December 8, 1916. 1112 ____________________________________ THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN. ____________________________________________________ MINERS AND ABSENTEEISM. The executive of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain met at the Imperial Hotel, London, on Tuesday, to further consider the question of reducing avoidable absenteeism on the part of workmen in the coal mines. Mr. Robt. Smillie, Scotland (president), was in the chair. The meeting was mainly engaged in drafting rules for the regulation by the pit committees of absenteeism for consideration by the general conference on Wednesday. The action of the executive is based upon the assumption that it is much better for the workman who persistently absents himself from work to be dealt with by a committee constituted of an equal represen- tation of the workmen with the employers, than for him to be brought before a magisterial court under the Employers and Workmen’s Act. The delegates’ conference of the South Wales coal field at Cardiff on Monday, turned down the proposal, and instructed their delegates to the national conference to vote against any scheme for the imposition of fines by pit committees. The feeling in Lancashire and other districts is equally strong against the trade unions under- taking such a responsibility. The contention is that if workmen have committed offences, the employers have their legal remedy in the courts. At the close of the executive meeting, Mr. Smillie officially reported that reports had been taken from dis- tricts on the question of setting up committees in the various mining areas for the purpose of dealing with coal output. It was resolved to strongly recommend to the general conference the adoption of certain rules for the guidance of local committees, which were submitted by the officials to the executive. Mr. Winstone, president of the South Wales Miners’ Federation, submitted a full statement of the negotia- tions which had taken place between the South Wales miners’ representatives and the Board of Trade on the control of the coal field, and it was agreed that the matter should form the subject of discussion at Wednesday’s conference. The general conference at the Central Hall, West- minster, on Wednesday, considered the best means of dealing with avoidable absenteeism by workmen employed in the coal mining industry. Mr. Robt. Smillie was in the chair, supported by Messrs. W. Abraham, M.P., J. Williams, M.P., South Wales; C. Fenwick, M.P., Northumberland; Fred Hall, M.P., Yorkshire; Stephen Walsh, M.P., Lancashire; B. Kenyon, M.P., Derbyshire; J. G. Hancock, M.P., Nottingham; W. Johnson, M.P., Warwickshire; W. Adamson, M.P., Fife; and some 200 delegates were present. The conference first discussed the question of deal- ing with avoidable absenteeism, and passed the follow- ing resolution by a majority :— That this conference recommends the districts to adopt the principle of local joint committees being set up to govern each colliery, such committees to have the power to inflict fines underrates to be agreed upon by this Federation; fines or penalties applicable to the men under this resolution to be applicable to the colliery officials, where they are proved to be at fault. There was opposition to this resolution from South Wales and Lancashire, but practically all the other dis- tricts supported it as preferable to men being brought before the magisterial courts. It was stated that in the West Yorkshire coal field an agreement was arrived at with the coal owners at a meeting held in Leeds on Tuesday, by which joint committees would be set up in the area. The executive submitted the following draft for the guidance of output committees :— Tn order to increase the output of coal, the following rules are recommended for their adoption in each district of the Federation :— 1. Where workmen are unable to work in their own work- ing places, such persons shall work in other places where there are vacancies, but they shall only be sent into places where men are regularly earning satisfactory wages, which must be more than the minimum wage. If no such places are available, and the man in consequence has to go home, he shall not be returned to the authorities as an absentee on that day. 2. Men prevented from getting to their work at the proper time, due to the workmen’s train or car or other conveyance being late, shall on its arrival be allowed to go to work. 3. All deputations shall be held at such hours whenever possible a.s will cause no loss of time to the members of such deputations, or the men who appear before them. 4. All persons shall attend every day on which the pit is working, unless prevented by illness or other reasonable cause. 5. That a district committee be set up, consisting of an equal number of coal owners and workmen’s representatives. If all members are not present, only an equal number shall vote on each side. 6. That the district committees shall meet as agreed upon for the purpose of dealing with disputes which have arisen under the local committee, and any other business, except in the event of urgent business, in which case a meeting may be called on the representation of either side, to deal speci- ally with the matter. 7. That a local committee shall be established at each colliery, consisting of an equal number of coal owners and workmen’s representatives, to carry out these rules. If all members are not present, only an equal number shall vote on each side. A meeting or meetings shall be held each week. The time lost shall be given by the timekeeper to the manager and the local secretary each week, together with a list of workmen who have absented themselves. 8. The men who are called upon to appear before the com- mittee shall have at least two days’ notice given to appear. Faffing to attend, they will be dealt with in their absence, and the method of giving notice to attend shall be left to the committee of each colliery. 