440 THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN. March 1, 1918. MINERS AND MAN POWER. The conference of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, to consider the Government proposal for the recruitment of a further 50,000 men from the coal mines, met at the Central Hall, Westminster, on Wednesday. Mr. R. Smillie was in the chair, and there were present 169 delegates. The following are the decisions of the various districts:— Yorkshire.—In favour of a national ballot of all the men employed in the pits. Lancashire and Cheshire.—In favour of assisting the Government in recruiting the men required, conditional upon the combing out first of all A, B and C men who have come into the pits since August 1914. Midland Federation.—Same decision as Lancashire and Cheshire. Derbyshire.—Opposed to Federation assisting in recruiting. Nottinghamshire.—In favour of a ballot. Leicestershire.—In favour of a ballot. North Wales.—In favour of assisting, conditional upon comb-out of new men. Somerset.—Opposed to assisting the Government in recruiting. Bristol.—In favour of assisting recruiting. Scotland.—Opposed to National Service scheme and co-operation in recruiting. South Wales.—In favour of a ballot of the men. Northumberland.— Opposed to recruiting scheme, except with peace negotiations. Durham.—In favour of assisting in the recruiting scheme. Cleveland.—In favour of assisting recruiting scheme. Cumberland.—In favour of assisting, conditional upon comb-out of new men. Kent.—In favour of assisting. Mr. John Weir (Northumberland) urged that the war should be ended with a just peace, based on the proposals of British Labour. Mr. H. Twist (Lancashire) moved — “That the Federation assist in the recruitment of the further 50,000 men required, conditional upon the combing-out first of all A, B and C men who have come into the pits since August 1914.” He pointed out that there had been no response from Germany to the terms of peace suggested both by the Prime Minister and by British Labour. Mr. Frank Hodges (South Wales) and other speakers argued that the Blackpool conference decision meant the combing-out of all the men who had come into the pits during the war. Mr. J. E. Sutton, M.P. (Manchester) said the fair and reasonable interpretation of the Blackpool decision was the combing-out of all those new comers who were fit for some form of military service. It would be absurd to comb out men who could not be taken into the Army. Mr. J. Winstone moved that a ballot be taken of all the members of the Federation. He urged that it was their duty to have the actual opinion of the men. All three proposals were put as separate resolutions, and a majority was recorded in favour of the South Wales proposal. The conference decided that the ballot should be taken in the form of answers to the following questions:—(1) Shall the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain agree to the withdrawal of 50,000 men from the pits for military service ? (2) If so, shall the Federa- tion machinery be used for the purpose of finding the required number ? The conference, on Thursday, decided to ask for a meeting of the Triple Industrial Alliance of miners, railwaymen and transport workers to consider the questions of food supplies, wood prices, the feeding of children, income-tax, and soldiers and sailors’ pensions. POWER PLAMT ECONOMY. In a paper on “ Our Fuel Resources and Some Possible Improvements in their Utilisation,” which was read at a meeting of the Liverpool Engineering Society on February 20, Prof. W. H. Watkinson observed that the calorific value of coke oven gas was higher than was necessary for the gas used in heating coke ovens, and it would probably pay better to use producer gas for this purpose. The coal dealt with in coke ovens was being utilised as efficiently as that dealt with in the making of town’s gas, and when all the metallurgical coke was made in coke ovens, this branch of the coal utilising industry would be on a satisfactory footing. At present, however, only about two-thirds of this coke was made by by-product recovery ovens, the remaining one-third being still made in beehive ovens. In the iron and steel making industries, the fuel was also used in a relatively very economical manner. The power obtainable from blast furnaces was greater than the power needed in iron works. This surplus power might be transmitted electrically to adjacent steel works, or delivered into electrical trunk mains for general purposes. It had been proved that when coke ovens, blast furnaces, and steel works were combined, it was possible to make the finished steel without any coal beyond that fed into the coke ovens. The coke oven gas and the blast furnace gas together sufficed for all the heating required after the pig iron leaves the blast furnace, also for the generation of all the power required in the works. The same results could be obtained if the coal were coked near the colliery, and the coke and the gas sent to the combined iron and steel works, as none of the sensible heat of either the coke or the gas was utilised. The advantages of doing this would be that the iron works would be relieved of the coking and chemical parts of the work, and these would be more economically carried out on the bigger scale near the collieries. The reduction in the cost of transporting the reduced weight of solid fuel, coke instead of coal, would partly or completely compensate for the cost of piping the coke oven