272

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

August 6, 1915.

in this country many people did not care to have the second-
class coal. Therefore, with a colliery it was of advantage,
if they had a seam in their take that they could work
cheaply, it paid to work that seam, because whatever
tonnage they got there bore its share of the standing charges
of the colliery. If such a seam was closed, as it had been
in some cases by the war, it evolved an increase in the cost.
Contracts, as a rule, were not made with a foreign buyer;
they were made f.o.b., Goole or Hull, and they were English
factors who took them. That was the custom of the trade
for export coal in West Yorkshire.

The difference now was in favour of rail. By rail to
London 7s. 3d. was the railway rate, and there was Is. 3d.
for wagon hire, making 8s. 6d.; whereas, the same coal
vid Goole was charged Is. 9d. by rail to Goole, and by ship
to London in normal times it was 4s. It was now 12s., and
it had been up to 14s. So now the man who had got a
contract at a fixed price naturally tried to send it by rail.
From the colliery point of view, the railways have not done
as well as they would have liked. They might have done
extremely well under the circumstances, but the collieries
have suffered very much indeed. The delay in wagons was
enormous. Whereas ordinarily they could run a wagon from
West Yorkshire to London and back within a week or 10
days, it was now three weeks. Even where wagons were
loaded they could not be taken out. For instance, only a
fortnight previous, in a neighbouring colliery, 27 wagons
were taken out by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway to
put on to the Midland system to London, but they came
back and were not taken. A fair amount of West Yorkshire
coal went down to places like Portsmouth, and if it had to
go vid London, it might be hung up in depots near London
because it could not get any further. They had supplied
coal to the Admiralty and to the War Office in times past,
but it had always been shipped to London. But during this
period they had done what they had never done before, that
was, they had sent coal by rail to Chatham. The railway
company supplied the wagons because they were ordered
by the military authorities; no colliery would send its own
wagons down there. For the same reason the merchant who
had to rely on rail borne coal could not get it regularly. In
the contracts made last year it was provided that, except
for a strike, the amount taken was to be so much a month.
It was a total quantity, but any not taken in a given month
was cancelled. It was very hard in practice to find out the
amount of free coal at the disposal of any given colliery for
that very reason. Speaking quite generally, witness thought
the amount of contract coal so converted was quite negligible.

Most collieries had a considerable number of wagons of
their own. In addition to that, merchants and factors sent
their own wagons for coal, and also other people purchased
in railway companies’ wagons. The colliery companies
would not send their own wagons to London. If people sent
in their own private wagons, the collieries would fill them,
but they would not send their own wagons; they would
rather keep them for shipping and the local supply. In
shipping contracts there is a definite figure mentioned, so
that if the purchaser desires coals in wagons it would be
at a certain price. It sometimes happened that a London
merchant might be supplying coal to the north of London.
If it was shipped, there was the transport from the docks
to the north of London. Therefore, in certain circumstances
he had the option of taking his coal either by ship or rail.
The price was agreed if he should do so. When they
supplied by rail to London it was in the railway company’s
wagons. There were one or two collieries in the west of
Yorkshire which had a very high-class quality of house coal,
and they did supply in merchants’ wagons, but the greater
number of collieries supplied to London by ship.

The Contract Basis.

Witness thought that when the question of making new
contracts came up the absolute price at a time like this at
the pit head would have very, little influence upon the
contracts. It depended a good deal on the margin of coal
available. In contracting, each side did its best to estimate
for the future. They had nothing to do with railway
contracts; the coal of West Yorkshire was not a steam coal
like the South Yorkshire coal.

Witness said there had recently been more dead work
because of the reduced output. If the pit was standing there
was more harm done than when a coal face was advancing
constantly and the coal was got out. If a pit was stopped for
three or four days there was an immense amount of work
then in clearing spaces for men to work in because of the
falls. The slower the face travelled the greater amount
of dead work there was to be done. Therefore, having fewer
men in the working faces meant that the working faces were
travelling more slowly and there was actually more dead
work, and with the reduced number of men working the
proportion of dead work was higher.

