June 18, 1915.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN

1273

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handling, of the trucks, and can conveniently reach a
speed of 700 to .800 tons per hour. This capacity can be
retained under any conditions of tide or any position of
the boat.

All the belt conveyors throughout the plant, and the
operation of all movements of the tower and chute, are
controlled by one man in the operating cabin on the
travelling tower. This man has full charge of the plant,
and. can from his position on the tower regulate the
discharge and movements of all motors exactly as is
required by the conditions on the steamer. The chute
will house either vertically above the conveyor or verti-
cally down below the copveyor, so that it is possible
always to reach the hold either by lowering or lifting
the chute, and no shrouds or upstandings on the boat
need be interfered with, or can be in the way. One
man is required on the tippler, one man in the travelling
tower, and one man about the plant generally to see
that all is running well; and apart from these, no
further labour is necessary for the operation of the
plant. Compared with other methods of arranging a
travelling plant or other style of tippler, it is claimed
that this design is the most economical and direct
method, and one which requires very little special
preparation on the site.

In addition to the foregoing, there is adjoining the
movable belt a fixed belt, capable of shipping up to 800
tons of coal per hour, so that two belts may be operated
on one vessel, giving a combined speed of shipment of
1,400 to 1,600 tons per hour. The equipment at Port
Talbot comprises three belt conveyors and eight hoists,
the latter being capable of a speed of shipment of 600
tons per hour, whilst the wharves are also provided
with 20 hydraulic cranes of the latest types, having lifts
ranging from two to 15 tons.

RETAIL COAL PRICES.

We present in this and following issues a digest of the
evidence given by witnesses heard before the Com-
mittee appointed by the Board of Trade to enquire into
the causes of the present rise in the retail price of coal
• sold for domestic use.

Railway Traffic Conditions.

Mr. H. F. Carlill (representing the Railway Depart-
ment of the Board of Trade) gave evidence on February 26.
He said that such figures as they had got as to prices in
the provinces went more than to show that, broadly speak-
ing, there did not appear to have been the same rise as
there had been in London. Of course, it might be to some
extent a question of transport. The trouble with regard to
the coal supply of London was more particularly this, that
the South-Western was very much congested with military
traffic, and they could not clear the empties off the South-
Western fast enough; that delayed further military traffic
coming down from the North, and that in its turn held up
the coal supply to London. The wagons had been pooled to
the extent that a company which happened to be well off for
wagons lent to a company which was short; but as far as
they could, they .got each company’s trucks back to its own
line. Witness said that for five weeks up to and including
the week ending February 14, compared with the corre-
sponding weeks last year, there was a falling-off of roughly
34,000 tons in consignments. Normally, London tooK about
17,000,000 tons of coal a year, of which roughly 8,000,000
came by rail and 9,000,000 by sea. Broadly speaking, the
seaborne coal was for gas works, electrical undertakings,
and industrial purposes. Witness added that the figures
they had obtained from the coal owners for the week ending
February 7 showed that the reduction in despatches of coal
was less than the reduction in output, which looked , as if
the coal was getting away fairly freely; and', although the
stocks at the pithead showed a considerable increase—about
50 per cent.—there was still not quite four days’ output at
the pithead. So far as one went by the number of people
employed, and the days the pits were working, one would
have expected a larger reduction than as a matter of fact
was actually shown. In conclusion, witness said he did not
think he had come across a single figure in the course of the
enquiry which was not open to so many qualifications that
it tended to disappear altogether.

Mr. Arthur Watson (a member of the Railway Executive
Committee) said he had looked at the position generally,
and he should say, so far as household coal was concerned,
that at that time, if anything, there was more coal in the
depots than there was in the corresponding period last year.
Even early in the year there was always a considerable
supply of coal in the depots, although not equal to the
corresponding period in January 1914; but there was ah
abnormal supply of household coal in the London depots in
January 1914, consequent upon a threatened coal /porters’
strike. In the eastern counties there had been some diffi-
culty in getting coal for householders’ use in small stations
where there were considerable numbers of troops quartered.
When the troubles in the North Sea arose, great quantities
of Coal Were diverted to rail, and witness thought it was the
question of the wagons which was the trouble about the
price of 'coal, or some part of the trouble. The wagon
question was in three compartments. . In peace time a
colliery company supplying a factor might, although his
contract clearly said he need not, allow the buyer to use
the colliery company’s wagon instead of the private owner’s
wagon, if the private owner’s wagon had not turned up at
,the°pit. He believed now that the colliery companies were
in many instances insisting upon the absolute terms of their
contracts, and not allowing their own wagons 'to be used
for factors’ purposes. The result was that the factor, who
probably had not enough wagons of his own to meet the
demands made upon him, after having used . all his, tried
to get them from the railway company, who, in turn, could
not supply them because of the very large amount of traffic
flowing bn military, naval, and civil requirements which

