184

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN

July 23, 1915.

quently it was arranged between Mr. Wood and Mr. Benson
that the former should submit the matter to Mr. Bramall,
who was well known in Lancashire mining circles, and was
a personal friend. Mr. Bramall appeared very much
interested in the proposition put before him by Mr. Wood,
and ultimately became the purchaser. The plaintiff after-
wards wrote for his commission, but the defendant declined
to recognise his claim, on the ground that the sale was not
brought about through his agency, and he was not therefore
entitled to his commission.—The defendant, who appeared
in the uniform of the Royal Flying Corps, stated that after
hearing that the people approached by Mr. Benson and Mr.
Wood were not impressed with the colliery, he consulted Mr.
J. J. Reynolds, of Manchester. — Mr. Vincent Bramall,
general manager of Messrs. Andrew Knowles and Sons, Man-
chester, said he had known Mr. Wood for 20 years, and
towards the end of 1913 that gentleman, while discussing
various collieries he was associated with, mentioned that he
and three of his friends were having a look at the Bayton
Colliery. Later on Mr. Wood told him they had decided it
was not good enough, and they would not take it up. On
February 28 the following year Mr. Wood sent him some
papers and a copy of a report made by Mr. William Reynolds,
of Wigan, and told him he need not bother to send them
back, as they were of no further use to him. The report
condemned the whole thing, and he never thought anything
more about the colliery at that time. Two months later he
had an interview with Mr. J. J. Reynolds, of Manchester,
who suggested that he had an entirely wrong impression of
the property, and persuaded him to make an inspection.
Ultimately he and his brothers became the purchasers.
Nothing that Mr. Wood had done or said had in any way
influenced him in those negotiations, and he had never seen
Mr. Benson until the case came on. In cross-examination,
the witness said the field was an undeveloped one, and very
little was known about it. When buying a colliery it was
perhaps more important to know the worst than the best.
The importance of the report of Mr. William Reynolds was
that it put forward the worst that could be said.—Mr. John
James Reynolds stated that when he saw Mr. Bramall he
told him that if the place was properly developed, it would
make a nice property.—In giving judgment, his lordship said
he was of opinion that Mr. Benson, through Mr. Wood,
approached Mr. Bramall, but he was not very enthusiastic,
and the report of Mr. William Reynolds would have a damp-
ing effect, because it pointed out important difficulties in
respect of labour, etc. Such a report would rather have a
tendency to discourage a likely purchaser, and he W'as of
opinion that Mr. Bramall at that time put the matter on one
side entirely. Subsequently Mr. J. J. Reynolds approached
Mr. Bramall quite independently of Mr. Benson or Mr. Wood,
and ultimately the property was sold. He held, therefore,
that the sale was not effected through the medium of the
plaintiff, and gave judgment for the defendant, with costs.

While winding operations were in progress on Tuesday
morning at Lofd Ellesmere’s No. 2 pit, Mosley Common
Collieries, Walkden, near Manchester, the winding gear got
out of order, with the result that one of the cages fell to the
bottom of the shaft. As a result, close upon 1,000 men at
work had to be brought out at No. 1 shaft.

The teachers connected with the mining classes in Lanca-
shire visited Leeds University on the 10th inst., their chief
objects being to see the mining department, and to study
the scheme of mining instruction in the West Riding of
Yorkshire, and its relation to Leeds University. The party
was welcomed by the vice-chancellor (Dr. Michael E. Sadler),
who gave a very interesting address, after which Prof.
Hummell conducted the party through various departments.
While in the mining laboratory, Prof. Hummel explained the
scheme of mining instruction in the West Riding,, and gave
a number of exceedingly interesting demonstrations illus-
trating the course of experimental science applied to mining
provided for the West Riding mining teachers. In the
drawing office there was an exhibition of the work done in
the mining teachers’ classes in hand sketching and machine
drawing, and in mechanics. Here, as in the mining labora-
tory, the methods of teaching were discussed.. After lunch,
which was generously provided by Sir William Garforth,
Mr. Laws (principal of the Wigan Mining and Technical
College) thanked the university authorities for the privilege
of visiting their institution, Sir William E. Garforth, Dr.
Sadler, Prof. Hummel, and Messrs. Abbott and Winstanley
(H.M. inspectors), for their great kindness and courtesy
—which had contributed so largely to the success of the visit.
It was decided that the next meeting be held in Manchester
on Saturday, September 4.

North Wales.

