622

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN

September 24, 1915.

numerous to join, it is those districts which have had the best
work, and where the Admiralty coal is produced, who have
recruited much the largest number of men. For instance,
the Cardiff district has recruited 19J per cent, of the number
of men on the books in general above and below ground.
The Newport district has recruited 16-7, and in the Swansea
-district—where they have only been working some four or
five days a week—it is 10*8. I think the reason is that there
was more active recruiting in the Rhondda Valley and such
other valleys among the thickest part of the population. We
put the absenteeism due to sickness and accident at less than
what I have heard stated to-day. We think that 4 per cent,
covers that. When we made returns from our particular
collieries under the Census of Production Act in 1907, when
wages were lower on the standard than they are now, at
one of our collieries the absenteeism was 3*43 per cent, on
the Mondays, and 3-32 per cent, on the Wednesdays, show-
ing that those figures at any rate covered sickness and acci-
dent—then at least. Four per cent, practically means that
every man in the coal field is off work a fortnight in the year
from sickness and accident. Absenteeism is greater among
the men engaged in getting and loading the coal, that is, the
coal getters, than among the day-wagemen or surface men,
coal getters being paid by the piece and the others almost
entirely being paid by the day. At the particular collieries
I am acquainted with, among the colliers getting and loading
coal from July 1914 to February 1915, the absenteeism was
12-6, whereas among the whole of the men employed it
was 11-0.

Witness next gave some useful information as to the per-
centage of the different classes of men employed in a group
of average steam coal collieries, i.e., the Great Western
Collieries. He said :—The colliers, that is, the men and boys
engaged in getting and filling coal at the faces, is 36 per cent.
The repairers, who are mostly engaged in the afternoons and
nights, are 28 per cent. The traffic men, that is, the hauliers,
engine drivers, and everybody connected with the traffic, such
as hitchers, are 18 per cent. The officials, overmen, and fore-
men, 2 per cent. That is 84 per cent, underground. When
you come to the surface the traffic and screening is 6 per
cent.; enginemen and stokers, 2 per cent.; mechanics, that is,
blacksmiths, fitters, carpenters, and so on, 3^- per cent.; fore-
men, clerks, and weighers, 1J per cent.; and sundry labourers,
3 per cent.; giving 16 per cent, to the men on the surface.
That practically includes every man on the wages bill. We
have two bituminous coal collieries, where the figures are
different.

We also find that absenteeism all round is greatest when the
wages are highest. For instance, the return under the Census
of Production Act for our pits for the year 1907 was 8T per
cent. For the same pits for July to February 1914, 11-4 per
cent.; and from July 1914 to July 1915, 11-1 per cent.; 1907
was a year when wages were beginning to rise, but had not
come up, and those figures show that there was materially
less absenteeism then than there has been in the latter periods
when wages were high. These are collieries which generally
work 295 to 300 days in the year. Then there is another
point with regard to the employment of boys. Boys in South
Wales are not to any large extent engaged in handling the
traffic. The trams are large, and large horses are used, and
comparatively few boys have anything to do with that now.
There used to be door boys, going with the hauliers, but that
was done away with some years ago. The boys in
South Wales go direct to the face. Their fathers take them
in or something of that sort; at any rate, their apprentice-
ship is in the face. There are not very many boys engaged
on the surface. In the Pontypridd district, which has about
40,000 inhabitants, there are at present at the council schools
315 boys between 13 and 14. Assuming that 100 of that 315
were willing, and their parents wished them, to go under-
ground a year earlier or a period earlier than normally, we
could get 100 boys out of 40,000 inhabitants. I believe the
whole coal field has something in the neighbourhood of 500,000
inhabitants. If you could get the same proportion all round,
it possibly means that there are 1,000 boys in the coal field
between 13 and 14, who would be willing, and their parents
would be willing for then to go underground. In a place
where two men will produce five trams of coal, a man and
a boy will probably produce four; so that if you could get
1,000 boys in, there is room for a considerable increase of pro-
duction. If it is calculated out on those lines, it comes to
something in the neighbourhood of 1 per cent.