gas to the steel works. No saving in the total amount of coal consumed in the country would result from the use of electricity instead of coal for domestic heating purposes. The electrical method would really involve a considerable increase in the con- sumption of coal, owing to the low thermal efficiency of all heat engines. With the power plant now used in electricity works, over 90 per cent, of the heat due to the combustion of the coal in the boiler furnace was, on the average, utterly wasted at the works. Even in the proposed super-power stations, with units of 50,000 kw.. four-fifths of the heat due to the coal would be wasted at the power stations. For all low-tempera- ture heating purposes the electrical method started, therefore, with a very serious handicap. For high- temperature work, such as the refining of steel and other metallurgical processes, the advantages gained far outweighed the high cost per unit of heat obtained electrically. By the adoption of the super-power plant scheme and the super-gaswork scheme, it would pro- bably be possible to obtain from the tar by-product all the oil fuel required for the propulsion of all the ships of our Mercantile Marine, assuming that the oil was used as efficiently as in Diesel engines. It was stated that in the year 1913 Germany produced about a million tons of tar oil, and that practically all the heavy oil engines in Germany were driven by this kind of oil. In the discussion, Mr. W. J Willett Bruce said he regarded marine engineers in the past as the greatest delinquents in coal wastage. Although the state of things had improved, considerable wastage still occurred. LAW INTELLIGENCE. PRIZE COURT.—February 25-26. Before Sir S. Evans (President). Enemy Coal Cargo. Re Certain Dutch and Swedish Ships.—In the cases of the Dutch ships “ Leonora ” and “ Hermina ” and certain Swedish ships, questions were involved bearing upon the Reprisals Order of February 16, 1917. The Attorney-General (Sir Frederick Smith), appearing for the Crown, said Sweden had been in the habit of exporting iron ore to Germany, which was paid for by coal consigned by Germany from German or Belgian mines. The “ Leonora ” was chartered by an import and export company in Stockholm, whose agents at Rotterdam were a coal trading company. The charterers had done a large trade in importing coal during the war, and had estab- lished a monopoly for the sale of Belgian coal in Sweden. The coal trading company were agents in Holland of the Westphalian Coal Syndicate, and were under the control of German directors. The “ Leonora ” was seized as a prize on August 22, 1917. The Crown contended that no distinction could be made between property situate in Belgium and exported for German purposes. It was all property of enemy origin. The hearing was adjourned. THE TIN-PLATE TRADE. Liverpool. So far as the merchants are concerned, business has been exceedingly quiet here during the past week or so. The tone is quite firm, most manufacturers having as much on their books as they care about, and the full official maximum of 31s. 9d. basis net f.o.t. at works for coke finish is generally quoted. There is still a good demand for 28 x 20 wasters in both full weights and lights, but not much enquiry for other sizes is current at the moment. Terne-plates continue slow of sale. Cost of Sharpening Miners’ Picks. — At the Halifax County Court, the Low Moor Company Limited sued four of their miners for the cost of sharpening their picks. A claim of 10s. 6d. was made against George Bottomley, and this was taken as a test case. Mr. R. Watson, for plain- tiffs, said it had been the custom in the collieries of the company, and, he believed, in other collieries, for the colliers either to sharpen, or to provide a man to sharpen, their picks. When miners received their last increase in wages, they refused to give defendant an increase, and he ceased to work for them. Though another man was not engaged, the men continued to send their picks to be sharpened, and the company had the picks sharpened, and deducted the amount from their wages. The general manager of the collieries stated that in the company’s pits the men paid for tool sharpening, or the matter was arranged for in the price of coal getting. His Honour, in giving judgment for the amount claimed, hoped that the parties concerned would arrive at a friendly arrangement. Proposed Tax on Austrian Coal.—The coal tax proposed by the Austrian Government on January 29 is modelled on the German coal tax, which came into force on August 1, 1917, and amounts to 20 per cent, of the contract price at the pithead, or, in the case of imported coal, at the frontier. There are some differences; thus briquettes and coke pro- duced from lignite in Austria are not taxed; the tax is imposed only on the value of the crude lignite. The explan- ation is that the production of lignite briquettes in Austria only amounts to some 2,000,000 metric cwt. per annum, while in Germany most of the lignite is used in the form of briquettes. As in Germany, the tax is not payable on fuel used in the working of the mine, nor on that supplied to the employees of the mine. The latter quantity has been greatly reduced of late, as the general restrictions on the consumption of coal apply in this case. A provision not contained in the German law is that which gives exemption from or reduction of the tax on less valuable fuel used in the coal field districts for the production of electrical power