghenydd, the management had made
experiments in certain directions to deal with coal
dust, but, these not proving satisfactory, they were
abandoned. Dr. Atkinson, the chief divisional
inspector, admitted that these particular methods
at this particular colliery would not have been
effective, and might even have proved dangerous ;
but nevertheless, it was contended that there was an
obligation imposed by an Act of Parliament which
made it necessary that steps should be taken,
however impracticable and dangerous, to clear the
accumulation of dust. His lordship’s observation on
this point of view was this :—

If it were true that to carry out the obligations of the
Act of Parliament the result would produce a danger in
the mine, it would be a curious state of affairs if it would
mean that provisions which were meant to protect the
men working in the pit really operated to add to the
danger.

Lord Beading, however, took the commonsense
attitude that “if the manager had proved that if he
carried out the obligation of the Act it would
produce danger, or that it was impracticable to
obtain an apparatus which would effectually do the
required work, he would be exempted from liability.”

This breath of commonsense will be very
inspiriting to the much-harassed manager, before
whose eyes Acts of Parliament are ever being
brandished as fetishes that must be obeyed without
regard to the dictates of reason. We remember that
when the use’ of internal igniters for benzine safety
lamps was challenged by the Home Office, one of
their representatives attempted to justify this
embargo on the ground that such an implement was
a “ match,” and therefore debarred under a section
inserted at a time when such a device had not even
been contemplated. There was a very real argument
against the use of internal igniters if they obviated
the proper examination of damaged lamps, but this
method of raising it was nothing but a prevarication.

It is this sort of thing that cements the so-called
“conservatism” of the colliery manager. The Home
Office has too great a veneration for the motto
Liter a scripta manet, and too little knowledge of
practical necessities.

The deputations of coal exporters that
The on Monday and Tuesday of this week
Export waited upon Mr. Bussell Bea, the
Restrictions, chairman of the Coal Export Control
Committee, were able to extract some
information, not only as to the procedure that is
likely to be adopted in carrying out the Govern-
ment’s decision to restrict the exports of fuel to
neutral countries, but as to the reasons also that
have inspired this action. It appears that the
question of preventing exportation to the enemy has
not been in the Committee’s mind at all, the question
being one solely of conserving home supplies and the
supplies of our allies.

The necessity of protecting our own industries and
those of our allies, which are essential factors in the
organisation of the campaign against the country’s
enemies, will be apparent to everyone. To put the
matter in another way, the significance of our coal
supply was never greater than it is at the present
day, because so many consumers who in ordinary-
times are engaged in private enterprise, or in
administering to the comfort and convenience of the
public, are now’ in the position of Government
contractors; the most illuminating remark made at
the important conference of representatives of the
gas and electrical industries, held in London last
week, was that of the speaker who pointed out that
practically the whole of the current supplied by
power undertakings is now being used in the pro-
duction of munitions and other war material. We
can well conceive the great national dangers that
would result from a depletion of the supplies of fuel
for the production of power. But our friends in the
gas industry—the electrical section at the conference

showed a much better balance of judgment—do not
approach these questions in a public spirit; every-
thing they say bespeaks the narrow mind ; whenever
in the past the contracting season approached, we
were treated to the same vapid and transparent
recriminations against the collieries. Even now they
do not seem to recognise that the coal trade has many
interests to serve at least as great as those of Beckton
and Nine Elms. We cannot live by gas alone, and
a commercial system based merely upon the demands
of the gas industry would not long survive.

Thus, wre venture to predict that the chief diffi-
culty that will face the Export Control Committee
will be that of doing good without doing harm. The
chairman recognises that a whole host of exceptions
must attend any general scheme of prohibition, and
these exceptions are not prompted merely by con-
sideration for the collieries, to w’hom the export trade
is a mainstay. Thus Sweden must be considered,
because that country sends us pitwood. Lord
Kitchener’s appeal to the iron ore miners reminds
us that if coal is not sent to Spain, that country will
be able to send us less iron ore. These examples can
be multiplied indefinitely, but they are conspicuous
instances of how, by artificially supplying the needs
of our war workers in one direction, we may cut off
supplies in other directions. Again, the Committee
are not holding up shipments to Italy, and no ports
of call or bunkering stations are to be placed in
trouble. It is, at any rate, satisfactory to know that
these points are not going to be ignored, but if each
case is going to be considered on its merits, an
almost insuperable task lies before the Committee,
and, relatively, the harvest must be disappointing.
In order7 to detach an insignificant portion of the
export trade for home use, the Committee appear to
have involved themselves in a labyrinth of difficulties,
from which second thoughts have not entirely
succeeded in delivering them. This is the result of
the neglect to consult the trade in the first instance
in drafting the scheme. We fully appreciate the
vital necessity of providing our own industries with
all the fuel that they need, but we still feel that this
desirable end could have been secured by enabling
the pits to work to their full capacity and to place
their production upon the market without un-
necessary delay.

When at loss for a subject it is

A Syllabus generally safe to abuse the consular
for Consuls, system, for “ nobody loves it,” and
the scope for elaboration in our
foreign intelligence department is illimitable. The
war, however, must automatically bring about many
changes, the possible nature of which it is not too
early to discuss now. It may be that our manufac-
turers and merchants will feel the need of carrying
out for themselves the very necessary work of
collating foreign business facts and impressions, but
our consuls can still be of use to British commercial
interests, if the service is properly organised. Our
business men, therefore, should not ignore our
consuls, but do something to help them.

Some . little time ago, the Cardiff Chamber of
Commerce was asked to submit a list of questions for
British consuls and commercial attaches abroad, to
guide them in the conduct of their investigations and
in the preparation of their reports for British
manufacturers, traders, &c. The questions which
were submitted by the Chamber, as published in the
annual report, are as follow : —

1.	Total annual output of coal, coke and patent fuel of
various descriptions, in all coal-producing* countries,
separating the output of each product for each district.

2.	If possible, the number of men engaged in each
district and the output per man.

3.	The methods (if any) of settling disputes between
employers and employees.

4.	The extent to which coal-cutting machinery is used,
and the quantity cut by machinery and by hand
respectively.

5.	The cost per ton of coal at pit's mouth, and at port
of shipment if exported.

6.	Annual quantity of coal exported (if any) at each
pdrt, giving class and destination.

7.	Annual quantity of coal imported (if any) at each
port separating the coal used inland from that re-shipped
for bunkering purposes.

8.	A return to be sent periodically, say quarterly, to