Capt. G. R. Mayes, of the 4th Battalion Royal Welsh
Fusiliers, who before the war was general manager and agent
of the Wynnstay Collieries, Ruabon, and who was invalided
home from the front, has been appointed in command of the
administrative centre in connection with the troops in training
at Wrexham for the battalion mentioned.

Lord Trevor, of Brynkinalt, Chirk, a large mineral owner
in that locality, has accepted the position of commandant
of the East Denbighshire Battalion of the Denbighshire
Regiment of Volunteer Training Corps. His adjutant will
be Mr. E. S. Clarke, of Llay Hall Collieries Limited, near
Wrexham. The number at present in the battalion is over
500.

Notts and Derbyshire.

Absenteeism at a Notts Colliery.

An important case under the Employers’ and Workmen’s
Act—the first of its kind in the Mansfield district of Notting-
hamshire—came before the local Bench of magistrates on the
15th inst., when Thomas Ettches, a butty collier, employed
at the Warsop Main Colliery, was summoned by the Staveley
Coal and Iron Company for absenting himself from work for
eight consecutive days, from June 28 to July 6, without
reasonable cause, and for this they claimed £3 damages.—
Mr. J. Middleton, of Chesterfield, who prosecuted, stated
that over 700 men from the colliery had enlisted. For some
time past the average absentees from work had been 15 per
cent. Recently out of 1,065 men, only 323 worked the full
time that the pit was turning, 200 worked four days, 75 three
days, 48 two days, and 30 men never worked at all. Each
day that the defendant, who was a good workman, was at
work from June 1 he had averaged 14s. 6d. per day. His
explanation of his 'absence was that he had been “ on the
booze.” The defendant had offered to pay the amount of
damage claimed, but the company did not see their way to

accept it.—Mr. E. E. Booker, manager of the colliery, said
that in consequence of the number of men who had enlisted,
the output of coal had been reduced 1,000 tons per day. The
daily abstentions from work varied from 10 to 20 per cent.
—The defendant, who pleaded guilty, and expressed regret,
was ordered to pay the amount claimed and costs.

The Midlands.

Trade in Cannock Chase—Another Colliery to be Re-opened :
The Drainage Question.

It is stated that mining operations in the Rowley Regis
district are still causing extensive damage to property.

It is surprising how prices on the Cannock Chase and
Walsall Wood districts keep up at the present time. Infor-
mation is to hand this week showing that works’ proprietors
especially are offering advances of Is. 6d. to 2s., and even
2s. 6d., per ton above pit prices, if only the collieries will
promise to make deliveries, say, within 10 days after. A list
of one of the second-class collieries in the Huntington area,
near Cannock Chase, shows hand-picked large coal to be
selling at 19s. 6d. per ton, screened cobbles 18s. 6d., large
nuts and kitchen coal 17s. 6d., common house and steam
coal 17s., and small nuts 15s. 6d. From the Deep seam,
large coal is quoted at 17s. 6d., cobbles 17s., screened nuts
16s. 6d., small nuts 15s. 6d., and Park hards 18s. Slack is
quoted loaded into railway trucks or boats 11s. for fuel of
2 in. mesh, rough nutty slack Ils. 6d., and fine slack of
| in. mesh 9s. 6d. per ton.

The re-opening of the Deepfields Colliery, Coseley, which
was announced in these columns a fortnight ago, has stimu-
lated enterprise in other parts of this water-submerged dis-
trict. It is now stated that there is a possibility of the
Paddock Colliery being re-started. The increasing demand
for coal, coupled with the announcement that the South
Staffordshire Mines Drainage Commission has only another
10 years’ lease of life, are the causes of the local impetus in
the industry. It is generally conceded that the cost of
clearing the mines is almost prohibitive, but generous treat-
ment is being extended by the Commissioners to those pump-
ing in the area in the matter of graduation for rating pur-
poses. The chairman of the Commission (Mr. George
Macpherson) and Aid. John Hughes (chief mining engineer
to Lord Dudley) have many times recently impressed upon
owners and charter masters the imperative necessity of
working the mines in this area within the next few years,
after which they will be lost for ever.

On the Old Hill side of the Commission’s operations the
trouble is almost at a minimum, for the all-sufficient reason
—as the engineer for this district (Mr. W. B. Collis) has
observed—that the Rowley Hills come between. Outside
this area, however, in the Halesowen and Stour Valley dis-
trict, the prospect is not so rosy. The stopping of the Salt-
well pits after the coal strike led to an increased “ come ” at
the adjacent collieries, where fire also threatens to be a
formidable obstacle to successful working. No drainage
board has been formed for this district, although the forma-
tion for one has just been advocated by Mr. Shelah Garratt,
who is connected with a large colliery at Cradley Heath.

