March 10, 1916. THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN. 455 with generally by 'sections 78 to 85 of the Railways Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, and similar clauses in other Acts. To these the name of the “ mining code ” has been applied, and a suggestion which would seem likely to save a great deal of the time of our eminent lawyers and mining engineers would be to christen this mineral the “ code mineral.” In the case known as The London and North-Western Railway Company v. Howley Park Coal Company, it has been decided by the House of Lords that the railway company are entitled to the lateral support afforded by the minerals adjacent to this “ code mineral ” : that is to say, although when they purchased they neither bought any mineral nor any right of support from the code mineral, they bought surface land with the common law rights of support which would be afforded by the minerals lying in adjacent lands. It would seem that at the time of the passing of the Railways Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, the whole question of subsidence was little understood, and it was not then calculated that strata of mineral might be worked vertically beneath a railway without any risk of subsidence whatever, whereas the working of other minerals at a considerable distance might be a very great danger. For many years the clauses forming the “ mining code ” were construed to mean that the company bought no right of support whatever, and upon that assump- tion great numbers of sales of minerals to railway com- panies for the protection more especially of heavy rail-^ way bridges and viaducts have taken place. If the Howley Park case had been decided earlier, many of these sales would have been unnecessary, as it now appears that the companies have bought minerals with the object of obtaining support to which the judgment now shows them to have been entitled. These cases, therefore, iin their interpretation of the law, have really caused a radical alteration in the law of support, and it is to be hoped that they will not prove a great hindrance upon the business of raising minerals. If the law is, and remains, as stated, the Parliamentary Bar ought to jump for joy, for all future Private Bills in which it is sought to incorporate the mining code clauses will undoubtedly be opposed by all who know their business. With the working of deeper mines the whole matter of subsidence and support will probably assume even greater importance, especially in the Yorkshire coal field, where many of the new undertakings will work under lands which are very little above the level at which they can be naturally drained. It can readily be understood that subsidence may result in damage almost equal to the freehold value of the surface in cases where need for drainage by pumping instead of by natural gravitation is caused. Another difficulty not quite peculiar to mining dis- tricts, because it also occurs in the industrial districts, is that of smoke and fumes from collieries and their attendant works; but the gathering of smoke and fumes into tall shafts, and the more careful treatment of colliery tips, ought nearly, if not altogether, to cure this evil. Changes in the character of a district, owing to the sinking of mines and the establishment of industrial works, present problems which are more or less akin to those caused by the development of our towns. It may be remarked that the Housing and Town Planning Acts are likely to be of service in the colliery districts., where their wide adoption may be looked for. Water supply and sewerage questions are of peculiar difficulty in mining districts, owing to the countryside becoming just sufficiently developed to require these facilities without a sufficient increase in ratable value being created to enable them to be supplied without imposing a heavy burden on the community. Rating.—Rating of mines and wayleaves is a subject in itself. It cannot be fully dealt with here, but it may be touched on to the extent of-an expression of opinion, that the only true basis upon which mines can be rated is that of applying to each undertaking the test of the hypothetical tenant. The rating surveyor has some little guide in the sur- face rents, and the mineral royalties and wayleaves, which the mining lessee has agreed to give, or, where the mines are worked by a freeholder, a comparison with those in force in the district. It is usually con- venient to reduce these charges to a tonnage basis. To this an additional rent should be added, which may be taken at a sum per ton of potential output in respect of the capital works carried out by the lessee or working owner. This, however, cannot be taken at a percentage on the cost of works, for the reason that in some mines a large fraction of the capital expended has had to be laid out owing to water or other underground difficulties, expenditure in combating which is a burden on the con- cern, and in no way an asset. To hold the scales of justice evenly as between different parishes, or different rating authorities, where minerals are actually mined in one parish or rating authority’s area and raised to the surface in another, is also a difficult question. The parish of origin is probably entitled to all the royalty, with a small addition for facilities provided by the lessee within such parish, and the remainder of the difference between the tonnage assessment and the royalty belongs to the parish in which the mineral is raised. In the matter of industrial water supplies it may be mentioned that a large modern works, whether for coal raising, steel making, or other industrial purpose, requires a very large amount of water daily; in fact, it is not an uncommon thing for a surveyor to be asked if he can find a site which will command a supply of 1,000,000 gals, a day. Any site to which such a supply can be given at a reasonable expense is valuable, and is likely to become more so. Considerable pollution is caused to streams and rivers by mining operations. Mine water, although in few cases absolutely poisonous, is not a desirable addition to a drinking water supply. Housing in Mining Areas.