Mr. Holiday said their contract prices Were based on the
cost of production. First of all in the cost of production
standing charges was an item they must take as to what
they could produce coal at. Then, any quantity in excess
of that which paid standing charges meant the spreading of
those charges over a larger output. Therefore in the first
place, in fixing contracts, one had to reckon what quantity
of coal must be got out, roughly, to cover standing charges.
Then they tried to fix that by contract so as to ensure the
working of the pit. Then after that, if they still produced
any more they tried to get a higher price if possible in
order to get more profit; but, when times were bad and
trade was falling generally, they even fixed contracts at
a slight loss, because that quantity ensured the regularity of
working of the pit; and to have that quantity as free coal
uncontracted for, with the market in an unstable condition,
might mean working the pit much less time, and therefore
the loss would be greater than by actually fixing the
contract at a slight loss. It might be that one man wanted
to buy 40,000 tons. Now they know that this man took his
coal absolutely regularly, and if they fixed with him they
were absolutely certain of that output, and it might mean
one or two days a week work of the pits. Consequently they
were prepared to suffer a slight loss on that, because if they
did not, they might have 40,000 tons in a market that was
dropping, and the pits might not work the calculated time
per week, and therefore the loss on standing charges would
be greater. In West Yorkshire particularly there was such
a wide range in regard to the actual physical qualities of
the different seams, that it meant there were differences in
prices. But in any given seam of coal there was not such
a wide range. In a few seams there were considerable
differences in quality of the same seam as worked in West
Yorks. It should be mentioned that in taking into account
the amount they could contract for, some collieries made a
very large amount of slack because their seam was a friable
seam, and that went at a low price for coking, for which
purpose it was only suitable. So that affected the average

pit price considerably. Witness agreed that in some cases
of coal supplied to districts where the railway freight was
very low in consequence of being near the pits, and so on,
the pit price would be higher, and that the price at the
pit head varied according to the amount which it would
afterwards bear for railway freights. A gasworks or a mill
which was near a colliery could not get coal except by
buying it from that colliery. It could not get coal elsewhere
without paying freight, and so that was the market value
of that coal. On the other hand, if there was a number
of collieries who had all equal rates, but rather low rates,
they would all be competing against one another, and they
would supply to a mill that was near at a lower price than
they would supply to a mill that was 30 miles further from
the pit. Where prices were high the merchants and factors
knew perfectly well what the price of coal was in the open
market, and that the colliery owners knew it, and they came
straight <away and said : “ I will give you so much.” This
had happened constantly lately.

Speaking of the rise in working costs, witness said they
had had to buy timber at 200 per cent, increase in price.
There were also various contracts for stores which the
collieries had made for iron, steel and timber; those contracts
the people had withdrawn owing to the war. So they now
had to purchase those stores in the open market at war
prices, although they were supplying coal at prices fixed
before the war. The increased cost per ton owing to the
increased cost of timber, stores, and the increased cost of
expenses contingent upon the reduced output he should put
at about Is. 3d. to Is. 6d.

Witness thought their best Yorkshire coal was a better
coal than Derby brights. Some of their second-class coal,
formerly exported, had been diverted to London, and that
was how they had maintained their contracts, because it was
only some of the coal which was shipped abroad which was
what he called of inferior quality. He thought the retail
selling price in London was governed by the amount of coal
available. The pit-head price rose and fell with the market
price. • In the fixing of the selling price the collieries could
do nothing if the market did not warrant it. They could
steady a fall, but that was all they could do. When prices
had been high and began to come down there might be
a panic, and some began fixing contracts or selling at absurd
prices because they were afraid there was going to be a
drop. All that the coal owners could possibly do in that
matter was to consult together as to what quotations and
what offers there were for coal, and say, “ It is recommended
Is. reduction shall be made from a certain date.” That
meant that the contracts that had a sliding scale from a
a certain date would automatically reduce that amount,
according to the terms of the contract. Mr. Holiday added
that in speaking of exported house coal he was referring
more to kitchen coal. The better class of household coal
was not shipped at all. His impression was that the high
price was due to the shortage of output, but more particularly
as regards the south of England, it was the difficulty of
getting it there. In the districts in the north which were
near the collieries there had been nothing like the raising of
prices, because the coal could be got to the people. The
mills, etc., and consumers in the north were getting good
supplies of coal, but that was taking practically all the
output there is. If there was a considerable increase of
output, the collieries instead of having their sidings with
wagons standing idle full of coal, would say : ” We will run
the risk of the long delay and let our wagons go.” From
the colliery owners’ point of view, the only way in which
the men could be induced to work full time would be a
reduction of wages, and that was a proposition which nobody
could put forward. On statistics over years one could show
graphically that as the rate of wages had gone up the
amount of time worked by the men had gone down, and
vice versa, and therefore, arguing from that, a reduction
of wages would bring more output of coal. The moment
the war was over there would be an enormous shortage.
Immediately before the war the pits were working about
five days a week. They were open now six days, but he
was afraid on that extra day, although there was coal
actually got out, the number of absentees was so great that
it was not making up for absenteeism. There was a certain
type of man who had got a certain standard that he lived
to. If he got more money he worked less time, and kept
to the same standard.