With regard to the question of the prohibition of drink, I
might say that in Glamorganshire, which is South Wales,
there is Sunday closing. In Monmouthshire, which is Eng-
land, there is no Sunday closing. I do not think the effect
of Sunday closing in Glamorganshire has been very appre-
ciable, and unless the clubs are dealt with on exactly the same
lines as the public houses, it will make very little difference
doing anything more. Of course, we do find that absenteeism
is greater on the Monday than on any other day of the week;
but I do not think there is very much to be gained in any
way as regards increasing the production by any further
restrictions of the drinking facilities. I might also say that,
since the war, I think there has been very materially less
drunkenness in the coal field than there was before the war.
But it is probably due to the fact that a large number of quite
good men used occasionally to get drunk, and they have
gone.

Mr. Bramwell next turned to the question of transport.
He said : South Wales is almost entirely a foreign exporting
coalfield—75 per cent., or something in that neighbourhood,
of large and small coal is shipped. The transport between
the collieries and the docks is short, and the railway com-
panies that lead it have not been at all affected by military
movements. The consequence is that as regards railways, we
find absolutely no difference at all between now and for-
merly. But with shipping it has been different. In October,
partially due to bad weather, and partially due to the fact
that a large number of ships were loaded with Admiralty
coal, and stationed all round Scotland waiting for an oppor-
tunity to coal warships, and had not come back, there was a
distinct dearth of shipping in Cardiff, which became accen-
tuated in November to such an extent that even Admiralty
collieries were on occasions stopped for want of ships to put
the coal in. Our own collieries practically lost all round one
day a week in November. The position has improved since
November, and since the end of November there has been no
loss of time at all, or very little.

With regard to absenteeism, witness thought that, with a
number of years of high wages, the men had got into a
system of living and a system of holiday taking and leisure
taking, from which it took them some time to change. He
believed the best course would be to get the Federation
to make an appeal to the men to work regularly. The effect
upon the whole population down there when war was declared

was that they took it seriously, and they were prepared to
make sacrifices; but that feeling had worn off.

Witness added that there was so little steam coal avail-
able for sale at the moment, that the little that was
available absolutely commanded any price they liked to
ask for it. Admiralty coal was quoted at 37s. a ton f.o.b.,
Cardiff. The higher the price of coal in the country, the
higher the price of living was going to be all round for
everybody, because coal entered into everything in the end.

Mr. Bramwell said many workmen had come into the
district and gone into the mines—not only workmen from
other districts, but workmen who were not working in the
mines previously had now gone into the mines. There was
always a natural development going on, and men were con-
tinually coming into the South Wales coal field.

Witness said he had heard the suggestion put forward
about the owners giving a bonus for regular work. In half
the collieries in South Wales they had already got a bonus
on the afternoon and night shifts, under which they paid
six turns for working five. He could not distinguish the
absenteeism as between the two classes of collieries. The
curious thing was that the colliery at which the absenteeism
was the highest in the whole coal field was an Admiralty
colliery in the Rhondda Valley. The second one was a
steam coal colliery in the adjoining valley, and was a large
colliery. Passing over five collieries, they had come to
the sixth colliery before they got to a colliery in which
the bonus turn was not paid. The first six collieries, from
the highest down, were collieries in which the bonus turn
was paid. This showed that the payment of the bonus turn
had little or no appreciable effect on the question of
absenteeism. This bonus turn undoubtedly helped
regularity of employment at first, when it was introduced,
but the effect had worn off, and it was now looked upon as
simply part of the wage; in fact, that was what the work-
men generally had been trying to turn it into for many
years. They wished this bonus shift to be divided among
the shifts of. the week so as to pay a turn and a fifth
instead of a turn as now, and so on. The attempt had been
successful in a few collieries, but it did exist in 95 per cent,
or more of the collieries where it was in operation as a
bonus pure and simple. He thought the reason for this
lack of influence upon the regularity of attendance was also
due to the fact that absenteeism was so much greater among
those getting coal by the ton than among the datal men.
Generally speaking, the datal men worked much more
regularly than the coal-getters. Nor did witness think the
abolition of the stint would make any difference. It only
applied to a comparatively little group of collieries. Assum-
ing the anthracite collieries were fully at work, then the
abolition of the stint would undoubtedly increase the pro-
duction. They had tried to introduce some organisation for
enabling these men to have full time and work regularly.
When the anthracite collieries were idle in the early months
of the war, they did everything they could to induce the
anthracite miners to come and work in the Admiralty and
other steam coal collieries. Some came, but as soon as
ever they could get their three or four days a week in their
anthracite collieries near their homes, they went back. He
agreed they were doing it in inconvenient conditions, and they
either had to go and lodge or they had inconvenient train
journeys. If the movement could have been looked upon as
a permanent one, it might have been different, and they might
have settled, but as they looked upon it as just a temporary
thing, as soon as ever they could get back home they did so.
It was a question of railway facilities generally.

