June 22, 1917.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

1173

accumulating. A quiet tone continues in Scotland,
and little prospect of any early improvement there
can be observed.

Freight business is still small. An official warning
has been issued against chartering vessels now for
peace-time use, as national requirements may not
permit of such charters being carried out.

At a special conference on Wednesday the Miners’
Federation decided to submit to the Coal Controller
an amended scheme relating to the recruiting of
colliery workers.

The report of H.M. Inspectors of Explosives for
1916 states that the number of accidents with
explosives reported was 641, compared with 485
in 1915.

The Coke Oven Managers’ Association (Midland
Section) will visit the Thorncliffe and Rockingham
works of Messrs. Newton, Chambers and Co.
Limited, on Saturday afternoon, June 30.

A deputation of coalowners conferred with the
Coal Controller this week relative to the control
of the mining industry.

A new list of certified occupations has been issued.
The changes affect some surface workers at collieries
and various classes of men engaged in coal distribu-
tion, the firebrick trade and sulphate of ammonia
manufacture.

The debate on the Board of Trade
Tiw vote, which took place on Thursday,

Functions June 14, was mainly concerned with
Of 3 the Charter recently granted to the
Trade Bank. British Trade Corporation. The
position of the Government had in
the meantime been more clearly defined by the issue
of a White Paper, stating more clearly the objects of
this newly-formed body. It is there stated that the
fundamental object for which the Charter has been
granted is to give financial assistance to British
traders and manufacturers, especially in connection
with overseas trade. The Corporation is to be placed
under an obligation to give full effect to this object,
and it is to be accessible to the business public for
the purpose of consultation. It is not intended to
operate as a competing trader, all its powers and
privileges being solely for the purpose of enabling it
to carry out its fundamental object as stated above.
Sir Albert Stanley made it clear, moreover, that it
is necessary to give the Corporation certain powers
designed for the protection of its interests. Suppose,
for example, loans were made and the borrower
failed in his undertaking. In such a case, it would
clearly be necessary for the Corporation to be able
to carry on that undertaking for the purpose of
recovering its advances.

It is obvious that if this new institution is to be of
any practical use to enable struggling manufacturers
to undertake business overseas, it must be placed in
a strong financial position, and be capable of attracting
a staff of experienced men, with special knowledge
and able to give sound expert advice upon commer-
cial propositions of every kind. Those who are
acquainted with the disabilities under which foreign
traders now suffer will not deny the great potentiali-
ties which this scheme affords. They will knowr how
difficult it is to obtain financial backing for even the
soundest of ventures abroad. The result is that the
would-be operator is either unable to carry out his
scheme, or he is driven into the arms of a syndicate
whose sole object is to make a profit to itself by over-
capitalisation of the concern, and to escape from the
consequences by unloading its overweighted shares
upon a too-confiding public. The mischief thus
wrought is not only to defraud the shareholders, but
also to ruin the undertaking. This is the history of
many a commercially sound proposition. If the new
Trade Corporation can only succeed in curtailing the
activities of the speculative company promoter, it will
do a great deal to justify its position. Sir W. Barton
illustrated this point when he called attention to the
fact that when a great Lancashire inventor brought
out his patents for dealing with coal tar products he
sought in vain in this country for financial assistance
in carrying out his project. Germany took up the
idea, and financed it with such success that it created
the* great chemical industry which that country
possessed before the war. One of the main objects
of the British Trade Corporation, as we understand
it, is to enable British industrialists to avoid
catastrophes of that kind in the future. Existing
banks have not, and cannot be expected to have, the

expert knowledge necessary to enable them to
appraise the commercial possibilities of schemes of
this kind. Even if they had the special kind of
acumen necessary for this purpose, they could
scarcely undertake the business without incurring
the disadvantages of a lock up of capital, which is the
very opposite of British banking policy.

Mr. Wilson Fox gave another example, derived
from his experience in connection with the Victoria
Falls Power Company in South Africa. It was
found impossible to get financial backing for that
scheme in this country. But the Allgemeine Elec-
trizitats Gesellschaft, after careful consideration, and
critical investigation by experts, agreed to find the
money, provided that they had the contract for
supplying the plant. The result was that a syndicate
of German banks provided debentures of £2,000,000,
and enabled a prosperous undertaking to be founded
in an English colony by the aid of German money.

It is true that the two great enterprises mentioned
above are in some respects peculiar. But we imagine
that the British Trade Corporation is not intended to
confine its attention to big schemes of this kind,
which by their very magnitude lie beyond the
capacity of ordinary company promotion as conducted
in this country. We take it that the small trader
will receive an equal share of its assistance. Sir
J. D. Rees very aptly referred to the well-known
case of the monazite deposits of Travancore. There
was, he said, nobody to support a British company
in exploiting these sands, which passed entirely into
German hands, with consequences with which we
are all sufficiently familiar.

Some attempt was made, in the course of the
debate, to suggest that the business secured by
Germany by its banking facilities was of doubtful
advantage, but this view is not that which has been
taken by the Chambers of Commerce, and others who
have long recognised the need in this country for
an institution of the kind advocated by Lord
Faringdon’s Committee. The main point, and one
not greatly illuminated by the House of Commons
debate, is whether the British Trade Corporation will
be in a position to discharge adequately the duties
which it is designed to undertake. Will it afford
material assistance to the small trader, who. after all,
is the party to whom aid is most essential ? The big
concerns can generally be left to look after them-
selves. The answer to the above question can only
be given after the British Trade Corporation has got
seriously to work in its capacity of financiers and
company promoters. Much of the House of Commons
criticism was based upon a certain amount of pique,
because the Charter had been granted without
consultation of the members. Many of the other
objections raised were trivial in comparison with the
main object in view, which is to give to British
enterprise the same facilities that the Germans have
so long enjoyed. It is useless to point to the magni-
tude of British overseas trade as proving that these
facilities are not needed; and they will be wanted
more than ever when the war is over.

