February 11, 1916. THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN. 277 Notes from the Coal Fields. [Local Correspondence.] South Wales and Monmouthshire. New Chairman of Conciliation Board—The Freight Question —Monmouthshire Authority and Mining Education— Cardiff Trade in 1915. The Lord Chief Justice has appointed Lord Muir Mackenzie to be independent chairman of the South Wales Conciliation Board, in (succession to Lord St. Aldwyn. The new chairman is nearly 70 years of age, and for 36 years has been principal (Secretary to the Lord Chancellor, as well as clerk of the Crown in Chancery. He is a barrister by profession. Upon the question of freights it should be noted that Lord Rhondda (better known as Mr. D. A. Thomas, head of the Cambrian Combine) has written a letter to The Times, in which he points out current misconception of the position as to who profits by the freights. He says that “ Italians are under the impression the high price of coal in their country is due to exactions of British ship owners, and that the British Government participates in them to the extent of 50 per cent.” But as one doing considerable coal business with Italy, he wishes in fairness to point out that only a small portion of the coal shipped from Cardiff to Italy in the three months ended January 31 last was carried in British bottoms. Of 115 which were loaded, only 19 were British, while 41 were Italian; and of the remainder 33 were Greek. He concludes : “In the coal trade between this country and Italy during the last three months only one British ship has been employed to every five employed by our Allies or neutral countries; and, taking January alone, the propor- tion was even less.” In reply to this has come the assertion that whilst vessels are of foreign ownership, the time- charterers in many instances are British, so that the high profits in those cases go into British pockets. Swansea Chamber of Commerce considered a motion — submitted by Mr. R. Hodgens—that the present excessive rates of freight are “ bearing too heavily on our country, and even to a greater extent on our Allies,” and that “ freights should be brought under Government control and reasonable maximum rates fixed on necessaries, including coal, to our Allies,” etc. In submitting the motion, he argued against the suggestion that if maximum rates were fixed we should lose tonnage, his contention being that this would not be the result, for the class of tonnage we had was confined mostly to the French ports and was of a special character. Mr. Arthur Andrews pointed out that the bulk of the tonnage was lin the hands of neutrals, principally Norwegians; and these practically controlled the freight question. In his opinion the first thing that should be done was for the Government to move faster the tonnage which it had requisitioned. . Mr. Le Bars stated that vessels cleared last year totalled 1,777, of which 919 were Norwegian, 667 British, and the remainder belong to other foreign owners. The time-charterer had been the cause of the rise, for it was not the neutral ship owner who put the freights up, but the time-charterer on our own market. The Government had in its hands the weapon of withdraw- ing bunkers in respect of those owners who would not .accept the freight, if maximum rates were fixed. The president (Mr. Hyam Goldberg) thought much time would be saved if licences were granted more expeditiously. On January 12 he chartered a boat to load at Newport. The charterer had the provisional licence ; but when the boat .arrived in Newport on the 17th he found that, although the name of the vessel had been submitted to the 'authorities, no licence had been issued; and .after allowing the vessel to lie a week it had to be re-chartered, and eventually was able to sail from Newport on February 3. Thus she had been kept practically idle for 17 days ; and that was only one case of a great many. The proposal was carried with a proviso that steps be taken to act in concert with the Allies upon this question. Mr. J. T. Thomas, Ynyshir, cousin of Sir Wm. James Thomas, has been appointed agent to the Ynysfaio Collieries., Treherbert. Mr. Thomas has had over 40 years’ experience in colliery work’. Speaking at the presentation of a German gun to Aber- tillery, Mr. W. Brace, M.P. (president of South Wales Federation, and Under-Secretary for Home Affairs), com- mented on the large number of recruits who had come from the town, expressing the hope that the Compulsion Act would become unnecessary. He appealed to the workers at home to talk a little less about. “ down tools.” It was criminal to discuss it when their own flesh and blood was calling out for the assistance which they at home could give. Six men were entombed in the Abercwmboi Colliery of the Powell Duffryn Company, and could not be released for 14 hours.. A heavy fall occurred in the main heading of the Four-foot seam, about 500 yds. from the pit bottom. The men had been