July 14, 1916. THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN 67 they went back to the old chaos of private ownership of land and everything of that kind, with competition among themselves, brought about by unemployment and starvation, which would bring down wages to the lowest rate. He urged that there should be reorganisation on national lines, in which everybody gave their labour freely, not for the profit of individuals, but for the good of the nation itself. (Cheers.) Mr. F. Hall (Derbyshire), in moving a vote of thanks to the president, referred with satisfaction to the result of the efforts made by the Miners’ Federation to reduce wilful absenteeism from the pits. In some eases absenteeism had been reduced to one half per cent., and at some pits in Derbyshire there had not been a single man absent during a whole week. Mr. Capes (Cumberland) seconded the vote of thanks, which was supported by Mr. J. Winstone (South Wales) and carried. Nationalisation of Mines and Minerals. Mr. R. Brown (Scotland) moved that it was of the utmost importance that the mines and minerals should be owned and controlled by the State, and that the executive committee should take the matter in hand and press for the realisation of that object. He believed that if the mines were nationalised on a fair valuation, the cost of purchase could be repaid out of profits in five years. Mr. D. Gilmour (Hamilton), who seconded, asserted that if the Bill for nationalisation which the federation proposed a few years ago had been passed into law, the nation would have paid the cost of the mines from profits made during the war. It was a curious fact that England was the only country in which the owners of the surface of the land were enabled to claim everything under the land. Even in Germany they had been wise enough not to let the landowners own the minerals. They were not content to be fleeced by the landowners to pay a large ■sum for the minerals. They believed that with State ownership the death roll of 1,300 a year and 150,000 men injured every year would be materially decreased. Mr. W. Whitefield (Bristol) said the wages of miners in Bristol and the West of England were from 2s. to 3s. a day less than miners in other parts of the country, from economic causes for which neither the owners nor the men were responsible. If the pits belonged to the State they could urge that the miners in Bristol were entitled to the same wages as in Scotland or South Wales. Mr. T. McKerrall (Kilmarnock) said the private ownership of the mines had been a serious menace to this country in the prosecution of the war. The Government was obliged to limit the price of coal for home consump- tion, but there was no limit to the price charged to our Allies, with the result that we had almost knocked our Allies out of the war. Private ownership of the mines was a national inconvenience in peace times, and a national danger in war times. The resolution was unanimously carried. Wednesday’s Proceedings. The conference on Wednesday discussed a number of amendments to the Workmen’s Compensation Act, designed to increase the amount of compensation payable to workmen who met with industrial accidents. The most original proposal was one from Lancashire, and intended to have a retrospective effect to increase the amount of compensation granted to disabled workmen to meet the increased cost of living. Mr. J. E. Sutton moved a resolution from Lancashire declaring the time to be opportune to press forward the question of day wage rates for all coalgetters as against piece rates, believing that the change would be to the workmen’s benefit. He said that piecework was a matter of one man competing with another, and he hoped some day a reasonable day’s wage would be given to a man for a reasonable day’s work, and this “ damnable system ” would be abolished. Mr. G. Barker (South Wales) assarted that with the competitive system of piecework the physically strong men set the pace. It was the glorification of the men with a strong back and a weak mind. Mr. T. McKerrall (Kilmarnock) believed that with the spread of education the man with the strong back and weak mind had improved since Mr. Barker’s day. Mr. Frank Hodges (South Wales) said the introduc- tion of coal-cutting machines to do the work formerly done by the pick was putting men on an equality of production, and was a strong reason for the payment of a regular wage. The resolution was adopted. Workmen’s Compensation. The number of resolutions to amend the Workmen’s Compensation Act were then considered. Mr. Fred Hall (Yorkshire) proposed that the Act should be amended so as to provide for the minimum weekly sum of 10s. as compensation to an adult when the average earnings were less than £1, and that the com- pensation granted to