—The greatest problem, however, before land owners, mine owners, land agents, mining surveyors, and others interested in the mining districts, is that of dealing with the mining population. This is a psychological and sociological question first, because it is necessary to discover the real causes of the unrest from which the working population of our mining districts suffer, and secondly, because there must sociologically be some method of harmonising the relations between .the various classes. Although our miners have been the subject of more legislation than any other class in the country, it is an unfortunate fact that there is a great spirit of unrest among them. The causes of this unrest are difficult to get at. •Miners’ leaders are voluble, but the miner him- self is inarticulate. Miners’ wages are very high, and although almost every dispute resolves itself into a question of more money, there must be other causes for' the trouble. One reason may be the fact that the miner considers that he is deserted by the other classes. The Limited Liability Companies Acts have brought great blessings, but they have undoubtedly destroyed the old kindly feeling between the master and the man, which was the very soul of business in this country up to a generation ago. With the owners of the land in most cases absentees, with the shareholders in the mines also living away from the mining districts, and the works carried on by officials who also depart as soon as their pensions are earned, the miner undoubtedly has some cause to feel that he is left in the lurch by other classes of the community. With the growth of public knowledge and public taste in matters of hygiene, comfort, and climate it is not easy to see how our mining districts are to be repopulated by members of the upper and middle classes. One thing surveyors can do, however, they can use every endeavour to prevent big and medium-sized houses becoming or remaining empty by keeping them up and by letting them even at caretaking rents, and they can set their faces strongly against anything being done which unnecessarily renders the country unfit to live in. A great deal can, and will, be done in the future in the way of remedying nuisances and eyesores. A notable sign of the times is the replacing of the old ideas of colliery villages with examples such as Brodsworth and Eythorne. The provision of greater comfort for the miner and his family does not, however, touch more than the fringe of the question. The real requirement is to educate the miner to see, and to order his life, “ beyond his belly need,” and if possible to induce in him some frame of mind which will make him content with his lot. Half a century ago a Durham “ miner ’ poet wrote But darker than the gloom ’mid seams of coal, More to be dreaded than the fatal damp, The night upon the mind, The darkness of the soul. At that time the number of hours in the year during which a miner who “ followed his work ’’ was able to see the sun was very limited, and it is probable that in the finer minded and more thoughtful among them, a certain mental effect was produced by their toil under- ground. Greater education has since altered the type, and the general mental level is now probably nearly equal to that of the miner poet, so that though at the time he wrote them the words did not represent any- thing very real, for the average miner of that date had not enough imagination to feel any “ darkness of the soul,” there is little doubt that the man of to-day would be greatly affected by the- long hours and the dangers and discomfort of mid-nineteenth century mining. Part of the psychological problem is to discover how far the effect of hours of darkness on a class having ever greater education and higher imaginative powers has been and can be discounted by shorter hours and better conditions. It will be a great step forward when the customs are established among miners of using baths for their proper purpose, and not to keep the coals in, and of wearing suitable pit clothes. Mining is hard exercise, and the first thing any one of us does, when about to do anything nearly as strenuous, is to get into flannels. It would also add considerably to the miner’s status if he changed at the mine and so did not appear in the streets in his working guise. Now that a miner his plenty of daylight hours above ground, he has abundant opportunities for gardening, and even a small holding, with a cow or two, is not beyond his powers, if his wife is a suitable help- mate. Wherever possible, the miner should be a countryman with rural hobbies and interests. No more Clapham Junctions—deserts filled with working-class houses—should be permitted. Land Valuation.