April 13, 1917.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

723

“ Further Notes on Safety Lamps,” will be open for
discussion. A paper on “ Some Practical Notes on
the Use of Timber in Coal Mines,” by Mr. F. C. Lee,
will be taken as read.

The Welsh Miners’ Federation will hold a special
meeting on Monday, relative to the question of
“ combing-out ” miners between 18 and 25 years of
age, and the meeting will be recommended to take
no part in any scheme for “ combing-out ” young
miners.

It has been stated that Mr. Guy
Canal Calthrop, the Controller of Coal
Transport Of Mines, is working, in conjunction
Coal. with the Canal Commission, upon
the possible relief that may be
afforded to our overworked railways by using canal
transport more freely for the distribution of,coal.
This resuscitation of a question which was much
debated a few years ago, is all the more interesting
because there are many who deprecate the almost
absolute oblivion into which the elaborate report of
the Royal Commission on Canals has been allowed
to lapse. But the question of canal resuscitation is
by no means quite dead, and no one will probably
welcome the opportunity now offering for making
better use of our inland waterways than will
Mr. Neville Chamberlain, whose active interest in
the question has never flagged.

It is, however, one thing to carry out the recom-
mendations of the Royal Commission, and another
to carry out an emergency scheme for the freer use
of our existing canals for coal transport in war time.
The former would prove altogether too big a task to
contemplate under existing circumstances. All that
can be done, therefore, is to examine the latter
problem, and in that connection it is instructive to
consider what the canals are already doing in
connection with coal traffic. Many of the Midland
collieries have long sent a large proportion of their
output by water. Thus, the Aire and Calder
Navigation is an important link between the
West Yorkshire coal field and the Humber, and
barges of over 120 tons capacity are in use for the
purposes of coal transport. The Royal Commission
heard a large amount of evidence upon this question
from colliery owners, and in their report the opinion
was expressed that as much as 3,000,000 tons of
coal could be sent annually from the Midlands to
London by improving the Trent navigation. Already
there is a considerable traffic in coal over the Grand
Junction Canal, and even some of the seaborne coal
is transferred to barges at Limehouse for conveyance
to London by the Regent’s Canal.

In order to arrive at proper conclusions respecting
the possibilities of canal transport for coal, it is
necessary to face the objections which have been
urged against this method from the point of view of
the colliery owner. One of these is the necessity for
transhipment, and the breakage of coal which is thus
brought about. On the Aire and Calder system this
difficulty has to some extent been diminished by the
provision of water sidings, also by the adoption of
the compartment-boat system, invented by Mr. W. H.
Bartholomew, by which means coal can be conveyed
by railway siding to the canal and loaded into barge
without the double transhipment.

There can be no doubt that some coals would
suffer considerably from'breakage. The question of
the inland water carriage of coal has been much
studied on the Continent, where canal traffic is used
to a far greater extent than it is in this country.
The relative suitability for canal transport of the
coals of Silesia, the Ruhr and the Saar, has been
closely investigated, from the view of ascertaining
the physical deterioration of the coal, both from
breakage and also from the longer exposure involved
in water carriage. Some careful experiments were
made with the hard coals of Upper Silesia, and it
was found that whereas these coals lost only 0’7 per
cent, of their value during railway transport, they
suffered a deterioration of nearly 5 per cent, when
carried by canal. M. Gruner also found that
while the railborne coal from the Pas-de-Calais to
Paris showed from 70 to 75 per cent, of large coal,
the same after water transport had only from 55 to

60 per cent, large. Of course, these figures cannot
be taken as representing general results, but they
show that in the case of certain kinds of coal serious
losses may result in transit by canal. On the French
canals, also, it has been a source of complaint by
barge masters that their craft would not stand the
hard usage of coal loading from the tips, the sudden
impact of a heavy tonnage being more than the
barges could safely endure. Again, in his evidence
before the Royal Commission on Canals, the late
Mr. A. Currer Briggs called attention to the
inconvenience of unloading coal from the low level
of a canal barge, and the extra work involved is by
no means a negligible factor in these days of labour
shortage.

It is useless to compare British canals with those
of the Continent, where the physical conditions are
by no means the same. To mention only one dis-
advantage, viz., the question of climate, the Leeds
and Liverpool Canal has been placed out of action
for long periods by frost in winter and by drought
in summer. It is not always realised that the water
supply on some of the summit levels of our English
canals is not at all abundant, and even at the best of
times it requires in some cases to be supplemented.
As regards frosts, our situation is, fortunately, not so
bad as in Belgium, where the collieries are largely
dependent Upon canal communication, and where
very grave difficulties have been experienced during
prolonged frosts. We do not call attention to these
points from any desire to condemn the effort to
relieve the congestion of railway traffic by the
utilisation of our waterways. Far from this ; we
believe there is a distinct possibility of effecting a
valuable saving of traffic by this means; but from
the way the question has been approached in the
public Press it seems advisable to show that the
question is not, perhaps, so simple as it looks. If
it were a question of making permanent alterations
in our system of coal distribution there might be
a good deal more to be said about the relative
advantages of rail and canal for coal transport.
Many people point to coal carriage as a possible
means of maintaining a big revenue upon capital
expended in wholesale canal resuscitation. But it is
evident that the coal industry is, by its very nature,
less adaptable to water transport than many of our
manufacturing industries. Factories can be brought
to the canal banks, but collieries are scarcely capable
of this mobility, and the railway^siding seems to be
a necessary adjunct to the majority of our collieries.

