October 6, 1916. THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN. 659 Machinery Repairs under Money - back Guarantee is the specialty upon which a great reputation and practice have been built by the organisation of practical scientists who constitute BARIMAR Scientific Welding Service. Among railways, collieries, factories— wherever there is a large mechanical plant > | — there Barimar Service is known and used for the results it achieves and the money it saves. Send any smashed engine-part or fitting carriage paid and MARK YOUR ADVICE NOTE “ G. 83.” BARIMAR LTD., Welding and Machine Shops. 10, POLAND ST., LONDON, W. Telegrams— “ Bariquamar, Reg, London.” T elephone— C 8173 Gerrard. \ - l $0^ A-****^ Browett & Lindley 300 kw. Generating SET for Sale, cylinders 16£ in and 31 in , stroke 17 in., dynamo compound wound 480 to 550 volts. HELLEWELL & CO., Royal Exchange, Manchester. LOCOMOTIVES AND TRACTORS. 1 Q in. six coupled Manning Wardle 1 Q Loco., 140 lb. w.p., copper box, brass tubes ; £650. Two 8 in. four coupled Manning Wardle Locos., copper boxes, brass tubes, 120 lb. w.p.; low prices. 3 fc. gauge Bagnall Loco., 4 coupled, 6 in. cylinders, 150 lb. w.p., new tubes; £350. 3 ft. gauge Hudswell Clarke Loco , 4 coupled, 9 in. cylinders, new copper box and tubes, 160 lb. w p.; £650. Two2ft.6in. gauge Kerr Stuart Locos., copper boxes, 1601b. w.p; £400 each. 2ft. gauge Bagnall Loco., 8in. cylinders, 1401b. w.p.; £300. TRACTORS. 5-ton Wallis and Stevens Steam Tractor, 160 lb. w.p.; £300. 5-ton Yorkshire Steam Wagon, 200 lb. w.p.; £225. JOHN F. WAKE, DARLINGTON. For Sale.—One 30 ft. by 8 ft. 6 in. Lanca- shire BOILER, by Musgrave: passed for insurance at 120 lb. pressure.—GEO. V. PERRY, Gloucester-place, Swansea. Beiliss & Morcom’s 180 kw. Generating SET for Sale, cylinders 12 in. and 20 in., stroke 10 in., Siemens Dynamo shunt and compound wound 480 to 550 volts. HELLEW1LL A CO., Royal Exchange, Manchester. J. W. BAIRD AND COMPANyT 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. Telegbams—“ Osbecks, Newcastle-on-Tyne.” *** For other Miscellaneous Advertisements see Last White Page. Cotliery (Guardian AN» Journal of the Coal and Iron Trades. Joint Editors— J. V. ELSDEN, D.Sc. (Lond.), F.G.S. HUBEBT GREENWELL, F.S.S., Assoc.M.I.M.E. (At present on Active Service). LONDON, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1916. The London coal market is exeedingly brisk, but suffering keenly from shortage in the supplies. House coals are specially in request, and the reports from the depots show that merchants are very busy with public orders. Manufacturing qualities are freely absorbed by large institutions and munition works. Slacks have recovered from the stagnation of last month. Small nuts are scarce. On the Tyne and Wear the forward market is brisk, despite the difficulty arising from tonnage shortage. Reports from Lancashire and Yorkshire speak of the great strength of the demand, to meet which the supply appears to be rather, better. The position in Derbyshire is practically unchanged. Quotations in Cardiff show a wide and irregular margin. In Scotland prices are firmer, and incline upwards. Freight rates are steady and practically unaltered. Business on the north-east coast is restricted, owing to insufficient arrivals. A meeting of coalowners on Wednesday agreed upon a scheme regarding coal shipments for Italy, and on Thursday they had an interview with the President of the Board of Trade. The National War Savings Committee appeal to all coalowners to exercise as much economy as possible, as that is the only way in which the exigencies of the situation can be met. I Arrangements have been made for an inspection of a convoy of motor ambulances, the gift of the miners of Yorkshire to the Joint Committee of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St. John, by the King at Buckingham Palace to-day (Friday). It is hoped to present the convoy to the French Govern- ment in Paris for use with the French armies. An Order in Council empowers the Admiralty, Army Council or Minister of Munitions to restrict or prohibit the sale of any war materials or stores, or to compel the holder to sell such material or stores on authorised terms. The Midland Institute of Mining, Civil and Mechanical Engineers held a meeting yesterday (Thursday) evening, at which a paper on the “Widening of the Upcast Shaft at Tinsley Park Colliery,” by Mr. H. J. Atkinson, was read. Mr. F. F. Mairet’s paper on “Fuel Economy at Collieries” and Dr. Haldane’s paper on “ Health of Old Miners” were open for discussion. The Manchester Geological and Mining Society will hold its annual meeting on Tuesday, October 10, at 5, John Dalton-street, Manchester. A paper on “ Some Effects of the Master Folds upon the Structure of the Bristol and Somerset Coalfields,” by Mr. E. H. Staples, will be read. The joint action taken by the councils Proposed of the Iron and Steel Institute, Insti- Department tute of Metals, Institution of Mining Of Minerals Engineers and the Institution of and Metals. Mining and Metallurgy, in approach- ing the Committee of the Privy Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, with a view to the protection of our mineral and metal industries, will no doubt receive the careful con- sideration that it undoubtedly deserves. Tne object in view is the co-ordination of several existing organisations and the formation, out of these isolated units, of an effective department. It is no disparage- ment of the detached bodies already in existence to make such a proposal; it is rather a testimony to the value of the work they carry out that a desire should arise to establish a connecting link between them. At the present time the work of collecting information respecting the mineral productions of the Empire is undertaken by various departments of the Home and Colonial Governments. If