July 9, 191S.

THE COLLIER^ GUARDIAN

69

to continue, the country was at the mercy of the colliery
owners, and he had not the slightest doubt in saying that
coal in July would be 36s. per ton, and in September and
October £2 a ton, and trolley coal would be 2s. 6d. a cwt.—
50s. a ton. There was a strong combination of colliery
owners who regulate selling prices, and who regulate
matters relevant to the trade wages and that sort of thing.
If they took the Federated area, and it should be found
possible to fix a maximum price for all coal passing over the
2 in. screen, that it should not, in any case, be sold beyond
a given figure, a figure that could be fixed as favourable
and remunerative to many people, it would be largely to
some companies less remunerative than to others, because
of the position and condition of the mines, and because coal
is mined under vastly different conditions. A maximum
figure could be found which would enable colliery owners
to produce coal, and it could be fairly divided up amongst
the consuming communities at a fair price without being
faced by these extortionate demands. ' Certainly, he thought
a maximum price could be fixed that would make every
colliery owner eager to work his pits and make a handsome
profit, and would be 6s. per ton below present prices. The
relative prices of small coal which went for manufacturing,
fuel and cooking and calcining purposes, would fix
themselves. If a maximum price were fixed, and the
colliery owner asked that maximum price for his small coal,
the buyer would immediately say Oh, no, I will take
your large coal at the price, I will not take your slack.” If
they could regulate a saleable article for which he should
have a maximum price, the classes and descriptions of the
smalls and other sorts below the screened coal grade would
find their own value. It would be possible to exclude the
classes of coal which are fairly well distinguished as
Admiralty steam coal. He would only seek to restrict the
price so far as coal was consumed inland and in the country.
Any attempt to favour the foreign market would produce
such a competition to sell for export as to take away the
advantage of selling for export. He would leave the wagon
question entirely out of it.

Witness, thought a fair.maximum price at pithead would
be 14s. 6d. Railway rates would bring that up to 23s. 5d.,
and the merchant’s gross profit would be put at 7s. 6d., that
would give 30s. lid. by the ton. Witness at this point
produced a trading profit and loss account for the half-year
ending December 1914. In these six months they sold
140,663 tons of coal, and the net profit upon that was
^3,884 4s. 6Jd., equalling 6'62d. profit. As to the increased
cost of working, witness thought that in the Leicestershire
coal field 9d. or lOd. a ton would cover the whole of the
additional cost. Possibly in Derbyshire, in the soft coal
pits—the black shale pits—Is. 3d. to Is. 6d. would cover it.
The colliery owner would be well covered at 2s. 6d. or 3s.
per ton, and that would leave him an increased profit,
which he would otherwise be unable to make under normal
conditions. If they added 15 per cent, to the prices ruling
for the last three years he would be doing very well. He
thought any maximum price fixed would find its level,
because nature seemed to have made a provision in this way.
If they took Warwickshire, the lowest rate to London was
5s. 3d., and in Warwickshire they had produced almost the
lowest grade class of coal, so that if they fixed 14s. 6d. or
15s. on a 5s. 3d. rate to London they would get Warwick-
shire coal costing £1 Os. 3d. If they came to Leicester-
shire, that being the next coal field in which the quality
was a degree better than in Warwickshire, the railway rate
was 5s. 8d. to London, and they gave that colliery 15s., the
coal cost £1 Os. 8d. there. Then they went to Derbyshire,
where the railway rate was 6s. 6d., and gave them 15s., so
the coal in London would cost 21s. 6d. Then to Yorkshire,
where the rate was 7s. 2d., the cost in London was
£1 2s. 2d. Now, a merchant could quote, if they gave him
his 7s. 6d., 27s. 9d. for a low-grade kitchen coal—stove
coal, the cheapest article on his list. He could quote
cobbles suitable for kitchen ranges at 28s. 2d., possibly he
would make it 28s. 6d. For best Derby coal he would
charge 29s., and for the best Silkstone 29s. 8d., or, say, 30s.,
so that the grades of coal coming in that way would almost
enable a coal merchant to give a price list varying with the
qualities he could deliver. There was no doubt the maximum
price would tend to become the minimum. There were no
contracts which would run above the 14s. 6d., except the
so-called sliding-scale contracts, and if they fixed 14s. 6d.
as a maximum the London price would come down 4s. or
5s., and’ the sliding-scale contract would come down half
that amount, or it would immediately drop 2s. For Derby-
shire coal at 15s. 6d. it would bring the sliding-scale contract
down to 13s. 6d., which would be a very handsome figure
for the colliery. The only contracts it would affect would be
the fixed contracts, anything that was bought on a fixed
price, and there was no fixed price of 14s. 6d.