At the recent meeting of the
Spontaneous Institution of Mining Engineers in
Firing Of London Dr. Haldane read a paper
Coal. reviewing the work done during the
last four years in the Doncaster Coal
Owners’ Research Laboratory. During that period
no less than 13 papers have been published upon
the subject of spontaneous ignition of coal. When,
last week, we drew attention to the present position
of coal research as seen through German eyes, we
made little or no reference to the special investi-
gations carried on in this country with regard mainly
to the physical properties of coal as bearing upon
the question of safety in working. The researches
referred to by Prof. Fischer were mainly chemical
and technological; while those conducted at Altofts,
Eskmeals and at Doncaster have been chiefly con-
cerned with the physical explanation of colliery
accidents arising from ignition or explosion. Between
these two aspects of coal research there are both
differences and inter-connections. Ultimately they
each depend upon that single elusive factor, the
nature of the coal substance, about which we are
still without any definite knowledge. The Doncaster
experiments, for example, have thrown much light
upon the physical laws governing the rate of
oxidation of coal and the heating effect produced by
this process. But we are still ignorant of the

chemistry of the reaction, because we do not yet
know what is the composition of that constituent of
the coal which is responsible for the oxidation.
What is this easily oxidisable component of coal ?
Has it any relation to the pyridine extract, upon
which many of the physical properties of coal appear
to depend? Dr. Haldane, if we rightly interpret
his conclusions, appears to believe that there are
different varieties of easily oxidisable material, each
possessing its own critical temperature of oxidation.
Thus coal which has practically ceased to absorb
oxygen at one temperature may again oxidise, and
at a faster rate, when the temperature rises. This
conclusion seems to rest mainly upon the fact that at
the higher temperature, not only is the rate of
oxidation increased, but the total amount of oxygen
absorbed is also greater. This, however, is not
necessarily the true explanation of the facts. In
physical chemistry there are, we think, numerous
examples of oxidation by successive stages until a
final end-product is reached. In such cases, each
stage has a small range of stability of its own. The
fact that the amount of oxygen absorbed increases
at the higher temperature may obviously be due to
the chemical nature of the equilibrium product that
is formed. It is, therefore, possible that there may
be only one original constituent of the coal which is
responsible for the oxidation phenomena observed.

There is still some mystery with regard to the
chemical changes produced by oxygen absorption.
It seems to be certain that it is not a case of slow
combustion in the ordinary sense ; for less than half
the theoretical thermal effect is produced, and the
production of carbon dioxide is too small. At low
temperatures very little carbon dioxide was found
by Mr. J. Graham to be produced, and even at
160 degs. Gent., only about half the oxygen taken up
by the coal is given off as carbon dioxide. The
problem is complicated by the fact that oxygen is
taken up by coal in two ways—viz., partly in
chemical combination, and partly by adsorption, the
latter portion being recoverable under the air pump.
We do not know exactly what happens ultimately to
the adsorbed oxygen, but it might be expected that
this would all the time be slowly going into chemical
combination, perhaps at a rate too small for
laboratory detection. Neither do we know whether
the quantity of adsorbed oxygen is governed by the
same factors as the chemically combined oxygen.
Do these coals which heat most readily also show the
most pronounced adsorption ? The physical explana-
tion of adsorption is generally considered to depend
upon surface tension; and it by no means follows
that the easily oxidisable constituent of coal, what-
ever it may be, is also responsible for the adsorption
phenomena.

Then, again, we have the interesting fact proved
by Messrs. Winmill and Graham that a little carbon
monoxide is always produced in laboratory experi-
ments on spontaneous oxidation of coal at ordinary
temperatures, even in the presence of a large excess
of oxygen. This rather remarkable fact had, indeed,
previously been noticed by Dr. Haldane. But
as carbon monoxide is not discoverable in ordinary
samples of blackdamp collected in the mine, there is
here a suspicion ,that something happens in the
laboratory experiments which does not take place
underground. As Dr. Haldane observes, there is
here still an unsolved mystery needing further
investigation.

With regard to the part played by pyrites in the
production of gob-fires, the position now seems to be
fairly clear. The cubical pyrites, as found in the
Barnsley seam, appears to be perfectly stable, as
would be expected. In other cases—as, for example,
in the Bullhurst seam and in some of the ell coals of
Scotland—there is present the unstable form of
pyrites known as marcasite, which oxidises rapidly
and contributes largely to the heating effect. Dr.
Haldane remarks that the crystalline form appears
to protect the pyrites in some way from oxidation.
This is not, perhaps, quite the way in which the
mineralogist has been accustomed to view the
matter; because the unstable form of pyrites—i.e.,
marcasite—is often also crystalline, being, however,
ortho-rhombic instead of cubical. Ortho-rhombic
pyrites, in the absence of oxygen, is almost as bright
and crystalline as the “brasses” of the Barnsley
seam or of the Ballachulish slates. It is probable, as
Dr. Haldane suggests, that the oxidation of
marcasite, with formation of sulphuric acid, may