Kent.

Kent Coal and the Government — Tilmanstone Litigation
Settled.

The question of the part the Kentish collieries can take in
reducing the famine prices of coal in the southern counties
is being discussed in various quarters. The suggestion is put
forward that the Government might either give some measure
of support, which would lead to a more rapid development of
the working collieries in Kent, or that they should take these
collieries over for the purpose of securing coal for the district,
for steam raising purposes, for gas making, and for indus-
trial operations.

The Snowdown Colliery, which some time ago “ turned the
corner ” financially, is now reported to be making a profit of
£300 a week on its output of 3,000 tons.

The threatened further litigation in the case of the Til-
manstone Colliery has been satisfactorily settled. The judge
before whom the matter came on the application of the
receiver, agreed that, providing sufficient funds were available
to enable the receiver to carry on the colliery for the next two
months, he would be satisfied. This money has been pro-
vided, and the £50,000 of new capital that has been sub-
scribed under the second debenture scheme will also become
available.

Scotland.

Developments at Thornton — Women Workers and the
Union — Accident to a Manager — River Pollution :
System at Bedlay — Important Smoke Abatement
Prosecution.

The Fife Coal Company Limited are understood to be open-
ing up the Dysart Seven-foot seam, which crops out to the
surface at Balbeggie Farm, Thornton. The coal field is
about 700 acres in extent, and, once the shaft has been pro-
perly set away, will afford employment to, quite 300 workmen.
Already workmen are filling a good saleable coal 50 yds.
from the mouth of the pit.

Up to the present time female workers employed at the
various pits in Fife and Kinross have not been eligible for
membership in the miners’ union for the “ kingdom of
Fife.” The situation has lately undergone a change, and
since the number of women employed at the pits is showing
signs of increase, the question is to be brought under the
notice of the Scottish Union of Mine Workers.

Still another Lanarkshire miner has been recommended
for the D.C.M. The brave soldier on this occasion, Lance-
Corpl. Wm. Hamilton, of the 1st Seaforth Highlanders,
belongs to Motherwell, and was formerly employed in the
Dalziel pit of the Coursington Coal Company, Motherwell.

Mr. Thomas Smith, manager at Cornsilloch Colliery,
Lanarkshire, belonging to the Darngavil Coal Company,
recently met with an accident in the course of his employ-
ment, which, unfortunately, has had a fatal termination. It
seems that on July 6 he was assisting a number of his work-
men to take a drum of cable, about 20 cwt. in weight, from
the locomotive shed to No. 2 pit generating engine, for the
purpose of connecting it with the switchboard of No. 3 pit
generating engine. This operation was considered necessary,
owing to the fact that the engine at No. 3 pit had gone out
of order, and required repairs. Between the locomotive shed
and No. 2 pit there is a steep bank, about 6 or 7 yds. in
length, and when rolling the drum down this incline, Smith’s

foot slipped, and he fell in front of the drum, which rolled
over the lower part of his body, causing severe internal
injuries. Mr. Smith was removed to his own home, where
he lingered for some days. A native of the parish of Dalserf,
Lanarkshire, deceased had been manager at Cornsilloch since
it was taken over by the Darngavil Coal Company Limited.
For a number of years he was under-manager to Messrs.
Archibald Russell Limited, at the same colliery.

Capt. G. L. Dunn, who has been reported wounded, is a
son of Mr. Hugh S. Dunn, coal master, Kilmarnock.

An official telegram has been received in Irvine announcing
that Capt. Kenneth has been missing since July 12. Capt.
Kenneth is commanding officer of the Irvine Company of the
4th Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers (Territorials), and is
well known in the West of Scotland, being a member of the
firm of Messrs. A. Kenneth and Sons, coal masters.

In regard to the prevention of river pollution, the Bedlay
Collieries, near Kirkintilloch, have a complete system in
full operation. The processes carried on at the collieries are
coal washings, coke quenching; and recovery of by-products
such as tar, benzol oils, and sulphate of ammonia. The coal
washings from the silt recovery tank (which is emptied at
the week-ends) are conveyed by a pump to a settling area
on the pit refuse mound, while wagon and hopper drainage is
intercepted in suitable brick ponds, which are cleaned out
frequently. Effluent from the by-product plant is conveyed
from the settling ponds to a disused mine or lime pit.
Remedial measures are also provided to deal with the
water used for quenching coke. This water is conveyed to a
large brick tank, in which the larger particles of coke settle,
and are removed by a series of dredgers, the water passing off
to the river. There are, in addition, other discharges :—(1)
Pit water, somewhat turbid, and of which there is a large
quantity, varying from 300 to 400 gals, per minute; (2) con-
denser cooling water; (3) surface drainage; and (4) oil
drippings from condensers at the engines and pumps in
operation. At present a scheme is being arranged in con-
nection with the Darngavil Colliery, about 12 miles from
Kirkintilloch.