were not usually used for the carriage of coal, and whicn-
ever wagon he got hold of he had to pay additional wagon
hire for. The latter would vary; if it was in peace time,
it would be Is. a ton, or Is. 6d. a ton for railway companies’
wagons, but generally Is. a ton to London depots. He had
an idea, that the price had been increased by the colliery
companies. Pooling was not practical. Witness said there
had also been delay in the moving of coal from, depots
owing to a dearth in coal carts or a shortage of horses.. One
of the principal railway companies was reviewing’ its
arrangements for the coal at the depots because they were
discovering that some dealers, who in peace time had quite
a considerable number of wagons, were not getting them
unloaded as quickly as they were in peace time, and there-
fore they were having to re-arrange their business so as
only to put the number of wagons into the yard that the
factor or dealer would take delivery of at once, so as not to
crowd out some other person, who, in peace time, might be
quite a small consumer, but, at the present time, was pre-
pared to order more coal forward and accept delivery.
Certainly the cartage problem was a very serious thing
indeed. Perhaps some of the difficulty of the present price
was directly due to the fact that last year, in May, when
coal was rather high in price, factors who usually made
stacks, did not make them, waiting for a drop in the coal
prices. To give some idea of what it meant to deal with the
quantity of coal the railways had had to haul south of
London to get to those places which were usually in peace
time supplied from the sea, witness said they had had to
reduce very considerably the services on the Metropolitan
lines. During the past (two or three months tonnage
through London was 60 per cent, in advance on what it
was in peace time. The charge for wagon hire was not
based on the time it takes to get the coal from colliery to
destination; it was by the trip. That was, of course, when
the railway companies’ wagons were used, but inasmuch as
most of these people had their own private owners’ wagons,
it would rather go to show that the numbers of private
owners’ wagons were not sufficient to do private owners’
business.

Coal Merchants’ Evidence.

Messrs. John Charrington and Mr. G-. C. Locket gave
evidence simultaneously on March 1 on behalf of the Coal
Merchants’ Society. Mr. Locket said they kept for their
own information in the office a register of the variations in
the advertised prices of coal as sold to the ordinary house-
holder. There was no official price. At the time when war
broke out things were extremely excited, the public com-
pletely lost their heads, and they poured orders in at such a
rate that the merchants could not possibly cope with them,
and there w7as a strong agitation on the part of the trade
that prices should be advanced. Witness consulted with
nine or 10 of the principal merchants, and there was no
general advance of prices until September 26. Then all the
prices were advanced Is. a ton. That was the usual time.
Other normal advances took place: but the congestion on
the railways was not felt much before December. From
January 8 matters became very serious indeed. Ground
stocks were nearly exhausted, and they were unable to get
coal which had left the colliery brought un by the railways.
Witnesses dealt with the subsequent advances, and Mr.
Charrington attributed the scarcity at the onset to the large
number of coasting steamers which were taken by the
Government necessarily. That forced the freights up from
places like Goole and Hull, from which large quantities of
coal come to London, to such a point that they became more
expensive than the railway rate. That put a large quantity
of manufacturing coal from Yorkshire on to the railways.
The southern lines at that time were absolutely unable to
deal with the coal traffic, and the sidings were so blocked
that in London they could not get coal brought up. The
result was the coal they had landed in the summer, which
all merchants put on the ground when trade was slack, had
all been worked up at a great many places, and there was
a dearth of coal to go on with. The railway companies had
nut a stop on certain pits quite arbitrarily. He had never
been able to discover the lines on which those regulations
were made—what the railway companies ground their stops
upon. Witness thought that when the war broke out stacks
were about normally supplied, only on this occasion the
general opinion amongst merchants in London was that it
was a falling market, and that it was not a good year to
buy so nearly to one’s requirements. They were reduced
almost to vanishing point by the middle of December. If
the railways could have kept things working anything like
normally, there would have been not more than 2s. rise
above the ordinary price. There wTere all sorts of factors
which had caused it. but it was entirely scarcity—scarcity
of labour, scarcity of horses, scarcity of steam lorries which
have been taken, scarcity of boats—scarcity of everything.
The colliery owners where they had contracts had almost
all of them cut down contract quantities on account of the
shortage of labour, and in a good many cases they had
been getting considerably enhanced prices for the quantities
thev had cut off. In the summer they applied to the
collieries with whom they were in the habit of dealing,
whose coals suited their trade, for offers of contracts for the
'ensuing year, and made their contracts if they considered
prices favourable. If they thought it was to be a falling
market, they preferred to buv a certain amount to cover
themselves, and to remain in the onen market for the rest.
Those contracts were generally made in the summer for a
certain monthly quantity of tons. If they could get. from
the collieries a'margin of perhaps 10 per cent., they tried to
do it. - For any coal they wanted outside that which they
bought under contract, they bought from hand-to-mouth in
the open market. That might be a very large amount. They
none of them bought very heavily this year, because they did
not think the prices were justified. There was no universal
'form of contract, but some of them had a clause in their
contracts whereby deliveries were suspended through causes
bevond the control of the colliery owner. In some cases
collieries were pleading that, and onlv partdaily executing
orders. In most cases it was due to failure of men. In one
case a colliery in Leicestershire reduced their quantity by
20 per cent., but supplied them with as much extra as they
Wanted at 20s. at the pit, as against 9s. 9d., the contract
price. Some few had honourably carried out their obliga-
tions and supplied the full quantity, but they were in the
minority. Mr. Locket admitted that the actual quantity
bought under contract this year in every case was very
much less than usual. His own firm did not buy more than
50 per cent, in fact this year of what they did in 1913. Mr.
.Charrington said his partner had just sent down figures of
the monthly quantity of all sorts bought under contract,
that is. house and steam coal and everything, 23,600 tons
minimum, and 27.800 tons maximum. The average sales
per month over 1913 and 1914 were, say, 35,000 tons.' He