As to the suggestion that there was a tacit stint in opera-
tion at steam coal collieries, witness said he did not think
there was any arrangement among the men to that effect, but
in practice it worked out so that the men had a certain
standard of comfort which they had set up, and if they got
increased wages, they took advantage of their improved posi-
tion to take more leisure, and not work so hard. It was not
only a difficulty between the days of the week, but between
the hours of the day. The transport conditions underground
could not be kept up to such a state of efficiency that every
man was cleared every hour of the day. If they could rely
absolutely on all the men being in attendance and all work-
ing energetically, then the management could and did
arrange their transport services to suit them. Witness gave
the following example. He asked one of his managers : “ Is
there any latent or reserve power in the ordinary run of men
in the ordinary place in the way of producing coal?” He
said : “Oh, dear, yes. I was in the face at a certain place
yesterday, and I came across a man who was nipping in and
sweating. I asked the foreman what was the matter. He
said, ‘ Ask the man.’ I asked the man, and the man said
he was going to his daughter’s wedding to-morrow, and he
wanted to turn out some extra coal.” He actually turned
out two days’ work in the one day—12 trams instead of six.
In the great majority of the ordinary normal places in the
coal field there was a capacity for increased production on the
part of the men, and they did exert it at times. Of course,
it would never pay a colliery to work under such conditions.
It was like arranging to run a lot of tramcars to supply the
workmen coming out of the pit at a particular hour. They
had to run an average service, and the workmen who could
not get into the trams had to walk. But he thought that the
workmen might be asked to work harder now, and facilities
could be afforded for getting more coal if it was filled.

Witness said that prior to the passing of the Eight Hours
Act, the general system in South Wales was to work 10 hours
on four days in the week, nine hours on the Monday, and
seven hours on the Saturday. It was sometimes divided,
instead of 10, into 9| on certain days of the week. Frequently,
where they started at 7 o’clock in the morning, and worked
till 5 in the evening, although men came out at 5, the traffic
men continued working until about 7, raising coal. Since
the passing of the Eight Hours Act they had got a traffic
shift in the afternoon. The principal coal winding ceased
at the end of the eight hours, when the colliers came up, and
the men changed shifts. Afterwards there was coal raised,
but not anything like the same quantity. It was the coal
that was really in transit at the time, and it had to come out
of the. pits during the afternoon and night shifts. More than
that, in most pits they could not leave the trams of coal that
were loaded in the faces. They had to clear them out in
order to enable the night men to stow in the faces. The
consequence was that during the afternoon and night shifts
there must be some coal raised, but there was practically
none filled. During the first hour’s coal winding in many
collieries, especially those that had to clear their faces alto-
gether of coal in order to get the repairing men to work the
first hour in the day, there was hardly any coal raised at
all. They were supposed to commence winding at 6 o’clock
in the. morning, but between 6 and 7 the output was very
small indeed, because the men were all just loading their
first trams. If they had the repairs of their places done in

the evening previously, they would be in a better position to
start coal producing at once.

Asked what effect any limitation or restriction on exports
would have upon the South Wales coal field, witness said
he believed that before conditions could be adjusted in order to
divert the coal into other directions in the country, the dis-
trict would be largely stopped. He should doubt that any
material proportion of steam coal in Wales would find another
market immediately. A certain amount of South Wales coal
was sent to London, but it was comparatively small. They
used to supply the underground railways, because it was
smokeless, and they supplied the electric stations in London
to a certain extent now, but the proportion sent to London was
small; and he believed there was some small quantity of
house coal sent to London. Since the war started, what had
gone to Germany and Austria had gone elsewhere. The
Admiralty were probably taking three or four times as much
as their normal supply. Supposing they were to try to send
coal by rail inland, there were no wagons in the country to
do it; neither wagons nor railways. In their own case, with
an output of something in the neighbourhood of 3,000 tons a
day, they had 1,500 wagons. It was enough for running
backwards and forwards from the docks, but if they had to
send it inland, they would have to have four times the number
of wagons. Curtailment of exports was absolutely against
the whole interests of the country.

