June 30, 1016.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

1230

J. W. BAIRD AND COMPANY,

PITWOOD IMPORTERS,
WEST HARTLEPOOL,

YEARLY CONTRACTS ENTERED INTO WITH COLLIERIES.

OSBECK & COMPANY LIMITED,
PIT-TIMBER MERCHANTS,
NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.

SUPPLY ALL KINDS OF COLLIERY TIMBER.

Telegrams—“ Osbecks, Newcastle-on-Tyne.”

*** For other Miscellaneous Advertisements see Last
White Page.

W (Ming tadiau

AND

Journal of tha Coal and Iron Trades.

Joint Editors—

J. V. ELSDEN, D.Sc. (Lond.), F.G.S.
HUBERT GREENWELL, F.S.S., Assoc.M.I.M.E.

{At present on Active Service}.

LONDON, FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 1916.

The London coal trade is brisk, and the demand
as strong as ever. Supplies by rail are coming
forward more freely, but the shortage is still very
pronounced. The export trade offers far greater
advantages in price than the London prices will
permit. Steam coals are unusually scarce, and small
nuts are entirely off the market. Pit prices are
nominal and unchanged.

On the Tyne and Wear the tonnage shortage
caused fears of colliery stoppages, but matters have
improved. Bunkers are plentiful and weak. Lanca-
shire reports a demand above the normal for house
coal, and a rather easier tone in bunkering and
export business. Evidently Lancashire, Yorkshire
and the Midlands are feeling the effects of licence
restrictions and tonnage shortage, for prices tend to
weaken. In some districts absenteeism has decreased,
and the wagon supply improved. Manufacturing
fuel is in heavier demand in Leicestershire. Tonnage
arrivals are more numerous at Cardiff, but many of
the ship owners are fighting shy of the Government’s
schedule rates. Business has quietened a little in
Scotland.

Representatives of the Coal Owners’ Association
and the Miners’ Federation met Viscount Reading
at the Law Courts on Tuesday, and requested him
to appoint a new chairman of the South Wales
Conciliation Board. Lord Reading stated that he
would select a chairman after considering the
representations made.

The 4O.th annual report of his Majesty’s inspectors
of explosives for 1915 has been issued. The number
of new explosives examined was very small.

The Coal Exports Committee, on Wednesday,
appointed Sir D. M. Stevenson chairman. Pro-
posals were presented for dealing with difficulties
encountered by local committees.

An Order in Council empowers naval or military
authorities to give directions for priority in coal
orders or contracts in accordance with national
importance.

In connection with the visit of the Royal Com-
mission to South Wales to enquire into college
education, it was stated that the new college, as
proposed, would cost £36,000. Sir W. Osler, one of
the Commissioners, said that, with proper encourage-
ment, Swansea ought to become the metallurgical
centre of the world.

The Economic Conference of the

The Allies, held recently in Paris, under
Economic the presidency of M. Clementel,
Conference, the French Minister of Commerce,
should have a far-reaching influence
not only upon the efficient conduct of the war, but
also upon the re-establishment of commercial
prosperity when peace again prevails. To this end,
however, something more than pious resolutions will
be called for. It will be necessary at once to give
practical effect to those economic measures which
have been unanimously declared essential by the
representatives of the Allied Governments. The
keynote of all these resolutions is the same, and is
clearly expressed in the official report of the Con-
ference. The Central Powers are already alive to
the paramount necessity in their own interest of
re-establishing that commercial ascendency which

they had so nearly won before the war, and which
will prove, it is to be sincerely hoped, the greatest
loss which they will suffer from their wilful dis •
turbance of the world’s peace. How this commercial
ascendency was being won is now fully realised not
only by the Allies themselves but also by neutral
countries. It would be nothing less than a disgrace
to all concerned to permit a resumption of the pre-
war tactics of Germany. There is here no question
of tariff reform or protection in its former significance.
The protection that is contemplated is of quite
another type. It is protection ag’ainst that system
of so-called peaceful penetration by which Germany
hoped to dominate the world’s markets as a deliberate
preparation for that armed contest which for 40
years had been her aim. It is protection from the
intolerable burden of German domination, with its
accompaniments of organised aggressiveness and
unscrupulous disregard of commercial probity and
fair dealing. Is there a man in this or any other
neutral or allied country who does not desire pro-
tection from this economic canker now and for ever ?
The old controversies are dead-never, we hope, to
be revived—for Adam Smith and Cobden themselves,
if living now, would surely have been foremost in
declaring that an end must be put, once and for all,
to any possibility of a recurrence of the conditions
which had been allowed to develop before the war,
and in no small degree contributed to its outbreak.

