June 11, 191S.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

1227

conference to consider the best means of minimising
the price of coal in London. Members of Parliament,
on Wednesday, received a deputation of large coal
consumers of a public character, upon the same
question. The matter was adjourned until Tuesday
next.

Mr. H. C. Peake presided over the annual meeting
of the Institution of Mining Engineers, in London,
yesterday (Thursday).

The claim of the Scottish miners for an advance of
50 per cent, on basis rates will be re-considered by
the local Conciliation Board on Tuesday next.

Representatives cf the men and owners in the
Northumberland coalfield again discussed the matter
of a new sliding-scale agreement for regulations of
wages, at Newcastle on Saturday last. The meeting
adjourned until to-morrow (Saturday).

At Cardiff, on Wednesday, the South Wales Coal
Conciliation Board discussed the proposals of the
men for a new wage agreement. The owners suggest
that the old agreement should remain during the
period of the war, but to this the men will not agree.
No arrangement for another meeting was made.
The non-unionist question was deferred.

It is a serious defect in this age of
Organising fugitive economics that members
the of the public have little time or
Coal Mines, patience to go beyond the facts that
face them. The outcry against the
rise in the price of fuel is a typical case in point, for
very few consumers seem to get further than a
vague impression that some mythical monster of a
coal. owner is sweating them. In this particular
instance, the remedy applied by the Government has
really accelerated the disease, for the Retail Coal
Prices Committee, owing to their lack of any
practical knowledge of the questions which they
were called upon to investigate, not only were unable
to discover the real causes in the rise in prices,
but were incapable of suggesting any practical
measures that would defeat the trouble at source.
At the same time the scope of that enquiry has been
deemed by the public to be much wider than it
really was ; gas companies and manufacturers have
cited the authority of the Committee in application
to questions which they never examined. Similarly
the Government have been too anxious to discover
in the findings of this small Committee the excuse
for tampering with the export trade.

The report of the Coal Mining Organisation
Committee, which has just been issued, is in many
respects also a disappointment to those who were
able to appreciate the capacity and experience of
the gentlemen forming it; but it has this value that
it brings before the public very plainly some of the
causes that have led to a rise in the price of coal,
and the difficulty which the Committee obviously
finds in suggesting any definite course of action to
meet the situation should strengthen the conviction
that a material like coal cannot be cheapened simply
by questions in Parliament or letters to the daily
Press.

The Committee have succeeded in collecting a
mass of really valuable information that cannot fail
to cause disquietude. The whole burden of the
report is contained in the following extract from the
“ Conclusions ” :—-

The loss in production, for the year commencing
from the outbreak of war, will, unless means are taken to
reduce the loss, probably amount to 36 million tons,
against which must be put a probable reduction in the
quantity of coal exported of 24 million tons, leaving a
net shortage of 12 million tons. But if the miners
continue to be recruited for the Forces, the deficiency
will be increased.

The evidence before us is conclusive that if labour is
further withdrawn from the collieries (notwithstanding
the adoption of all possible ameliorative measures) the
output will be so reduced as to seriously affect the
industrial position of the country, and the time appears
to the Committee to have arrived when very full
consideration should be given to the question as to
whether further recruiting among the miners should be
encouraged.

Now it is impossible to escape the feeling that the
Committee, in attempting to meet a future situation
that they do not shrink from regarding as dangerous
in the extreme, have carefully evaded the very
remedies suggested by the facts which they educe, to
vacillate instead between complacency and panic.

They are too complacent in believing that some of
these remedies can be devised by negotiation without
dangerous delay. On the other hand we must
deliberately dissent from the view that the only
salvation of the consumer lies in closing the mines to
the recruiting sergeant; and we are greatly encouraged
in this opinion by the view of the position which is
disclosed by the report.

It is only fair to say, before we examine the recom-
mendations offered by the Committee, that at least two
partial explanations suggest themselves for the
indecision which has been shown. In the first place,
the constitution of the Committee is such that any
really drastic step would be sure to result in a cleavage
of opinion; and secondly, the report has been called
for, by the urgency of the situation, before the Com-
mittee have had an opportunity of fully digesting the
evidence placed before them. On several points,
however, we could have wished for more decision.

In the first place it is shown that the reduction in
output has been almost proportional to the loss in
labour. Some allowance must be made for the fact
that the Army has been recruited from the most
vigorous and productive elements amongst the
workmen, and that certain districts, shortly after the
outbreak of war, were very short of trade. Some
index to the first of these two reservations is given
in the statement that the absenteeism in the pre-war
months ranged from a minimum of 9*8 per cent, to a
maximum of 11*3 per cent., or an average of 10*7 per
cent, as compared with the war months, when the
minimum was 9’0 per cent, and the maximum was
10'7 per cent., or an average of 9*8 per cent.,
showing a decrease of nearly 1 per cent, during the
war months.