Nevertheless, we sincerely hope that the Coal
Controller will be able to make more use of our canals,
such as they are, as a temporary expedient in the
present emergency. Every additional barge that
can be loaded represents so much the less pressure
on the railways, and helps to keep the coal output

Sir Arthur Newsholme, Medical
Infant	Officer of the Local Government

Mortality in Board, has just issued a supple-
M ini ng	mentary report dealing with infant

Districts, mortality in England and Wales.

This is the fourth of a series of
special reports dealing with this important subject,
the national aspect of which is conspicuously brought
home to us by the prominence of the man-power
question" in the present crisis. Into the general
question of infant mortality, in which Lord Rhondda
is taking an active interest, it is not necessary to
enter here in any detail; for it is undeniable that
this matter calls for the most careful consideration
of the Government, and the report that a Minister
of Health may shortly be appointed, is a measure
of the serious nature of the problem. The question
is not a new one, and much has already been done
in the last few years to reduce the high rate of
infant mortality shown by the decennial statistics for
1901-10. Sir Arthur Newsholme estimates that
the improvement in the last four years shows a
reduction of about 144,000 deaths, as compared with
the average based upon the above-mentioned decennial
experience.

What, hoWever, we are chiefly concerned with in
this report is the local incidence of infant mortality,
and its remarkably high rate in industrial districts.

The Medical Officer says, “it would almost appear
that the continuance of the great industries of the
country implies conditions destructive of the health
and life of an excessive proportion of young children
as well as of adults,” but he gives reasons why so
pessimistic a conclusion is unwarranted. He also
makes the grave statement that a map of the
coal fields of the country would almost serve as a
map of the chief areas in which child mortality is
excessive. This statement is supported by carefully
compiled statistics, and is graphically illustrated by
a series of maps showing the distribution of infant
mortality in various areas. The facts appear to be
sufficiently obvious. The death rate of infants under
five years of age, per 1,000 births, in the years
1911-14, for England and Wales was 164. The
highest mortality was in the great towns, where the
deaths numbered 188 per 1,000, and the lowest in
the rural districts, where they numbered 125. When,
however, the statistics are examined from a geo-
graphical standpoint, is is found that in certain
localities the death rate is excessive, rising locally to •
240 and above. In the County of London, the blackest
areas are in Shoreditch and the East, and generally
we may, perhaps, regard as excessive death rates
exceeding 180 per 1,000 births. Glancing at Sir
Arthur Newsholme’s maps it is impossible not to be
struck by black spots congregated in the coal fields.
Whether we turn to South Wales, Durham, South
Staffordshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire or elsewhere,
the same conditions are shown to occur. Especially
striking is the case of St. Helens, where West
Sutton Ward, the principal residential area of the
coal miners, is conspicuous for its high rate of infant
mortality, which here exceeds 300 and even occa-
sionally 350. Durham is especially unsatisfactory
from this point of view, and the Medical Officer has
no hesitation in ascribing it to bad housing accom-
modation, arising in large measure from the “ free
house ” system of lodging the miners. But Sir
Arthur Newsholme appears to blame the miners
themselves for the conditions under which they are
content to live. “ The Durham miners earn good
wages,” he says, “but they live in houses grossly
inferior to the average workman’s house in other
areas, with terrible results in regard to the welfare
of their wives and children. It is remarkable that
the miners themselves do not appear to have taken
up on any considerable scale the question of housing.
It is important that more money should be spent on
house rent in mining areas; and, so long as living
under the conditions characterising present miners’
houses continues, a large proportion of the wages
spent in other directions must be regarded as mis-
spent.”

But although it is impossible to ignore the
general significance of the facts, disclosed in this
report, we must avoid the deduction of wrong con-
clusions from them. Bad housing conditions are
prevalent in purely agricultural areas, where infant
mortality is not comparatively excessive. This state
of things is a legacy of bygone times before the
importance of sanitation was recognised, or even
known. Again, it is not to be forgotten that it is
impossible to separate coal mining areas from those
of other industries. Around and in the coal fields
of this country are grouped the chief centres of the
metal, pottery, textile and general engineering
industries, all of which contribute a share to the
result. There is no clear line of demarcation which
would enable any one industry to be separately con-
sidered. When, therefore, Sir Arthur Newsholme
says that a map of the coal measures would almost
serve to represent the distribution of infant mortality,
it is necessary to bear in mind the inevitable grouping
of industries around the sources of the raw material
essential to their existence.

Neither is it easy to specify precisely which of the
circumstances of environment are the most potent
factors in causing excessive mortality in any par-
ticular area. Probably the causes vary in different
localities. Clearly they are dependent on circum-
stances quite apart from mere climatal or geographical
conditions. In the case of mining districts it cannot
be due to poverty, and Sir Arthur Newsholme
suggests that in these areas, besides bad housing, it
is necessary to consider such questions as a low