Witness said that in London itself there was a very small
percentage of the very best Haigh Moor coal sold. There
was what was called Haigh Moor best, but that must not
be interpreted as best Haigh Moor. Nobody bought that
by the load; it was in large cubical hard pieces. The
merchant bought it to “ top up ” his loads. The house-
holder liked to have a few big lumps, and the merchants
bought that coal at a high price for that purpose. The
person up in the North had not the railway freight to pay
and he would give the price for the coal. But when that
price went beyond a certain amount, together with the
railway freight, it was getting too much for the London
consumer; therefore, the merchant who had got his contract
fixed, could afford to sell at a slightly lower price. The
colliery owner might be having a larger production than
the market would take, and he would take a rather lower
price. He had known the time in the market when
Yorkshire coal could be bought in Genoa cheaper than one
could buy it next to the pit. London used to be an absolute
dumping-ground, because the demand locally was not
sufficient. It was sent to London and it was slaughtered
there. They used to send it down in and store it in barges,
and keep it there; until the merchants knew of it and offered
very low prices indeed. London now was not quite the
dumping place it was, because the Continental countries had
found the advantage of the cheaper slacks of England, and
therefore they had an outlet instead of dumping it all in
London. In addition there was the less permissible
illuminating power of gas which brought about the use
of nuts. Gasworks now were taking coal for gas purposes
which they could not do before. Not only that, they could
not produce house coal only. Of their Haigh Moor, 50 per
cent, was slack. If there was no demand for slack they
could not work the pit full time, and therefore there was a
shortage of house coal, and the price went up. If there
was a good industrial demand they could work the pits and
produce both slack and house coal, and even if the house-
coal trade was falling off they might sacrifice something to
keep their pits working full time, and they might find very
low prices or very considerable differences between districts
for household coal.

Conditions in Warwickshire.

Mr. Wit J jam Johnson, M.P., miners’ agent for
Warwickshire, said the chief reason for loss of time was
want of railway wagons. That applied more to the district
nearer London than the Tamworth end. About three weeks

before Christmas, one colliery asked the men to work the
extra hour which the Eight Hours Act permitted. The men
refused to do that because they had been losing part of a
shift before, and they said, ” It is no good doing that because
we shall have to lose time.” Practically that colliery and
two others left off work. About Christmas time they lost
two shifts at those collieries for want of railway wagons,
where they asked them to work extra time. He thought
the collieries had done their best. They had sent locomotives
to meet the expected empty wagons. In some cases the men
had actually gone down to the pit and walked to the face.
Something like 20 per cent, had enlisted, and those were
principally the strongest, the youngest, and the most able
and active men. Of course, the collieries had taken a lot
of surplus labour on. They had always got some number of
men who did not attend regularly to their work. There was
a clause in the minimum wages agreement requiring the men
to make 80 per cent, of the time the pit was opened, but
witness did not know of a single case where that had been
put into operation. They could expect a man to go down
a coal pit six days regularly every week, but with regard
to the 80 per cent, clause, if they would do that there would
not be so very much the matter. Since the war had started
it had been a little worse, and especially since the recruiting
began, because the men liked to give their old pals, who
went to join the army, a send-off. On the other hand, from
nearly every pit witness had had complaints of playing
from want of wagons. It was not for want of coal. There
had been thousands of tons lying on the ground. That
meant an additional cost of 6d. a ton, and another 6d. for
loading up. In Warwickshire, had there been a good supply
of railway wagons, they could have supplied at least another
10 or 15 per cent, of coal. The representative of the
Coventry Co-operative Society came to witness the first week
in the year and complained that usually at that time they
had 5,000 tons in stock, and there was a branch line that
went up to the Ordnance works in Coventry. They
complained that they had about 80 or 90 wagons along that
line. The works manager promised to do all he possibly
could, but said ‘‘ It was not only the supply of coal, but
the supply of raw material for the factory and the sending
out of the finished goods from the factory which was blocking
the line.” Within 3 miles of the boundaries of Coventry
there were 100,000 tons of coal lying on the ground of all
kinds to be picked up.