9. The local committee shall be empowered to impose fines, and the persons so fined shall have the option of signing a book for such fine to be deducted, or appear before the magis- trates. (a) If the first method is selected by the workman, and he attends and works full time for one month after the fine is inflicted, the fine to be returned to him. (6) All fines not so redeemed to be paid over to some charitable institu- tion to be selected by the local committee 10. The local committee shall report all cases in dispute and all cases of men continuing to absent themselves to the district committee. 11. Excuses for absence must be bona fide, and where an absentee claims he was away owing to illness, a doctor’s note must be produced if demanded. 12. Any official responsible for men losing work, or failure to do his best to get work for them, shall be reported to the local committee, who shall deal with him in a manner similar to the way in which a workman who regularly absents himself is dealt with, it being understood that so far as possible the men shall be found work when they present themselves at the pit. The conference adopted, the rules. It was agreed to support the Labour Party’s resolu- tion at the Conference on Food Prices, and also the resolution passed by the Workens’ War Emergency Committee, and published on Saturday. Mr. Winstone made a report upon the South Wales wage crisis and the taking over of the coal field by the State under the Defence of the Realm Act; and it was agreed to defer any discussion until the, position of the workmen under the Board of Trade Order was more clearly defined. _________________________ COAL AND ITS ECONOMIC UTILISATION. In his second Howard lecture on this subject at the Royal Society of Arts on Monday, Prof. J. S. S. Brame devoted a considerable amount of attention to the com- position of coal. He first referred to the announcement made by Lord Crewe on Dec. 1 of the proposed large grant for scientific research, and said it was specially gratifying that a start was to be made with researches into the composition and uses of various coals. The line of research had been advocated for some years, and it was a subject in which a great deal of work might be done in ascertaining something more definite about the different coal measures of this country. Arrangements had already been made for this scheme of research at the Imperial College, and the results should advance our knowledge very considerably. Prof. Brame then briefly summarised our knowledge of the composition of coal up to the time of the late Prof. Vivian Lewes’ last lectures on the subject in 191.1, and then dealt with the more recent advances. Very important work had been done by Smythe, in which he used va'rious solvents (principally benzine and ether) for extracting resinous and other materials from coal; and, working with brown coals and lignite, Smythe obtained products which had definite melting points and agreed very well with some of the resins found in some of the lignite and peat beds. A great deal of work had also been done at the Government experimental station at Eskmeals by Dr. Wheeler and his associates. It was largely on the work of Burgess and Wheeler (using pyridene) that the conclusion was arrived at that coal contains cellulose degradation products and resinous products. At the time Prof. Lewes last dealt with the subject, Wheeler and Burgess, whilst quite definite that the insoluble portion represented cellulose material, were not quite so clear about the resinic constituents. Subsequent w’ork showed that extraction with pyridene was not a completely satisfactory method of separating the resinic from the cellulose material. Dealing more particularly with the liquid products obtained from the distillation of coal, the lecturer sketched the work of Dr. W. J. Russell, and by Wheeler and Platt in utilising the photographic activity of coal as a means of confirming the separation that had pre- viously taken place. Then, in 1914, Jones and Wheeler published papers dealing with the distillation of bitu- minous coals at low pressures and low temperatures— about 450 degs. Cent.—and from the results of these dis- tillations certain conceptions were formed. These workers stated definitely that at such a temperature only the resinic constituents undergo any appreciable decomposition, and that this method of attacking the problem was selective in its action; i.c., that it only dealt with the resinic constituents. Treating 1 kilog. of coal, they obtained 8-15 grins, of tar, which yielded 50 per cent, of pitch; but the important point was that they found 12 or 15 per cent, of phenol in the tar, and yet, according to previous statements, it was only the resinic constituents that should have undergone decom- position, and that no phenol would be obtained. There was some point which wanted clearing up here. Pictet and Bouvier, in 1913, working on a Loire coal distilled at low temperature and low pressures, obtained tars of particular interest, because they contained no phenol. These tars were more like oils, and, on distillation, it was found that these oils were very similar in many respects to some of the petroleum oils. The result was the production of a gas works tar as we know it; and these two French workens came to the conclusion that tar of this kind results largely from secondary decom- position. Maclaurin, at Glasgow, where he is now experimenting with the carbonisation of coal at low temperatures with producer gas, had obtained tars vpry similar indeed to those of Pictet and Bouvier. They contained no benzene or toluene, but crysilic acids were present to the extent of about 6 per cent. A point worth mentioning in connection with tests on coal was that pyridene must not be regarded as the ideal solvent, although, up to the present, it had probably yielded better results than others. There was, however,’ undoubted evidence that pyridene entered