It is a terrible fact, however, that absenteeism
should reach such a figure when all the energy of
the nation is required to carry to a successful con-
clusion the great enterprise upon which it has
embarked. Some allowance must be made for
unavoidable absence due to illness and such causes,
but the balance of avoidable absenteeism is still
very high. Thus Sir Thomas Ratcliffe-Ellis
calculates that at the Lancashire and Cheshire
collieries the avoidable absenteeism amounted to
12-4 per cent, in February last, “ which, if eradicated,
would mean that the loss of output would be made
up.” Representatives of the employers from other
districts told an almost similar story, and the Com-
mittee agree that, on this showing, “ the loss of
output owing to depletion of mine labour could
largely, if not entirely, be made good by the regular
attendance of those workmen who are in health and
not suffering from accident.”

It may be hoped that the good offices of the miners’
unions will suffice to bring about a change for the
better, and to secure the unnecessary extension of
“ stop-days,” and it is possible that many miners do
not see sufficiently far ahead to appreciate the
national importance of their labour, or to understand
what must be the consequences of their inaction; but
it is to be feared that the Committee may be mistaken
in imputing to the workmen left behind the same
honourable and patriotic spirit that has been practi-
cally demonstrated by their fellows who have laid
aside the pick for the rifle. We have a suspicion
that the secret of organisation will not be found in
pious injunctions.

Again we do not consider that the practicability of
suspending the Eight Hours Act should be left to
depend entirely upon the wishes of those most directly
involved. We are fully conscious that it would be a
matter of difficulty now to devise entirely new systems
of working to replace those which were brought into
being to enable the Act to operate; but no national
remedy, however urgent, can be attempted if the
fear of strikes on the part of obstinate workmen is to
be a bar, and it seems to be generally overlooked that
the permissive working of overtime is to be preferred
to a system which arbitrarily denies a workman the
privilege of assisting his country. To illustrate this
point we quote the following resolution from the
minutes of the executive committee of the Northum-
berland Miners’ Association:—

Blucher pit:—“ The workmen and manager of this
colliery, having agreed to such a re-artangement of
working hours as to constitute a violation of the Eight

Hours Act, we place the matter before H.M. mines
inspector, along with the information that it is done by
mutual consent.”

All we ask for at present is that where the manage-
ment and the workmen agree to work overtime, no
Act of Parliament should stand imtheir way. The
Committee clearly foreshadow some arrangement of
this nature, but it is not too early to suspend the Act
as a first step.

Other suggestions have been made to replace the
depletion of labour, e.g., the employment of women
and the reduction of the age limit for boys—recom-
mended by several of the inspectors — but the
Committee hold out little hope from these sources.
They are also lukewarm on the subject of general
reorganisation, although far-sighted men are now
alive to the fact that the most drastic changes will
have to take place after the war in methods of trans-
port and working, and it is not too early to consider
them even now; it is certain that the shortage of
labour, coupled with the denudation of supplies,
will necessitate a much greater development of the
mechanical side of mining than has been seen in this
country up to the present.

As an afterthought the Committee—although not
especially qualified for this duty—were asked to
consider the restriction of coal exports to neutrals.
Their conclusions are not particularly illuminating
or helpful; the only really definite statement made
is that “ a curtailment of the export from some
mining centres would be more detrimental to the
working of the collieries than it would be in the ease
of other districts not so dependent on an export
trade”; a conclusion which was not beyond the
capacity even of the Retail Prices Committee I

We have sufficient confidence in the sanity of
those immediately concerned in the conduct of this
great industry to believe that they will find ways
and means of providing 14 the goods,” with a due
regard, to the variation in conditions as between one
coal field and another—although these perpetual
conferences are a serious drain upon the energies of
the industry; but the Government, which as now
constituted, is not indissolubly tied to any particular
interest, will have to assist by looking the situation
fairly in the face.

The paper read by Mr. Rice, Chief
American Mining Engineer to the United
Coal Dust States Bureau of Mines, gives
Investigations. us an admirable summary of
the experimental results hitherto
obtained in the Bruceton Experimental Mine and the
associated laboratory investigations. The work
really dates from the year 1908, when the Geological
Survey began a systematic research upon the origin
of coal dust explosions. This work was transferred
in 1910 to the newly-formed Bureau of Mines, and
much valuable progress has since been made.

The conditions under which information respecting
mine disasters had previously existed in the United
States had scarcely been satisfactory. As in Great
Britain, every disaster occurring in the pits was
carefully investigated by competent mining engi-
neers, but the reports thereon were confidential. As
Mr. Rice tells us, these reports could not be made
public, as the regulation and control of mining come
under the jurisdiction of each State for its own
mines. Permission to enter a mine to investigate an
accident must be obtained from an owner, and in
return he is informed confidentially of any dangerous
conditions that may have been found, with sugges-
tions for remedies. It is true that the information
thus obtained is ultimately given to the community
through the agency of the Bureau publications, but
only in a general way without reference to particular
disasters. The actual reports of the mine inspectors
are also published annually by each State, but it is
obvious that this procedure, however convenient it
may be to the mining interest, is not calculated to be
of the best assistance in the general adoption of
methods for the avoidance of accidents.

Thus the existence of the Bureau of Mines was
called for not only for the purpose of co-ordinating
the various phases of the experimental work, but
also for the still more important object of replacing
by Federal control the separate interests of individual
States—in short, to ensure order instead of chaos.