Working Costs in the Midlands.

Prof. John Cadman, D.Sc., gave evidence on March 4. He
said he was a professor of mining in the University of
Birmingham, and consulting engineer to two collieries in the
Midlands—one in Shropshire, the other in Staffordshire.
Dealing with the effect of the present conditions upon colliery
cost of production, he said there were three factors which had
ended to raise the price at the colliery—the loss of active and
efficient labour arising from enlistment, an increase of
absentees from work in respect to the labour that remained,
and an increase in the cost of materials. Referring to the
collieries with which he was connected, witness said A was a
small colliery with a total output of 100,000 tons a year; B
had an output of 420,000 tons per year. Under the first
heading, at Colliery A 22 per cent, of the labour had enlisted,
and there had been practically no replacement. That applied
entirely to underground men. With regard to absentee
increase, at this colliery 7 per cent, of the men were per-
petually absent. That was before the war, but that figure
bad gone up to 15 per cent. That might be accounted for in
some measure by the fact that the better physically fitted men
had gone, and the same amount of absenteeism was spread
over the smaller number of men who were left. The increase
in the cost of materials at Colliery A was between 30 and 50
per cent. In the case of timber, this company happened to
be fortunately situated in having contracted for its timber
supply, but timber bought on outside contracts was as much
as 75 to 100 per cent, above the prices ruling a year
previously.

Dr. Cadman said he was not able at that stage to produce
similar figures with regard to Colliery B. At this colliery
the enlistment was approximately the same, but there was
always a shortage of, roughly, 16 per cent. The colliery was
not so fortunately placed with regard to its contracts, for all
its coal was sold under contract, and the cost of materials
was slightly more. The point was that one colliery, say, had
a timber cost of Is. a ton, whereas another colliery working

under totally different conditions had a timber cost of 3d. or
4d. a ton. Although there had been a material increase in
the cost of production, the increase in the selling price of coal
had not been obtained by the colliery, on account of the fact
that a greater part of the output was sold on contract. As to
Colliery A, 70 per cent, of its output was disposed of under
contract? Of the balance, 10 per cent, was used for works
consumption, leaving about 20 per cent, available at the
higher price. But this 20 per cent, was largely small coal.
For January 1914 the average sale price was 10s. ll-38d.
That took into account both the house coal of various qualities
and slack. In January 1915 the average selling price was
10s. 5*8d. The reduction was due to the larger quantities of
slack being sold at lower prices than in 1914. In Colliery A
practically 40 per cent, of the output was small coal. The
price in 1914 was about 7s. a ton tor slack, and this year it
had been about 5s. The large coal under contract was the
same price. In 1914 for hand-picked coal—that is a special
quality—the price was 14s. 3d., and it sold in the open
market at 14s. 6d. In 1915 the same coal was sold under
contract at 14s. 3d., and the sale price was 16s. 9d. Then
in 1914, house coal 13s. 3d., sale 13s. 6d.; 1915, contract
13s. 3d., sale 15s. 9d. Furnace coal—coal used for boiler
purposes and brickworks, and so on—11s. 6d. contract, sale
11s. 6d. In 1915, contract 11s. 6d., sale 13s. 6d. Nuts,
Ils. 9d. in 1914, 12s. 9d. sale; in 1915, under contract 12s.,
sale 14s. 6d. Slack, in 1914, 7s., sale 7s. 3d.; in 1915,
contract 5s., sale 7s. 6d. Practically the whole of this
output could be used either for domestic purposes or for
steam purposes.

Witness said the railway charges practically limited the
circle in which a colliery of this character might distribute
its coal, and the proportion of the delivered price absorbed by
railway charges in this case amounted to 17 per cent, of the
pit charges. It was roughly 2s. a ton on all the coal. That
might seriously affect the present state of things. A merchant
might buy from two collieries, A and B, havinqf different rail-
way rates to a certain town. The coal which found its way to
the town in normal times was the coal from A, with the small
rail rate. In abnormal times the coal from B, with the
larger rate, was brought to the town, and influenced the
price of the whole, because it was only in such times that
B coal got into this market. The only remedy that witness
could suggest was a uniform railway rate for a certain zone.
There was another point, and that was the question of multi-
plication of dealers in a town. The man who was selling in
a small way, by cwt., was probably buying through about
four or five stages from the colliery. The contracts at the
collieries referred to were based on a difference of 6d.
between summer and winter prices. Some collieries, he
added, might contract for more than their output, for there
were cases where the output had been reduced materially,
and on an estimate of a contract made in advance they were
unable to carry it out. Witness could not see how they
were going to effect a cheapening in the price unless they
fixed a maximum sale price in the particular district, and
also fixed a railway rate which was jto be common for that
particular zone.