engaged on the Sunday night shift, and were at the time of the accident dealing with a previous fall of smaller dimensions. The second fall was. so sudden that some of them had to rush to the coal face, leaving their clothes buried in the debris. Prompt intimation was .made to Mr. Trevor Jones (the under-manager), and relays of men were in attendance. After driving 19 yds. the entombed men could be heard speaking, and the satisfactory intelligence was received that all of them were safe, they having themselves worked about 3 yds. in the direction of their rescuers. The side of the face to which they first ran for rescue collapsed gradually, and they had to retreat to the other side. The timber in the place had been covered in by the fall, and they had to resort to building up stone walls around them in order to render the place as safe as possible. They were confined in a space of about 6 yds. by 2 yds., and only 3 to 4 ft. in height. The difficulty in respect of the price of house coal at Aber- avon, Port Talbot, and Margam, etc., has caused both the Aberavon Corporation and the Margam District Council to take action; and ■ a Joint Coal Prices Committee has been appointed. It was shown in the evidence collected by them that prices had risen from 45 to 50 per cent., house coals which were sold at about 17s. running now to anything between 25s. and 27s. Although the town clerk invited a joint meeting of coal owners, middlemen, and merchants to discuss the situation, the middlemen did not attend, although there were representatives of the coal owners and merchants present. Further meetings are to be summoned. A series of meetings has been held in the colliery districts, addressed by members of Parliament and others acting under the Munitions Parliamentary Committee. The addresses have been not so much to win recruits, as to make the colliers understand the importance of mining work in the national struggle. The speakers have urged the men to put their very best effort into making the largest possible output of coal. Mr. Stanton (the recently-elected M.P. for Merthyr), in the course of an address, stated that he had been asked by the Ministry , of Munitions to extend to the mien a hearty and sincere expression of thanks for their services in the past. Several classes of workmen in the tin-plate factories have been placed in the reserved occupation list; and it is desired that certain others, whose work is regarded as essential to the successful conduct of operations, should also be included. Monmouthshire Education Authority received on Tuesday the report of a deputation which had waited upon the coal owners with regard to the country’s proposed school of mining .at Crumlin, there being a suggestion that that school be managed by a joint committee, as is the case with the Glamorgan authority and the school of mining at Treforest. The arrangement would not give the joint committee any financial control, and would be only for duration of the war. The report of the deputation was adopted, and also a recommendation of the mining sub-committee that a deputation should wait upon the Board of Education; submit the scheme; and ascertain the views of the Board. 'Mr. L. Forestier-Walker, Mr. W. L. Cook, Mr. Cooper,'with the secretary and director of mining instruction, will form the deputation. The Bute Docks of Cardiff are shown by the annual report of Cardiff Railway Company to have had a total trade (import and export) amounting to nearly 11J millions of tons, this being a decrease of 1,620,000 tons as compared with the preceding year. The decrease is attributed to the serious shortage in the number of ships entering the port, and to the reduced output of coal resulting from the war. It should be noted further that the figures of 1914, owing to the war, showed a decrease of 622,000 tons as compared with 1913. Northumberland and Durham. Mr. Wm. Straker on Military Service. At the opening of a committee and recreation room over the entrance archway to the new cottages for aged miners, at Harton, last Saturday, Mr. James Kirkley, of Cleadon Park, who performed the ceremony, entertained 120 miners and their wives. The room has been furnished and con- structed at the expense of Mr. Kirkley, and is provided with armchairs, books, and games for the use of the old people. Officials of the Durham Aged Miners’ Homes Association and other mining organisations were present. Maj. George Chambers Pollard, D.S.O., Royal Engineers, 1st (Newcastle) Northumbrian. Field Company (T.F.), who has been wounded in the North of France, is a son of Mr. George Pollard, of Cleadon Grange, Sunderland, and is a director of the Seaton Delaval Colliery Company. In response to the special appeal on behalf of the Northumberland Belgian Relief Fund, made to the Northumberland and Durham.Coal Owners’ Associations, the following donations have been received or promised :— Priestman Collieries Limited, £1,000; the Lambton and Joicey