youths earning less than 10s. per week be periodically increased to the actual amount which would have been actually earned but for the acci- dent. So long as the compensation did not exceed 10s. weekly, he said, the fixing of a minimum compensation to adults at 10s. a week was, in the opinion of the York- shire miners, absolutely necessary. Mr. G. J. Hancock (Nottingham), who seconded, con- sidered that 10s. a week was the lowest sum which they could in fairness offer to any disabled adult worker. The resolution was carried. Mr. H. Roughley (Lancashire) proposed their efforts should be made to secure compensation for the first day of injury. They found that the employers took no interest in the men during the first week, but after the exemption period they sent their own doctor to examine him and try to get him back to work. They had any amount of friction. Mr. Robertson (Scottish miners) seconded the resolu- tio, which was carried. Mr. J. McGurk (Bury) projiosed that an amendment of Section 1 of the Act was urgently required by the striking out of the words, “ arising out of .and in the course of his employment,” and the substitution of the words, “ if in any employment personal injury by acci- dent is caused to a workman, his employer shall be liable to pay compensation.” He instanced a case at Bolton to show the necessity for a change in the law. The resolution was adopted. Mr. Harry Twist (Wigan) moved that “ as the spend- ing powers of the sovereign had decreased to such an extent between the period of 1906 and 1916, and as we believe that the amount of compensation was fixed according to the statics of wages and the cost of living when the Act became operative, the Federation shall carefully review the first schedule of the Act for the purpose of drawing up an amendment with a view to increasing the amount of compensation to meet the increased cost of living.” The resolution was carried. Mr. Spencer (Nottingham) proposed that the Federa- tion seek an amendment of the Act by removing the maximum of £1 per week in case of non-fatal and £3 in case of fatal accidents, so that in the ease of a non- fatal accident an employee shall be paid at least 50 per cent, of his average earnings during incapacity, and in the case of fatal accidents the dependants shall be paid a sum equal to deceased’s total earnings for the previous three years, but in no case shall the sum be less than .£200. ' Mr. Fred Hall wished to know' if there was any arrangement in Lancashire by which when a man was able to resume light employment he still con- tinued to receive his full compensation if still below the previous earnings. Mr. H. Twist said they had no arrangement with the employers except that which the law gave them. Mr. Fred Hall : That is not the law'. The President said he was rather surprised to find a member of Parliament differing as to the law. Person- ally, he understood that Mr. Twist had laid down what was the law, and they had acted upon it over and over again in Scotland. Mr. R. Jenkins (South Wales) said they always acted in the South Wales coal field upon the decision in the Cannock Chase colliery action. The resolution was carried. Disease from Poisonous Fumes. Mr. W. Straker (Northumberland) moved that the Federation endeavour to have disease caused by the inhalation of poisonous fumes from explosives included on the third schedule of the Act. He said this was becoming very prevalent in Northumberland since the war began. The nature of black powder had completely changed—indeed, so changed that the fumes now given off by it were such as to affect the human system. They had a large number of men suffering from lung trouble, said by the doctors to be the result of breathing poisonous fumes from explosives used in the mines. The resolution was carried. Electricity in Coal Mines. Mr. S. Roebuck (Yorkshire) proposed that Regulation 131 of the Coal Mines Act be so amended as to make it illegal for a person in charge of an electrical coal cutter, whose wages depend upon the amount of mineral gotten, to be appointed as the responsible person to supervise, examine, or adjust electrical apparatus. The resolution was adopted. The Chief Inspector of Factories has appointed the follow- ing certifying surgeons under the Factory and Workshop Acts :—Dr. J. T. Lloyd, for the Tregaron district of the county of Cardigan; Dr. J. A. W. Hackett, for the Gains- borough district of the county of Lincoln; and Dr. A. C. Dornford, for the Faringdon district of the county of Berks. Mineral Owners’ Association.