Dr. Cadman said the result at this colliery perhaps was
rather exceptional, in that there had been during the period
a large increase in mechanical coal cutting and conveying—
mechanical appliances and machinery had tended to increase
the output of the mine and the output per man—but if one
compared different districts within the mine, they got a
reduction which was parallel with the reduction of the persons
employed in that area. By means of the introduction of
mechanical appliances in other districts one was able to
increase and make up the quantity. The very active people
had gone; the real men who were capable of exceeding the
average output were the men who had disappeared; they had
really got a set of men left who were below the average and
just on it, so that the actual average capacity for work was
down. When machinery was installed, the intention was to
increase the output.

Witness said that as a matter of custom in many districts,
about five days a week was what the men put in, although
it was a mistake to imagine that a miner’s job was so
excessively harder than any other job. They always had a
certain number of the men putting in a small amount of time,
while the really good ones never missed anything. There
was another point. It became the fashion to follow examples,
and if it was the custom to stop away, it became inherent in
the district. In the district witness was connected with, the
pits were running six days a week, and the men only worked
five.

Railway-Owned Depots.

Mr. Thomas Hutton, who gave evidence on March 4, said
he was engaged in the coal trade in Poplar, where he had
three trolleys running. He bought his coal from
merchants. At the depot that they drew their coal from
there were three or four merchants, and they had to buy
through them. It was a tied depot to those merchants.
The railway company would not accept witness, and if he
had a better price offered outside by a collieiy agent or
factor, which was very often the case, he could not accept
it. The railway company would refer them to one of those
merchants—that is, at the Midland depot. Of course, there
were depots he could get the coal through. They were not
all alike. They got a price by wagon from the merchants,
and witness found the labour. In fact, he had six trucks of
his own, but the great difficulty was the transport. By
having wagons they saved Is. a ton for truck hire, but he
thought his truck hire had worked out to something like 3s.
at the present time.

Witness said he was getting very little contract coal now.
He had a contract, but it was cancelled on the war clause.
In that district there was Parry’s, Preston’s-road, which was
a small depot and tied; there was Devons-road (Rickett,
Cockerell’s), which was a tied depot; there was Devonshire-
street, which was an open station on the Great Eastern ; and
the Midland depot was an open depot which was too far
away. It was just a matter of space; at the West India
Dock depot there were four merchants, Moy, Sargeant,
Longstaff and Company, Rickett, Cockerell, and Whitwell.
The railway companies told him that if they allowed them
to purchase their coal where they liked, they would have
to set out so much siding room that they would not have the
space. There were other inconveniences that arose from the
tied depot. Witness was not able to go on the Coal Exchange
and buy.

Witness said they were better off when they were selling
coal at Is. 6d. than at 2s. In the trolley trade there was a
great amount of credit, and there were bad debts. If a man
lost 1 cwt. of coal now he lost 2s., as against Is. 6d. In
two instances witness took the risk, and in the other instance
the men took the risk. This depot was used by 15 other
trolley men, who sold practically at one price by arrange-
ment. Since the coal had gone up to 2s. per cwt. the quality

had gone down considerably. When the coal was Is. 6d. aii
ordinary householder would have three J-cwts. a week, while
now, with coal at 2s., he might do with 1 cwt.; and over
one trade it ran into many tons.

Gas Companies and the Seaborne Trade.

Mr. D. M. Watson, general manager of the Gas Light
and Coke Company, said the effect of the shortage of coal had
been very greatly to reduce the amount of coke that was being
made for sale at the present moment. Most gas companies
had had to resort to the making of gas from oil, which pro-
duced no coke at all, and even consumed it. Then, owing to
the great difficulty of getting coal, the percentage had been
put up, and they were making 34 to 36 per cent, of oil gas
instead of in normal times 25 per cent. The price of coke
fluctuated very largely in consonance with the price of coal.