Collieries (per Lord Joicey), £1,090; Consett Iron Company Limited, £1,000; Sir B. Samuelson and Company Limited, £500; the owners of Holmside und Southmoor collieries, £500; Strakers and Love, £250; the Mickley Coal Company Limited, £100; and Charlaw and Sacriston Collieries Company Limited, £100. The whole of Mr. William Straker’s February circular to the members of the Northumberland Miners’ Association deals critically with the Labour Party Conference and the national position brought about by the Compulsory Military Service Act. He states that although he is against com- pulsion, either military or industrial, he has little sympathy with the main ground on which trade unionists have opposed this measure. . Assurances had been given that it would not be extended to industries, but he was afraid that those assurances were not so valuable as many regarded them to be. Whether or not .a man who was unstarred was to join the Army or not would depend very largely on what a colliery manager might say as to his need of such a man. Yorkshire. New Railway Facilities. At the Doncaster Brewster Sessions last Saturday, an application for a new licence for Edlington Colliery village was withdrawn, but one for a licence for a new hotel at Rossington Colliery Village was persisted in. The Bench were reminded that last year they stated the proper time to make the application would be when coal had been won, and if the applicants brought a specimen of the coal won they would be. in a better position. Coal had now been won, and a piece found in the spring of last year was produced to the magistrates. The solicitor who supported the application stated the Barnsley bed was reached last June, the second shaft had also reached coal, and the Rossington Main Colliery was opening out. The only provision was a canteen or a sinker’s hut. The police objected to the site of the proposed hotel on the ground that the men would have to pass it on their way to work.. The Bench decided that the application must be deferred for another year, and declined to sanction it. A very bad case of “ slacking ” was before the Bench at Doncaster last week, when the Denaby Colliery Company claimed from Harry Howlett, filler, Mexboro’, £3 damages under the Employers and Workmen’s Act. It was sta+ed defendant was a perfectly strong, healthy, single man, but for the last six months his average .attendance -at the pit had been only 63 per cent. The absentee board, composed of 12 workmen and four colliery officials, had fined him 12s. Od., 15s., and 20s. He had worked 89 out of 147 shifts. The absentee committee now declined to deal with him any more, and so the case had been brought to court. Defendant did not appear, and was ordered to pay £3 damages. In order more adequately to cope with the increasing traffic from the Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire collieries to Grimsby and Immingham, the Great Central Railway Company obtained, in 1912, powers for the widening of their line between Bentley Junction, Doncaster (at the termination of their Doncaster avoiding line) and Thorne Junction, a distance of approximately eight miles. The North-Eastern Railway Company exercise running powers over the Great Central Company’s system as between Thorne Junction and Doncaster, so that this scheme is destined to afford improved facilities for the traffic to and from the ports of Goole and Hull. A definite commencement with the widening was made in August 1913, and, despite the difficulties incidental to the war, such progress has been made by the contractors, Messrs. Mitchell Brothers Limited, of Glasgow, that the new lines are expected to be ready for use in the course of the next few months. In addition to the widening proper, connections -and sidings are also now being laid down to serve the new Hatfield Main Colliery, which is being sunk alongside the railway a short distance east of Stainforth Station. Eight public road and river bridges have been necessary. The steel work contractors were Messrs. Eastwood, Swingler and Company Limited, of Derby. In addition to these eight main bridges, extensions have been carried out to a number of accommodation bridges and flood arches, and, as this area of South Yorkshire is subject to floods, ample provision has been made for drain- age. The junction at Kirk Sandall, where a connection is made with the South Yorkshire Joint Railway, is being re-modelled to suit the widened lines. The works have been designed by and carried out under the. direction of Mr. J. B. Ball, M.Inst.C.E., the engineer-in-chief' of the Great Central Railway Company. The death of Harry Hall, colliery lumberman, at Silver- wood pit, on Thursday of last week, was the subject of a coroner’s enquiry at Dalton, on Saturday. John Thresh, assistant hanger-on, said, he was on the lower deck of the cage at the bottom of the pit where Hall was also working. A timber tram was being pushed through the cage, and Hall