—Viscount Galway presided at the annual general meeting of this association at the Westminster Palace Hotel last week. The Defence of the Realm (Acquisition of Land) Bill was severely criticised. The emergency committee, acting in concert with the Law Society, had laid before the Solicitor-General some of the injustices that would occur if the provisions as they then stood relating to minerals were passed, and had asked members to support amendments. Lord Galway charac- terised the proposals as the most wholesale confiscation that had ever been produced, and regretted it as emanating from a Coalition Government. MR. HENRY K. JORDAN, D.Sc., F.G.S. Mr. Henry K. Jordan, J.P., on whom the degree of Doctor of Science is to be conferred by the University of Wales at Aberystwyth to-morrow (Saturday), is the well-known Monmouthshire and South Wales engineer. Born at Bristol, he received his education at the Cathedral School in that city, and was later apprenticed to the builders of the “ Great Eastern,” Messrs. John Scott, Russell and Company, shipbuilders and engineers, of Millwall. Mining engineering in South Wales and the Forest of Dean subsequently engaged his attention for some years, after which he removed to Newport, Mon- mouthshire, where he took over the management of Messrs. Russell’s forge and anchor works. Mr. Jordan, Mr. H. K. Jordan, D.Sc., F.G.S. * who is a justice of the peace for the county of Mon- mouth, and a Fellow of the Geographical Society, has written several highly important and valued papers upon mineralogy and the distribution of the marine molluscan fauna of the British Isles, which he has contributed to the Malacologieal and Conehological societies, of which he is a member. He was elected a member of the South Wales Institute of Engineers in 1873, filled the presidential chair in 1898, and had the distinction in 1904 of being awarded by the council of the institute their first president’s gold medal, for a valuable treatise upon the South Wales coal field, which he spent several years in investigating. He resides in Llandenny, Monmouthshire. WAR MATERIAL REGULATIONS. The Ministry of Munitions has issued an Order which includes as war material under the Defence of the Realm (Consolidation) Regulations the following descriptions of metallurgical coke, pig iron, steel, bar iron, and high- speed tool steel :—■ Metallurgical Coke.—Derbyshire, Durham and North- umberland, Lancashire, South Wales and Monmouth- shire, Staffordshire, Yorkshire, Midland Counties. Pig Iron.—Haematite, Cleveland, Derbyshire, Leices- tershire and Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Northamp- tonshire, Scottish, Staffordshire, Shropshire and Worces- tershire. Steel.—Angles, tees, channels, flats, bulb angles, zeds and other sections, of which the prices are customarily based on the price of angles, joists, ship plates, boiler plates, rails (railway), sheet and tin-plate bars, blooms and billets, ordinary mild steel, blooms and billets (special), rounds and squares (untested). High-speed tool steel. Chinese Mineral Industry. — Chinese exports of iron ore increased in 1915, amounting to 304,088 tons, against 294,701 tons in 1914. Exports of coal were 1,315,542 tons, against 2,005,627 tons, no doubt due in part to hostilities in Shan- tung ; but one of the Fushun coal mines was destroyed by fire. The import of tin-plates was 23,696 tons, against 25,705 tons in 1914, and of galvanised sheets 6,755 tons, against 8,755 tons. Mining Classes in Birmingham. — The University of Birmingham has issued an announcement regarding the next session (commencing October 3) of the School of Mining. The school meets the requirements of those who intend to become practising and consultative mining engineers, petro- leum technologists, colliery managers, managers of metal mines, teachers of mining, mine surveyors, land and estate agents, land owners, owners of collieries, and those generally interested in mines and quarries. The degree course includes instruction in mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology and mineralogy, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, civil engineering, mining (coal, petroleum, and metal) and metallurgy, assaying, and petroleum refining. In connection with the mining classes there will be frequent visits of inspec- tion to mines in the neighbourhood of Birmingham, and a summer mining school will also be held in the long vacation in some mining district either at home or abroad. The mining courses are so arranged as to provide for a degree course of three years and a diploma course of three years. Occasional mining students may take a complete course in one year. A complete course of petroleum mining engineer- ing is given in the university. The course of study extends over three years, and leads to the degree of B.Sc. Associated with Prof. J. Cadman are Mr. J. L. Jeffrey, lecturer in metal mining and economic mineralogy; Mr. W. Hulse, lecturer in coal mining and surveying; and Mr. A. H. Clark, lecturer in mine rescue work.