—The Government, for valuations under the Finance Acts, have apparently adopted the same course as the larger land owners, with regard to employing specialists in mineral work, and the super- intending valuers of the various districts have on their staffs surveyors who deal with mineral questions alone. In the 1909-10 Act a very marked distinction was drawn between property in surface lands and property in minerals. Whereas the onus of making valuations under this Finance Act was thrown in the case of surface lands upon the Government valuers, in the case of minerals which were under lease or in work at the time of the passing of the Act no valuations had to be made either by the Government or the land owners; but in the case of mineral areas which were not either actually in work or under lease the onus of making an estimate of their capital value was placed upon the land owner. A request for information for the benefit of the Government valuers known as Form IV., which was sent out by the Commissioners appointed by the Government contained also a demand or request for a valuation by the owner in every case where undeveloped minerals were considered by the owner to be of value. It has since been claimed that any owner who in making his return failed to make a return also of the value of his undeveloped minerals has ipso facto lost the right to do so, and that all such minerals shall, for the purposes of the Finance Act, 1909-10, be taken as of no value at all. This point is at present sub judice, though the House of Lords’ decision upon it, in the case of the Attorney-General v. Foran, may be expected shortly. It hardly needs pointing out that this case is of great importance to mineral owners, for upon it will depend whether owners will be called upon to pay increment value duty upon considerable areas of mineral at present undeveloped at the rate of one-fifth the purchase price on sale, or the equivalent in annual sums (4s. in the <£) where payment is by royaly; or whether they will only have to pay mineral' rights duty (Is. in the £) upon 2-25ths of any capital value which they may declare the mineral to be worth. On the general subject of valuations of mineral areas and undertakings very little has been written. Practi- cally the only book that deals directly with the question is by Mr. T. A. O’Donahue, who gives a number of very useful tables and a great many practical hints. The basis, of course, upon which valuations of either have to be made is unlike that which obtains in the case of freeholds which go on in perpetuity, in that the values in question only last for the time that it takes to exhaust the mineral, and therefore all valuations have to be made on what may be called the leasehold basis, that is to say, a sinking fund has to be allowed for replacement of capital. On methods of valuation and the tables to be used, only a general statement can be made. In valuing freehold areas, developed and undeveloped, the main points to be taken into account are :— (1) The section and the general conditions and risks common to the district, its geographical position, especially with regard to ports and other markets, and its facilities in roads, railways, and waterways; (2) Any special advantages or drawbacks of the particular area, and any indications of the known beds or seams improving or deteriorating in quality and working cost; (3) The likelihood of competition for the area, unless already leased for a long period. In the case of leased or developed areas, three estimates must then be made :— (a) of the approximate amount of valuable and available mineral within the area; (b) of the amount of income likely to be produced by the rents, royalties, and wayleaves; (c) of the time within which, and the rate at which, such income will be received. The valuation will then be completed by the applica- tion by the valuer of such a number of years’ purchase to the income as he judges from his experience to be right. The limits may be broadly stated as running from a 7 per cent, rate in cases where income is secured for many years by favourable physical conditions and the covenants of strong lessees up to 10 per cent., or oven higher. A variation from a valuation on ordinary lease- hold lines is caused, however, by the fact that a pur- chaser or investor cannot invest that part of the income which ought to be set aside for replacement of capital at such high rates of interest as he would expect to -get on an investment in minerals; and a ‘ ‘ mixed table ’ ’ calculation must be made, in which the pure interest must be taken at the rates, as above, and the sinking fund at the ordinary investment rates of, say 4 or 5 per cent. Practically there is no such thing as a flat rate of income from mining royalties; outputs are either waxing or waning. It may be necessary in a valuation to make several calculations, covering variations in income over different periods of a term, some even being taken at higher rates than others, and all, of course, reduced to present value. Where several seams are being worked- in one area, the risks may not be the same in each, and separate calculations may have to be made. , In the life of most mines working under such conditions, there will be a “ peak ” output from each .seam at the time when it reaches its maximum development. . Modern dead rents are not so much guide to a valuer as older ones, for the reason that their sum does not represent anything like the gross royalty to be expected, but in some instances valuers will take part of the income covered by them as being worth more than that dependent on royalty payments. In valuing undeveloped areas, the difficult points are to estimate when the income-producing stage will begin, and then to settle at what rate of interest the deferment of the capital value of such income should be taken. In these cases the limits seem to run from “ the addition of a year or a couple of years ’ purchase of the surface rents which a purchaser might give for the chance of any mineral of value underlying the property ” rather than have minerals excepted from his purchase up to a very large fraction of the capital value, estimated as if the area were already in work or under lease. It will no doubt be observed that instalments- of pur- chase price, which payments of royalty really are, are called “ income.” They are so treated by the revenue laws (but not the Settled Land Acts), under which income tax and mineral rights duty or annual increment value duty are charged on their full amount. Valuers have to take these taxes into account by deduction from their valuations of capital sums repre- senting (i.) so much of the income tax