was assisting by turning a controller. He thought the deceased must have been partly in and partly out of the cage, and putting his foot on the controller, when the cage moved. As soon as the cage moved he fell down the shaft. Witness shouted, “ Hold him ! ” to the hanger-on, and the cage stopped about 30 yds. up the shaft. David Gray, on-setter, said he heard Thresh shout when the left-hand cage w’as being drawn up. Witness had signalled for the cage to be drawn up, and before doing -so he had not received any signal from the bottom deck. On hearing the shout “ Hold him ! ” he signalled to the engineman to stop the cage. From what he saw afterwards, witness thought the deceased had been carried by the cage, and that he had then fallen through the balance hole. The jury returned a verdict of “ Accidental death,” and suggested that there should be some better method of signalling adopted, to prevent misunderstanding between the men. Lancashire and Cheshire. Colliery Development at Burtonwood—Lostock Colliery Changes Hands. The directors of the Collins Green Colliery Company have informed the Warrington Rural District Council of their intention to commence working the Potato Delph seam, lying under a portion of Phipps-lane, between Back-lane and the junction of Gorse’y and Clay-lanes, in the township of Burton wood. The Lostock Colliery, the property of the Lostock Colliery Company Limited, and situated between Bolton and Wigan, has just changed hands, the purchaser being Mr. H. S. Higginbottom, the well-known colliery proprietor, of Liver- pool. Mr. Higginbottom has, it is understood, purchased the whole of the share capital of the concern. Mr. Higgin- bottom is the principal owner of the New Moss Collieries, of Audenshaw, near Manchester, and of the New Haden Collieries, Cheadle, Stoke-on-Trent. The chief offices of . the Lostock Colliery Company Limited will now be removed to Mr. Higginbottom’s Liverpool office in Castle-sfreetq where all the business of the company will be transacted. Mr. Higginbottom will join the board of directors. We understand that various improvements in the shape of tapping new seams and the carrying out of surface improve- ments are to be effected. Notts and Derbyshire. Motor Ambulances' Work at the Front. Some idea.of the immense value of the coal trade’s motor ambulance convoy was given at the monthly meeting of the Nottinghamshire Miners’ Council, held on Saturday, when letters were received from Lieut. H. Dennis Bayley and Mr. Clarke (director of the motor ambulance department) con- cerning the gift. The letters stated that the cars were doing excellent work at the front, and had already carried a large number of wounded. The first batch of cars arrived during the battle of Loos, and were exceptionally useful in relieving the unusual pressure during the subsequent three weeks. Since then they had been in daily use. The agent (Mr. J. G. Hancock, M.P.) reported that the association had already paid over its share (£15,000) of the purchase price. The maintenance fund (to which the members contributed Id. per week) now stood at -£1,500. An appeal from Lieut. Bayley for a contribution from the fund was referred to the district officials, with instructions to obtain such further information as they deemed advisable, -and then to hand over such amount as they thought proper in the circumstances. The Midlands. At a conference of South Staffordshire Coal Owners’ and the Dudley and West Bromwich and Dudley Miners’ associa- tions, a proposal was discussed for providing motor ambulances for the Red Gross Societies. The suggestion is that the employers should subscribe for six, the men to provide a similar number. The proposal was favourably received, and the conference adjourned for further informa- tion to be obtained. Mr. William Purslow, secretary to the South Staffordshire Mines Rescue Association and the South Staffordshire Mines Drainage Commission, has received the following interesting note from Mr. H. Johnstone, H.M. inspector of mines :— “ The Engineer-in-Chief at General Headquarters desires me to convey his thanks to the owners of collieries and rescue stations from which the reviving apparatus wTas supplied, for placing the latter at the disposal of the British Army in France.” Kent. Mr. Arthur Oldfield Cautley has been appointed an additional trustee for the holders of first mortgage debentures in the East Kent Colliery Company, in succession to Mr. John Hamilton, a Lanarkshire colliery owner, who has retired. At the debenture holders’ meeting, when the con- firmation of the appointment took place, Prof. Galloway (chairman), in reply to a question as to the position of affairs at the company’s colliery at Tilmanstone, said they might take it that the position in a general sense was satisfactory. The accounts had been promised by the auditors in a fort- night, when a general meeting of the company would be called and a full statement of the position given.