August 13, 1915.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

327

quotations seems inevitable. Small nuts are in fair
demand, but slacks are weaker, also coke. Welsh
steam coals are more plentiful.

The provincial markets are more than a little
disturbed in consequence of the Act limiting coal
prices. Much uncertainty as to the basis of future
prices prevails, and until the position becomes
clearer a holding-off policy is being adopted. The
new export order applying the licence system to
allies’ demands has also* had a detrimental effect on
future business. Tonnage enquiry has been on the
quiet side during the week. At the Tyne and Wear
markets forward business is not often mentioned, and
the prompt markets, too, are easy. Cargoes for
allied countries are being hurried forward in view of
the coming into operation of the new export embargo.
The Lancashire household trade is just about the
average for the period of the year. The position in
Derbyshire is quieter, supplies appear to be plentiful,
but despite a lack of pressure, prices maintain their
strength. On the Yorkshire markets business is held up
owing to the uncertainty of the effect of the new Prices
Limitation Act. In the south the enquiry is abnormal,
and buyers purchasing for stocking. The market in the
west, however, is on the quiet side, manufacturing
fuel being in chief request. London household trade
has fallen off appreciably, but without materially
affecting prices. A hand-to-mouth policy is being
adopted at Cardiff, new commitments have been
declined in view of the recent export Order. The
demand for coal of all kinds is rather active in West
'Scotland, but the eastern trade can only be termed
fair.

At a meeting of the Mining Institute of Scotland
on Saturday, M. Marcel Gillieaux described his
system of pit shaft lining with ferro concrete. Dis-
cussion also took place on mining education and the
organisation of rescue work.

Prof. Thornton before the North of England
Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers on
Saturday last read a paper descriptive of a new
battery signalling bell.

The Yorkshire miners have refused to consent to
Belgian labour being used in underground working.
They also decline to accede to the owners’ request to
utilise female labour on the surface.

The average value of coal, coke and manu-
factured fuel exported from the United Kingdom
during July was 17s. 44d. per ton, as com-
pared with 13s. 7-7d. in July 1914, and 14s. 0’8d.
in July 1913.

The value during the first seven completed months
of the present year is 16s. 2*6d. per ton as com-
pared with 13s 9 6d. and 13s. llffid. respectively in
the corresponding periods of 1914 and 1913.

Of the total exports of coal during July, the
mean value of the large coal exported was 19s. 0-8d.;
through-and-through (unscreened), 14s. 8 2d.; and
small coal, 15s. 10’3d. The average value of all
kinds of coal exported was 17s. 0-3d., a decrease of
7-3d. as compared with the previous month. Other-
wise divided, it fetched the following:—Steam coal,
17s. 8’8d. ; gas coal, 14s.. 2-ld. ; anthracite,
20s. 0*9d. ; household, 17s. 9-7d. ; other sorts,
14s. 5-9d. The average value of the coke exported
was 25s. l-4d. per ton, and of the manufactured fuel
22s. 10*5d. per ton.

The quantity of coal, coke and manufactured fuel
exported from the United Kingdom during July was
3,731,932 tons, and a value cf £3,241,651, as com-
pared with 6,917,853 tons, valued at £1,719,889, in
July 1914 and 7,275,830 tons, valued at £5,119,833,
in July 1913.

During the first seven completed months of the
year the aggregate exports reached 27,109,106 tons,
valued at £21,982,709, as against 43,066,760 tons,
valued at £29,731,295, and 44,323,767 tons, valued
at £30,959,085, in the corresponding periods of
1914 and 1913 respectively.

To-morrow (Saturday) the Scottish Coal Trade
Conciliation Board will further consider the men’s
application for an advance in wages of 25 per cent,
on basis rates.

On Wednesday, a deputation of South Wales
coal owners laid before the Coal Exports Committee
details of a scheme to overcome difficulties arising
under the Exports Prohibition Order and the Price

of Coal (Limitation) Act, and for assuming adequate
home supplies at reasonable prices.

The Miners’ Federation executive, on Wednesday,
drew up the agenda for the annual meeting at
Nottingham in the first week in October. Proposals
urging the transference of royalties to the State; the
amendment of the Coal Mines Act of 1911 ; and an
eight-hours day for surface workers are amongst
matters which will’be discussed.

We regret to announce the death of Sir John Storey
Barwick, Bart., which occurred yesterday at
Thimbleby Hall, Northallerton. The deceased, who
was 75 years of age, -was largely interested in the
various enterprises established by the late Lord
Furness. He was chairman of the Broomhill
Collieries Limited, the Weardale Steel, Coal and Coke
Company Limited, and the Easington Coal Company
Limited, and deputy chairman of the Cargo Fleet
Iron Company Limited.

Difficulties have arisen between the South Wales
coal owners and miners’ representatives in framing a
new agreement on the basis of the Lloyd George
settlement, and Mr. Walter Kunciman will preside
at a meeting of the South Wales Conciliation Board,
to be held at Cardiff on Tuesday next.

The Coal Organisation Committee 4 will meet on
Wednesday/ August 18, to consider the position of
the coal trade, more particularly with regard to the
output of coal as compared with the nation’s require-
ments, and the possible necessity of suspending
the operation of the Mines Eight Hours Act and the
weekly and fortnightly holidays in certain
mining districts for the period of the war.
The miners’ representatives have intimated that in
the event of the national needs requiring the suspen-
sion of the Act for the period of the war no opposition
will be offered to such a decision.