exact information is desired upon any of these products it is necessary to consult numbers of official publica- tions, many of which are not readily obtainable in this country. There has also been a great deal of unnecessary overlapping in the way in which the work has hitherto been done, leading to waste of effort and confusion of results. The Advisory Committee of the Privy Council is now in danger of still further adding to this confusion by the appointment of technical committees in the various branches of these industries to cover practically the same field of activity. It is not only for the purpose of collecting the information afforded by official surveys and Colonial Mines Departments that a central organisation is needful. The war has brought home to the nation the fact that we have not hitherto taken adequate steps to maintain control over our own raw materials. Notwithstanding the expense incurred in carrying out our mineral surveys, we have allowed other countries to reap the benefit of our investigations. A striking example of this mischievous policy is seen in the monazite deposits of Travaucore, which were allowed to pass under German control and to be worked for the benefit of that country in the preparation of thorium nitrate for the manufacture of incandescent gas mantles. The way in which this monopoly was secured is highly significant of German methods. The Government of India, it appears, sanctioned a lease of the Travancore monazite sands to the London Cosmopolitan Tin Mining Company on condition that the concession should only be transferred to a British company. Such a company under the name of the Travancore Minerals Company was formed to work these deposits, and this company entered into a contract to sell the whole of its output to a German firm. It subse- quently transpired that the whole of the preference shares and 11,000 of the ordinary shares of the Travancore Minerals Company were held in trust for the Auer Company of Berlin. Although the mischief which thus resulted has now been remedied, it is clear that such an occurrence ought never to have happened, and could not have happened if there had been an effective control in the first instance. There are other examples of a similar character, of which, perhaps, one of the most glaring is that of the spelter production of Australia. German influence has even threatened to invade the coal fields of Great Britain, and there is no knowing to what extent this policy might have been developed if the war had not opened our eyes to the dangers of foreign control. The fact is that the nation has not taken enough interest in the development of its mineral industries either in peace or war. We have paid dearly for our neglect and we have learnt our lesson. But we have not yet succeeded in establishing such an organised system as will safeguard Imperial interests in the future. At the present time there are too many separate bodies working independently of one another, and without any means of pooling, for the common good, the information they possess. It is to provide a remedy for this that the present appeal has been made for a Department of Minerals and Metals in London. Perhaps the thought may arise that we already possess in the Imperial Institute an organisation capable of performing the functions of such a department. But one difficulty of this enlargement of the activities of the Imperial Institute would be that this body is already largely concerned with the organic productions of the colonies, and it would scarcely meet the requirements of the case to mix up inorganic and organic raw materials in one depart- ment. Again, the Imperial Institute is now under the Colonial Office, and it could scarcely, therefore, assume any control over home products, which would fall naturally under the purview of the Geological Survey, a branch of the Board of Education, with a certain measure of connection with the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries. When we remember, also, the activities in regard to minerals and metals of the Board of Trade and the Home Office, it is at once evident that the only solution possible, if any real co-ordination of effort is desired, is to create an entirely new department for the purpose. The need for coordination and economy of effort is strikingly shown in many directions, and perhaps none is more conspicuous than that of fuel statistics, in which the Home Office, Board of Trade, and the Mining Departments of the Dominions are all concerned, and not always in very close agreement. The Report of Lord Faringdon’s Financial Committee, appointed by the Board Facilities of Trade to consider the financial for British needs of British traders after the Firms. war, has thrown light upon a problem with regard to which there has been much obscurity and misconception. It has been widely asserted that the successes achieved by German firms trading in foreign markets have been largely due to the financial support afforded by the German banks, enabling long credits to be given. It has also been tacitly assumed that British traders have been handicapped by the absence of similar facilities in this country. These assertions are neither wholly without foundation, nor strictly true in a general sense. It is true that in Germany there had sprung up a number of banks mainly designed to promote foreign trade. Such a proceeding was a necessary adjunct of their policy of peaceful pene- tration, because many of the most enterprising manufacturing firms in that country were not in a position to obtain banking credit in the orthodox way practised by British banks, which have built up their reputation for stability and financial strength by refusing to do business upon a ‘ ‘ lock up ” basis, whereby the liquidity of their funds would be jeopardised. But it is not quite correct to conclude