As regards prices, witness thought that for non-contract
coal the Warwickshire owners had put the prices up, and
they had perhaps to a certain extent starved the contracts.
At the beginning of last year the certified price for the
Federated area was 9s. 9d. per ton; on the last day in
December it was 9s. 3d., and they had. been told that when
they got the January and February prices they would find
they were not up much. The Warwickshire, Derbyshire,
Leicestershire, and Nottinghamshire figures were about Is.
a ton less than in North Wales, Lancashire, and West
Yorkshire. Witness considered that a good deal of the rise
was due to public panic itself.

There were times, added witness, when they got a lot
of trouble between the men and employers as to bad loading.
At the present time they would not be very exacting, as they
were glad to have anything that was black. The colliery
owners had benefited, but not to the extent of the retail
prices that had been charged to the poor. The so-called
avaricious proprietors and the men absentees might, to a
certain extent, have produced a rise in prices, but they could
not have caused the rise in price to the point which it had
reached.

Witness thought the plentiful supply of wagons had
helped considerably the stallmen. Thursdays and Fridays
were good days, and so were Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
On the other days there was a plentiful supply of wagons.
The men went in to make up their wages, and the stalls
were overcrowded. There was work on ordinary occasions,
but they had to keep so many extra men in what they called
the market, and sometimes they sent those men back, and,
of course, men were injured daily and could not work. They
would have to keep 5, 10 or 15 per cent, extra men working,
whereas if they could rely on the men working every day,
they could do without those extra men. When the men
came and the stalls were full, and there were not wagons
enough, it crippled the other men. It was not customary to
work short time in summer in Warwickshire. Perhaps the
house-coal shifts were affected more, but where there was
a lot of steam coal, it was not affected so much. In the
summer time there was a tendency to go and do a day’s
work in the harvest field, but that only applied to a few
men.

(To be continued.)

Grimsby Coal Exports.—Returns for week ending July 30
show that the coal exported from Grimsby was as follows :—
Foreign : To Dieppe, 950 tons; Esbjerg, 957; Gefle, 4,454;
Hargshamn, 1,676; Koersocr, 1,432; Randers, 3,338; Ronnc,
614; Skien, 381; and Treport, 498 tons. Coastwise : To Fal-
mouth, 224 tons. Totals, 14,300 tons foreign, and 224 tons
coastwise, against 22,373 tons foreign and 1,167 tons coast-
wise during the corresponding week last year.

The War and Contract Liabilities.—Tn the King’s Bench
Commercial Court on the 27th ult., Mr. Justice Bailhache
gave judgment in an action between the Ebbw Vale Steel,
Iron and Coal Company and Macleod and Company. Plaintiffs
asked for a declaration that defendants were not entitled
to suspend the operation of two contracts of March 16 and
November 2 of last year for the sale to plaintiffs of certain
iron ore. The contract was for 15,000 tons of the ore at
16s. 3d. per ton delivered from a particular mine in the Bilbao
districts. His lordship said the controversy turned on the
contract clause termed the strike clause. Messrs. Macleod
in February, on becoming aware of the closing of the mine,
gave notice that they were excused from continuing the con-
tract by reason of this clause. The particular ore was sold
in very large quantities to Germany, and the effect of the
war was to close the German market, and, this being so, the
mine could not continue to work at a profit. There was also
a shortage of ships, which reflected itself in the great rise
in freights. The question was whether defendants had
brought themselves within the strike clause. If defendants
were to succeed they must do so on the words which formed
part of the clause, namely, “ in the event of war affecting
the mines.” The war shut up the German market, and the
mine, losing its largest profitable customer, could not be
worked at. a profit. In his judgment, it was clearly a case
of the war affecting the mine, and upon this he thought
defendants were justified, and the Ebbw Vale Company were
not entitled to the declaration, and the case would be dis-
missed with costs.