Or the statements made at the
Robbing Landon- Opera House conference,
the Pits. none deserve closer attention than
that made by Mr. A. F. Pease,
acting-president of the Mining Association of Great
Britain, in which he hinted that the resolution passed
by the conference, in euphemistic language, was “ a
recommendation to coal owners to rob their pits.”
It really meant that, he said, if, because of the great
emergency through which the country was passing,
they concentrated their men in the districts where
coal was most easily gotten, and left for a time the
thinner seams and difficult places.

. Mr. Pease was a member of ^he Coal Mining
Organisation Committee, and this Committee made
no definite recommendation on this point in their
report, unless “ concentration of the working of coal-
getting ” may be thus interpreted. Yet it is no
secret that this is one of the measures that are being
pressed upon owners and managers, and both it and
the suggestion as to closing old and nearly exhausted
mines, with the object of releasing labour for trans-
ference to more modern and highly-productive mines,
were seriously discussed by the Committee. They
eventually abandoned the latter expedient, however,
as being impracticable.

At the outset of the- enquiry, the Chief. Inspector
asked Mr. Wilson, inspector in charge of the
Northern Division, whether’ he thought it was
possible to reorganise the workings by temporarily
shutting off all districts in which the coal was zthin
or difficult to get, and by concentrating work on
parts where the coal was more easily gotten, near the
shaft, and so forth. Mr. Wilson stated that many
owners had already done that where they could be
sure of getting back to the district thus temporarily
abandoned. It is not necessary to exaggerate the
advantages, from the standpoint of national emer-
gency, of such a step. It would have the effect of
raising the individual output, not only by concen-
trating labour on the more productive seams, but
also by setting free much of the on-cost labour now
employed on long and straggling roadways, even if
we set off against this the deadwork involved in
keeping these districts intact without any immediate
return in the shape of output. Such districts would
necessarily have to be kept free from water and gas
and the timber maintained, as it is well-known that

a short stoppage owing to strikes or other causes
increases greatly the burden of repair work. Once a
pit has come to a full stop, so to speak, an
inordinate expenditure of power has to be
made to overcome the static inertia of the dead
masses. This is a commonplace, but the evidence
presented to the Committee also shows how greatly
the influence of local conditions in such matters may
complicate the question. Thus it was pointed out
that to apply a policy that is possible in North-
umberland, would be fatal in deep and faulted areas
such as are to be found in the Lancashire coalfield
or in South Wales; nor would it be feasible in
Staffordshire, where the pits are subject to gob fires.

In many cases, therefore, if workings were to be
abandoned temporarily, it would be necessary to
contemplate the permanent loss of the coal. In an
emergency uneconomical expedients may be justified,
but the Committee found that the witnesses examined
by them were solidly opposed to any concerted
scheme for the closing down of old collieries.
Certainly the difficulties to be overcome would be
very great. In the first place, there comes the
question of housing ; this has been a crying question
in the mining districts for many years, owing to the
fact that the exhaustion of the coal in many cases
means the end of the community, thus removing the
incentive to build except for the urgent necessities of
the present generation of coal miners and their families.
At the present time, when no local authority could
hope to contract loans under Part III. of the Housing
Act, it would be impossible to provide dwellings for
any considerable influx of workmen and, where men
have enlisted, in many cases their houses continue to
be occupied by their families and dependents. We
must also consider the human side of the question.
The miner is not always a rolling stone and clings
sometimes with extraordinary tenacity to the
unsightly surroundings in which he has been born
and bred. Again, the miners who work in the
West Yorkshire and East Lancashire mines may
choose to do so because there is employment for
other members of their families in the textile factories
in the same neighbourhood ; the regions of large
collieries, such as Doncaster or the Khymney Valley,
are consecrated to coal only and no scope exists for
the employment of female labour. Where the
distance is not too great, something might be done
by the running of cheap local train and omnibus
services, and in the Doncaster district numbers of men
have daily to be conveyed to and from their work
owing to the lack of housing accommodation near the
pithead. Nevertheless we doubt whether the thin-
seam miner would adapt himself with avidity to
thick- seam conditions, even in these days when the
official view seems to be that you can put the British
workman to any sort of craftmanship. Mr. Hugh
Bramwell told the Committee that the attempts at
the beginning of the war to attract labour for the
Admiralty Collieries from the anthracite mines in the
west was a complete failure, and efforts to draft
workmen in North Staffordshire from the rearer
seams to the flat workings have also been unsuccessful.

The question was also asked as to what would be
done with managers whose pits had been closed, but
so great has been the response by this class to the
call to arms that a reduction in the number of
separate mines, as defined by the Coal Mines Act,
might be rather'a relief. The Committee also seemed
to recognise that owners would have to be com-
pensated, and it was suggested that a co-operative
scheme, somewhat on the lines of the compensation
authority in “the trade,” might be established. No
doubt collieries that are now short of men would be
glad to pay some sort of premium if they could bring
their staff up to the full complement; they might
take a leaf out of the books of the football clubs,
and introduce a system of “ transfer fees.”
Then royalty owners might ask for consideration,
especially if their properties were endangered by
disuse. The greatest difficulty lies in the fact that any
arrangement cannot be permanent. Even where
the old' pits have been closed down definitely and
accommodation found for the workmen who have
migrated, difficulties would inevitably arise at the
end of the war, when workmen and managers
return from the battlefield; they must be