The resolutions approved by the Conference resolve
themselves under three headings. They include
measures for the war period, and measures for the
transition period immediately following the cessation
of hostilities—all of which would obviously be of a
temporary character. In addition to these there are
suggested certain permanent measures, as yet vague
and undefined, but designed to render the Allies
independent of the enemy countries in the matter
both of raw materials and essential manufactures.
The temporary measures are of such obvious necessity
that there can. be no great difficulty in at once taking
practical steps to bring them into force. Some of
them are already in existence, and none of them can.
safely be delayed. We refer hereto such restrictions
as fall naturally under the designation of trading
with the enemy, and the prohibition of dumping,
which, there is reason to believe, would otherwise be
attempted as soon as peace is declared. The enemy
will naturally make a vigorous attempt to recover her
lost markets, and to resume those artifices which had
proved so successful in the pre-war period. To meet
this it will be necessary for a period of time to submit
enemy commerce to special treatment, and by the
exercise of an effective regime to regulate it according
to our own and our Allies’ interests rather than in
those of Germany.

Even this task may not be easy, for the enemy
will certainly try her utmost to break through any
barriers that may be set up against her. We must
be prepared for every artifice the Teutonic mind can
devise, but with most of these the Allies are already,
by painful experience, familiar.

It is in regard to the permanent measures that
difficulties may arise. The Conference has pointed
out the leading principle to be kept in view. This is
to assure the independence of the Allies so far as
concerns the sources of supply of essential raw
materials, and to perfect their financial, commercial
and maritime organisation. Herein, however, lies
a vast field of economic reform which our previous
laxity will render necessary. It is clear that the
old laissez faire policy must vanish from our economic
system. • So far as this country is concerned we
think that a Ministry of Commerce will be essential
to the effective realisation of the principles here laid
down. In no other way can we hope to co-ordinate
the many diverse elements which surround this
complex question. One hesitates to attempt even to
enumerate the problems that must arise in connec-
tion with so great a change in our economic policy.
If the Government is to have a hand in the future
development of our industrial position and indepen-
dence along the lines foreshadowed in these resolu-
tions, it must be a very different kind of Government
from any that we have hitherto experienced. We
may perhaps be excused from expressing some
diffidence in regard to the carrying out of such

drastic proposals, involving a revolution in estab-
lished methods of transport, a revision of the law of
patents, trade-marks and copyright, the negation of
our former attitude towards the endowment of
scientific and technical research, and the imposition
of such customs duties as commercial necessities may
dictate. It will mean all this and more if we really
intend to carry out the stupendous programme that
the Paris Conference has laid down.

The question of a possible shortage
Coal Supplies in the coal supply of this country is
and engaging the active attention of

Public those who are responsible for the
Utilities. conduct of such public undertakings
as electricity supply, gas and water
supply, and power for the transport services. The
combined effect of enlistment of colliery workers and
the increased demand for coal, both at home and
abroad, for munition purposes have resulted in
establishing a condition of some anxiety respecting
the future. As regards the actual decrease of
output, which amounts to an annual deficiency of
about 36 million tons, this shortage will perhaps be
eliminated in ^future in consequence of the organised
effort now being made to increase the tonnage
production of each pit by securing a more regular
attendance of the miners. We are hopeful that good
results will follow from the appointment of local
committees. As to the manner in which these com-
mittees act, this will probably differ in each district
according to the nature of the problem to be
attacked.

In the meantime, the Government is being
bombarded with advice, and resolutions are flowing
in urging the need for prompt action. Public utility
bodies are especially anxious to safeguard their
supplies. Last week, for example, the Institution of
Water Engineers, at their summer meeting, passed
a special resolution calling attention to the necessity
for priority to be given in the supply of coal for
pumping stations and other purposes connected with
public water supplies. Then we have the case of
the electrical supply companies. It is unfortunate
that we should be compelled now to suffer from the
disadvantages arising from the multiplicity of small
power stations when so much saving could have
been effected if large central plants had been
adopted. This is another instance of the unscientific
lines along which Parliamentary proceedings have
travelled in the past. The adoption of a number of
small power concerns was a deliberate proceeding
arising mainly from political considerations, such as
the dread of any action which might savour of
encouragement to monopolies.

Recriminations are useless now that the mischief
is done, and the only thing that remains is to
produce more coal. Our contemporary The Engineer,
in a recent editorial upon this subject, suggests that
the Eight Hours Act is responsible for the present
difficulties, and it complains loudly that the Govern-
ment, in deference to the representations of the
miners, will not suspend this measure. In the early
days of the war we suggested a similar course in
these columns. This was at a time when recruiting
was still active in the pits, and labour was being
withdrawn almost recklessly from this indispensable
industry. It was a position that arose quite
naturally from the situation in which the country
found itself at the time. We are all calmer now,
and most of us can see that a suspension of the
Eight Hours Act might not prove an effectual way
of increasing output. The Act produced in many
districts a complete revolution in the methods of
working, and to imagine that • it wTould be easy to
revert at short notice to the former system would be
to neglect entirely the difficulties of carrying on so
highly regulated and inspected an industry as coal
mining has now become. Colliery owners, it is true,
never wanted the Eight Hours Act, and it has not
proved to be a success in any sense, either from a
mining or social standpoint; but having at great
labour and no little cost made the necessary arrange-
ments for complying with the .Act, it is not likely
that many pits would gain anything by its temporary
suspense for a period which may not prove to be
long. Our contemporary complains that coal owners