into combina- tion, not. only with the material left as residue, but with the substances which dissolve. The results obtained with pyridene must be qualified by the realisation that the pyridene could not be entirely eliminated afterwards. The most recent solvent to be used was liquid sulphur dioxide, and he believed it was a very promising reagent. It had been very largely used of late in the technology of petroleum, and was already a big commercial process. But for the outbreak of war, there would have been considerable developments in sulphur dioxide for refining petroleum, and there was little doubt that ultimately good results would be obtained with it in the case of coal. All this emphasised the need for the further work of research now being organised. Personally, he thought the methods that had proved so' successful in throwing light upon the structure of different alloys would pro- bably be applicable to the investigation of the structure of coal, viz., the making of their sections and examin- ing them under the microscope in conjunction with some solvent. Dealing with a few points in connection with the use of coal, Prof. Brame first mentioned the employment of raw coal, and drew attention to the inefficiency of metal- lurgical furnaces, the thermal efficiency of which he put at about 15 -to 17 per cent. He admitted, however, that this particular aspect of the use of coal was a difficult problem to deal with. The remedy was to use gaseous fuel. As to steam raising, mechanical stokers had tended largely towards the use of poorer qualities of coal, and, at the same time, had helped to solve the smoke problem. Here, again, when using raw coal, there were inevitable losses. The question of power production on a large scale, however, would be dealt with in the next lecture. The application of powdered coal for steam raising was perhaps the most efficient way of employing coal by direct combustion. It was the method employed in the rotary cement kilns, in which finely disintegrated coal was blown into the furnace with an air blast, the resulting flame rivalling an oil fuel flame. At the same time, the cost of disinte- grating the coal was a factor to be considered, whilst the ash was also apt to fuse and form a deposit either in the flues, or it might even fuse to the plates and tubes of the boiler. This method of using fuel had not made very much headway, because it w’as in competition with very efficient mechanical stokers, whilst, with very large boiler plants, the cost of disintegrating the fuel in large quantities was an important factor. Another economical method of using up small coal was by briquetting. In South Wales there was a tremendous quantity of small coal, which would otherwise be wasted. In that district in 1914, 1,600,000 tons’ of briquettes were made out of a total of 1,840,000 tons for the whole country. Incidentally, it gave an outlet for the surplus pitch from gas works. Before the war, very large ship- ments of pitch wene made to France and Belgium for briquette making. The use of gas works coke was another form of economy in the utilisation of" coal. Power station engi- neers were now paying great attention to the use of coke for steam raising, owing to the high price of coal; but it was not likely to come greatly into use for domestic purposes, owing to the absence of volatile matter. At the Deptford power station a saving of 16 per cent, had been recorded in fuel consumption by the use of coke. Steam omnibuses were also run on coke, as were the colliers of the South Metropolitan Gas Company* A development in the use of coke for domestic purposes, however, was in briquetting the small coke. At the Smethwick gas works a plant had been put down, and these briquettes burned well in the domestic grate with a small proportion of coal. At the conclusion of the lecture, Prof. Brame detailed the many ramifications of the by-products of coal, and exhibited a wide range of samples. The final lecture will be given on Monday next. __________________________ Hull Coal Imports and Exports.—The return issued by Mr. W. H. Truman, coal inspector of the Hull Corporation, states that the quantity of coal brought into Hull during November amounted to 248,805 tons—229,678 by rail and 19,127 by river—compared with 324,614 tons in the corre- sponding period last year. The exports (not including coal for Admiralty purposes and for the Allied Governments) were unusually low, consisting of 65,236 tons, against 157,062 tons in the same period last year. Exports and Imports of Mining Machinery.—The value of imports and exports of mining machinery during November are given below :— November. Jan.-Nov. _____________ _____________ 1915. 1916. 1915. 1916. j? j? Imports ........... 13.825 ... 19,797 ... 88,104 ...140,189 Exports ........... 40,064 ...111,421 ...528,146 ...697,080 These figures are not inclusive of prime movers or electrical machinery. According to destination, the value of exports was as under :— November. Jan.-Nov. 1915. 1916. 1915. 1916. To— £ £ £ £ Countries in Europe . 3,368 ... 6,722 ...54,835 .. .. 57,098 United States of America. 419 ... 840 .. 564 .. . 1,509 Countries in S. America . .. 1,952 ... 3,200 ...19,099 .. . 22,196 British South Africa .... .. 16.271 ...73,965 ..229,237 . 368,501 ,, East Indies .. 5,953 ... 9,438 ...55,000 .. .. 82,749 Australia .. 1,894 ... 1,626 ...23,379 .. .. 20.557 New Zealand 250 ... 905 10,062 .. .. 12,117 Other countries .. 9,957 ..14,725 ..135,970 .. .132,353 Total .. 40,064 . ..111,421 ..528,146 . .697,080 The following shows the value of exports of prime movere other than electrical :— November. A ' \ t Jan.-Nov. a 1915. 1916. 1915. 1916. All prime movers (except £ £ £ £ electrical) ........... 421,905...401,923...5,654,689...3,940,481 Rail locomotives ...... 129,189. .191,256 . .2,357.211. .1,215,121 Pumping ............... 19,247 41,048... 418,180... 476,284 Winding................ 125... 1,175... 12,709... 14,809