In the Outer House of the Scottish Court of Session on
Saturday last, judgment was pronounced by Lord Cullen in
an appeal from the judgment of Sheriff-Substitute Guy in
Edinburgh in the action by the burgh of Leith and Thomas
Bishop, sanitary inspector, Leith, against James Bertram
and Son Limited, engineers, Leith Walk Foundry, Leith.
The pursuers asked the court to find that there existed on the
defenders’ premises a nuisance within the meaning of the
Public Health Act, in respect that the fireplaces or furnaces
of the steam boilers within their premises did not, so far as
practicable, consume the smoke arising from the combustible
matter used therein. Sheriff-Substitute Guy found that the
pursuers had failed to prove the nuisance averred and
founded upon by them, and assoilzied the defenders, with
expenses.—The Lord Ordinary refused the appeal, with addi-
tional expenses to the defenders. His lordship said the
question raised related solely to the method of stoking the
defenders’ furnace. The pursuers did not complain that
the hand stoking by the defenders’ workmen was badly done.
Their case was that the defenders must desist from hand
stoking and instal a modern form of mechanism, in one or
other of its varying types, called a mechanical stoker. They
said that mechanical stoking had been found to be successful,
not only in the direction of economy of labour and fuel, but
also in that of better smoke consumption. They said that if
the defenders were to adopt a mechanical stoker there would
be a better smoke consumption in their furnace, and that
the fact of the defenders not doing so entitled the pursuers
to complain that the furnace was not consuming its smoke
“ so far as practicable.” The only qualification which their
counsel allowed was that a furnace user was not bound to
adopt a device for better smoke consumption, if to do so
would make it absolutely impossible for him to carry on
his particular trade. It appeared that there were many
makes of mechanical stokers in the market, the prices vary-
ing from about £150 to upwards of £200. The view of defenders
was that hand stoking was the only method of stoking suited
to the requirements of their business. And, in that view,
the evidence, in his opinion, did not prove them to be ill-
founded. If that were so, his lordship was not prepared to
affirm the pursuers’ proposition that the defenders adherence
to hand stoking in the conduct of their business fell to be
condemned as a ‘‘bad system of working” their furnace.
He did not think that the provision of sub-section 9 could
have been intended to operate so as to interfere with lawful
industries to the extent which the acceptance of the pursuers’
extreme contentions would involve.

The French Coal Problem.—The coal problem, says the
Paris correspondent of the Birmingham Daily Post, threatens
to absorb public attention more and more as winter
approaches. The complaints of the civil population have
been general, and no doubt Government thought it wise to
explain the situation. M. Marcel Sembat, Minister of
Public Works, boldly states that there is no crisis at all so
far as quantity is concerned, but only as regards prices.
He admits that from 25,000,000 to 30,000,000 tons have
been cut off by the Germans holding Belgium and Northern
France, and that the needs of war and its industries increase
consumption; ‘ ‘ but I very much want everyone to under-
stand that an average of 1,500,000 tons of coal enters our
ports every month .... and the coal fields that are left
to us furnish about the same amount. Military and civil
necessities during a year of war being evaluated at 35,000,000
tons, you see we have enough to carry us through.” The
municipal authorities of Paris two weeks ago voted a sum
of 40,000,000 fr. to accumulate stocks for the coming winter,
and depots are being rapidly constructed to hold them.
Parisians, however, know that the coal they use every winter
runs into three times that figure, and at normal prices.
There are at least 500 barge® and lighters moored along the
Seine that have been idle for 12 months. There are plenty
of British coal imports blocking Rouen, but the prices offered
for canal transport to Paris are not sufficiently remunerative.
But what need to go into these details? France consumes
every year about 60,000,000 tons of mineral combustible,
and by this present war she is able to extract no more than
about 15,000,000 tons from the mines that are left to her. To
make up the deficit she is absolutely at the mercy of the
British miners. But there is something else to think of now.
What is to become of Italy, who has not a single coal mine
in her territory, and who can no longer get German coal?
Italy, too, is absolutely at the mercy of British miners.