Witness stated that as a rough rule when the price of coal
or the cost of carriage went up Is., it meant an increase in
the price of gas by Id. They always made their contracts
for a year, and they had got coal to carry them at least to
July. But they had had to pay something extra on the
coals that were being brought in, simply because of the diffi-
culties. There were war risks, and the gas companies, in
order to meet merchants, had also had to meet them with
regard to their freight prices. These prices were made in
peace time, and the contractors could not be absolutely held
to them. Almost all their coal came from Durham. It was
capable of being used to a certain extent for steam-raising.
It was also the very best house coal; especially the York-
shire coal, which was used equally for gas and household
purposes. In Yorkshire, as a rule, they took the best of it
out for household purposes, and sold the gas companies the
smaller stuff.

At present all their contracts were in arrear. Witness
said they bought on two systems, they bought coal delivered
in London, and also f.b.b., and supplied the ships. They
had one vessel of their own running, and two or three
chartered, and since the new year they had bought no less
than three new steamers, as being the only way to get
supplies. They had to pay a very high price for those
steamers, which all went to swell the cost of production.
They were anticipating arrears to be made good, but all the
companies had been losing stock steadily. Most of the com-
panies had to go into the market for ships, and they had all
to buy their coal.

(To be continued.)

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL COAL CONTRACTS.

The London County Council has accepted contracts for the
supply of 14,250 tons of steam coal (Nixon’s Navigation
large washed nuts) for the next 12 months to various
asylums, of Wm. Cory and Son Limited, at prices varying
from 35s. 9d. to 36s. lid. according to the place of delivery.
The tender has been accepted on the understanding that the
prices are subject to any agreement with, or any arrange-
ment which may be made by the Government hereafter as
to the regulation of prices to be charged for coal or its
carriage. The tender represents only a portion of the require-
ments of steam coal, and on account of the prices tendered,
the committee has not seen its way for the remainder of the
steam coal, or any house fand gas coal, without a condition
such as that attached to "the acceptance of the tender above
referred to.

Recently, the London County Council decided to consider
the question of the retail supply of coal during the war to
the poor, and the General Purposes Committee has now
appointed the following sub-committee to deal with the
matter :—Messrs. E. R. Debenham, H. H. Gordon, H.
Gosling, and R. C. Phillimore.

Reporting upon the contract, the General Purposes Com-
mittee authorised the chief officers of the tramways to repre-
sent the London County Council at a national conference of
representatives of gas and electrical industries, for the
purpose of considering as to the best course to adopt to bring
under the attention of the Government the existing state of
affairs with regard to coal supply. The London County
Council now announces that it is not, by its representation
at the conference, committed as to its policy in the matter.

The Council is sending a letter to all the London local
authorities stating that it has had under consideration the
suggestion contained in paragraph 38 of the Report of the
Departmental Committee on Retail Coal Prices, that it should,
during the summer, acquire large stocks of household coal, so
that it can be sold in the winter months at prices and under
conditions to be fixed in consultation with the Government,
to traders supplying small consumers. The Council, in this
connection, intimates that in the course of its consideration of
this suggestion, its attention has been directed to the desir-
ability of local authorities having public utility undertakings
taking steps to ensure that stocks of coal are regularly
replenished to their maximum.

Hull Coal Exports.—The official return of the exports of
coal from Hull to foreign countries from Thursday, June 24,
to Tuesday, June 29, 1915, is as follows :—Amsterdam, 405
tons; Aalesund, 100; Alexandria, 1,753; Bergen, 101;
Christiansund, 100; Copenhagen, 2,490; Dunkirk, 1,717;
Gothenburg, 160; Gefle, 550; Havre, 950; Rouen, 1,466;
Saxkjobing, 1,503; Stockholm, 911; Trouville, 513—total,
12,719 tons. The above figures do not include bunker coal,
shipments for the British Admiralty, nor the Allies’ Govern-
ments. Total export for the week ending Tuesday, June 30,
1914—104,703 tons.

Coal Supply Conference.—The national coal conference,
arranged by the Committee on Coal Supplies, of which Sir
Richard Redmayne is chairman, and originally fixed for
July 7, has been postponed for a few days, as the date
originally fixed clashed with engagements all previously
made by Mr. Lloyd George. Sir John Simon will preside,
and Mr. Lloyd George will be the principal speaker.
Representatives of the coal owners and miners will be
invited from every mining district in Great Britain. The
conference has been arranged so that Mr. Lloyd George and
Sir John Simon may place the whole facts as to the vital
necessity of an adequate coal supply during the period of the
war before the coal owners ana the men, and urge the
imperative need of avoiding any labour disputes involving
a stoppage of production which would imperil in any way
a full supply of fuel for the Navy and the munitions factories
of the kingdom. Mr. Pease, chairman of the coal owners,
and Mr. R. Smillie, president of the Miners’ Federation,
will address the conference.