Witness said the system of haulage in South Wales was
main-and-tail almost universally. In the large collieries, the
steam coal collieries, for instance, riding the men in was
not general. He thought that the efficiency of the men might
be added to by conveying them from the pit bottom, but the
inspectors of mines had not looked very favourably on it, and
the employers did not like the idea of taking the materially
increased risk. As a temporary expedient, however, it was
possibly worth considering.

(To be continued.)

COMPRESSED AIR FOR COAL-
CUTTERS.*

By Sam Mayor.

(Continued from page 573.)

Air Pressure.

Fall of Pressure as a Factor of Inefficiency.—The loss
of energy due to equal falls of pressure in compressed
air transmission varies at different parts of the pressure
scale, and therefore loss of energy is not simply propor-
tional to the fall of pressure. Precise determination of
the loss of energy is difficult, because the energy
expended in friction in the pipes is converted into heat,
which is partly dissipated by conduction and radiation
from the pipes, and is partly absorbed by the air; the
heat absorbed by the air tends to increase of volume or
of pressure, and must have an influence in retarding fall
of pressure. The approximate loss of energy due to fall
of pressure may, however, be easily ascertained.

For present purposes, it may be assumed that the lost
energy, represented by fall of pressure, is equal to the
energy required to impart equivalent pressure. This
enables one, by reference to fig. 1, to ascertain approxi-
mately the energy in brake horse-power minutes lost by
a given volume of air in falling through a given range of
pressure.

The amount of energy actually lost by air friction in
the pipes may be serious, but this is seldom a complete
measure of the loss due to fall of pressure at the coal
face. If the air is delivered at a pressure lower than
that for which a coal cutter is designed, the energy of
the air is less available for useful work, and the machine
cannot develop its normal power. To the loss due to
friction, and because of it, there is super-added the great
waste of volume of air referred to in this connection in
the section on coal cutters.

Fall of Pressure in Main Pipes and Sub-Mains.—One
of the anomalies noted in the investigation is that usually
a small fall of pressure in the main piping is ensured by
incurring the necessary capital expenditure on pipes of
adequate, size. The trouble begins with the sub-mains.
A pipe is laid to a district of a pit for the supply of one
or two coal cutters. Mining exigencies lead to greater
development of the district than was anticipated. The
machine faces are increased in number or in extent, new
machines are added, but the original pipe remains. At
the in-bye end of every sub-main a pressure gauge should
be permanently fixed, or at least an attachment for con-
necting one should be made.

Fall of Pressure in Branches.—The purpose of superior
officials in providing ample and well-engineered systems
of main piping is often nullified by the unchecked use
of in-bye branch pipes that are too small. Large loss of
pressure in gates is very common, and not infrequently
entails reduction of 50 per cent, or more of coal produc-
tion from the machines concerned. Avoidance of exces-
sive fall of pressure in the gates, and its contingent
penalties, would be purchased cheaply by the adoption
of 4 in. as a standard diameter for branches to individual
coal cutters, instead of the usual 3 in.

Pressure differences of 10 to 15 lb. are frequently
observed at the gate end valve of a coal cutter, owing to
the starting and stopping of other machines supplied by
the same overloaded sub-main.

By providing piping of adequate size, in order to limit
the fall of pressure, the incidental advantage of enlarged
storage capacity in the piping is obtained. Where, as is
often the case, the cubic contents of the main and sub-
main piping amount jointly to between 5,000 and
10,000 cu. ft., the receiver effect is of considerable value.

So long as selection of pipes to be used for extension
of in-bye sub-mains and branches is left to subordinate
officials who disregard the laws that should govern the
choice, so long will the heavy penalties of excessive pres-
sure losses be exacted.

Tests of Fall of Pressure in Pipes.—By the kindness
of the management at one of the collieries where investi-

* From a paper read before the Institution of Mining
Engineers.