or gas. Provision will be made to avoid duplication of taxes on imported and exported coal between Austria and Germany. The net yield of the tax is estimated at 140 to 150 million kronen. The tax will be shifted from the coal owner to the consumer, as has happened in Germany. It may hamper export when normal trading conditions are resumed; hence the tax is limited to 2| years, i.e., to the period ending July 31, 1920. With the present restricted consumption of household coal, the tax will not be a serious burden to householders, and a rebate of half the tax is allowed for small dwellings. The tax will, however, tell severely on industry. THE COAL AND IRON TRADES. Thursday, February 28. Scotland. - Western District. COAL. Business in the Scotch coal trade has quietened down a little, but there is a firm undertone, and collieries generally are well employed. In the West of Scotland industrial demands are still to the fore, and some qualities are diffi- cult to obtain. Deliveries of household sorts are still held up by a stoppage of work in connection with fillers’ and carriers’ wages. Shipments for the week amounted to 103,677 tons, compared with 91,804 in the preceding week, and 89,826 tons in the same week last year. Prices f.o.b. Glasgow. Current SL’st week’s Last year’s Steam coal.. Ell ........ Splint...... Treble nuts Double do. Single do. prices. i 27/6 26/6-28/ J 28/ -30/ 23/ .! 22/ / 21/ prices. 27/6 ; 26/6-28/ . 28/ -30/ 23/ 22/ 21/ prices. 18/ -24/ 19/ -22/ 22/ -31/ 24/ ‘ 22/ 20/ IRON. There is no diminution in the demand for Scotch pig iron. The bulk of the output is absorbed locally. Haematite continues in constant demand, large deliveries being made to local steelworks. Foundry quality is still very scarce, some brands being practically off the market for general consumption. Approximate prices are as follows .-—Monk- land and Carnbroe f.a.s. at Glasgow, Nos. 1,140s., Nos. 3,135s ; Govan, No. 1, 135s., No. 3, 130s.; Clyde, Summerlee, Calder and Langloan, Nos. 1, 150s., Nos. 3, 145s.; Glengarnock at Ardrossan, No. 1, 140s., No. 3, 135s.; Eglinton at Ardrossan or Troon and Dalmellington at Ayr, Nos. 1, 145s., Nos. 3, 135s.; Shotts at Leith, No. 1, 150s., No. 3, 145s. per ton. Producers of manufactured iron are kept at high pressure. At the malleable iron works the mills are constantly employed, the demand for all sizes of bars, more particu- larly the smaller sizes, being excessive. The home price of ordinary bars has been increased to <£13 17s. 6d. per ton, with export values still in the vicinity of £16 5s. per ton. The cost of nails has also advanced, but the turnover is as large as ever. Makers of cast iron pipes are putting through a lot of orders chiefly on Government account. Scotland. Eastern District. COAL. Conditions in the Lothians coal trade continue fairly brisk, and collieries have no difficulty in disposing of outputs. Shipments were 15,890 tons against 20,260 in the preceding week, and 20,569 tons in the same week last year. Prices f.o.b. Leith. Best screened steam coal... Secondary qualities..... Treble nuts ............ Double do............... Single do............... Current prices. 26/6 25/6 23/ 22/ 21/ L’st week’s prices. 26/6 25/6 23/ 22/ 21/ Last year’s prices 25/6 23/6-24/ 24/ 22/ 20/ Business in Fifeshire is also comparatively good all round. Shipments amounted to 36,916 tons against 33,102 in the preceding week, and 12,450 tons in the same week last year. Prices f.o.b. Methil or Burntisland. 1 Best screened navigation J coal Unscreened do First-class steam coal Third-class do. Treble nuts Double do Single do Current prices. 29/ -31/ 24/ -25/ 28/ 24/ 23/ 22/ 21/ L’st week’s prices. 29/ -31/ 24/ -25/ 28/ 24/ 23/ 22/ 21/ Last year’s prices. 30/ -32/6 24/6-26/ 26/ -26/6 20/ 24/ 22/ 19/ The aggregate shipments from Scottish ports during the past week amounted to 156,483 tons, compared with 145,166 in the preceding week, and 122,845 tons in the correspond- ing week of last year. All quoted prices apply only to French and Italian business ; for other orders 2s. 6d. per ton must be added. Northumberland, Durham and Cleveland. Newcastle-on-Tyne. COAL. The steam coal collieries have continued to be fairly well employed, mainly on official account, during the week under review. Gas coal pits, also, have been busiei than was the case some little time ago, but could still do with a very much greater volume of employment. Stocks both of steams and gas sorts are still excessive, and are readily obtainable at the bare scheduled minimum figures. The same is true of bunkers, which, apart from the demand for supplies for requisitioned steamers, are moving off exceed- ingly slowly. Smithies, coking sorts and households are still in large request for inland consumption, and the out- put is being absorbed to a degree that leaves very little to meet the considerable export demand. Coke, too, is actively taken up on home account, and export business is hampered by the smallness of the available surplus and the difficulty in obtaining licences. Tenders of 100,000 tons of steam coals for delivery to the Danish State railways from May to September were forwarded by Monday of this week, and much interest is taken in the allocation of this, the largest contract offered on the local market for a considerable time. There is as yet no news with reference to the allot- ment of the Norwegian State Railways contract for 16,000 tons of Northumberland and/or Durham best steams for April-May delivery.