April 5, 1918. THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN. 697 LANCASHIRE AND CHESHIRE COLLIERY UNDER-MANAGERS’ ASSOCIATION. 6, Colin Street, Wigan Lane, Wigan (General Secretary: JOSEPH BUTLER). MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF COLLIERY UNDER-MANAGERS OF GREAT BRITAIN. The Council desire to make an earnest Appeal to all Under-Managers who are not yet members of any association to correspond with SECRETARY at the above Address, when Particulars of Membership will be forwarded, and Branches formed at Convenient Centres. FOR SALE. 1 Qk Tons Bridge Rails, 22-lb. section, JL^bb/ in 6, 9,12 ft. lengths. 5 VERTICAL BOILERS, from 5 ft. 6 in. to 11 ft. 6 in., 80 lb. pressure. 10 TIP WAGONS, Manchester Ship Canal type, 3 ft. gauge. 25 TONS GIRDERS, various sizes, from 10 to 40 ft. lengths. JOSEPH OXLEY, Vicar-lane, SHEFFIELD. ’Phone 830 Central. Grams. “ Stability.” _________3720 „___________________________________________ Wanted, 2 New or Second-hand Powerful HAND WINCHES, for a safe load of 5 tons, to hold 300 yards of l&in. dia. rope.—Apply, Box 7037, Colliery Guardian Office, 30 & 31, Furnival-street, Holborn, London, E.C. 4. In Crown 8vo. Cloth. Pp. i-vii+221. With 113 Illustrations. 6s. Od. net. Compressed Air-Practice in Mining. By DAVID PENMAN, B.Sc. CONTENTS.—Fundamental Principles—Efficiency of Compressors and Air Motors— Indicator Diagrams — Reciprocating Air Compressors — The Turbo Compressor—Transmission of Power —In-bye Compressors — Coal- Cutting Machinery—Underground Conveyors—Rock Drills—Other Applica- tions of Compressed Air—Compressed Air Compared with other Modes of Transmitting Power—Appendix—Index. Fourth Edition. In Crown 8vo. Handsome Cloth. Pp. i-x+353. Thoroughly Revised Throughout. 9s. net. Electrical Practice in Collieries. By Prof. D. BURNS, M.E., M.Inst.M.E. Professor of Mining and Geology, the Royal Technical College, Glasgow. LONDON : CHAS. GRIFFIN & CO. LTD., Exeter St., Strand, W.C. 2. J* W. BAIRD AND COMPANY, PITWOOD IMPORTERS, WEST HARTLEPOOL. YEARLY CONTRACTS ENTERED IVTO WITH COLLIERIES. OSBECK & COMPANY LIMITED, PIT-TIMBER MERCHANTS, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE. SUPPLY ALL KINDS OF COLLIERY TIMBER. Telegrams—“ Osbecks, Newcastle-on-Tyne.” *** For other Miscellaneous Advertisements see Last White Page. AND Journal of the Coal and Iron Trades. Joint Editors— J. V. ELSDEN, D.Sc. (Lond.), F.G.S. HUBERT GREENWELL, F.S.S., Assoc.M.I.M.E. {At present on Active Service). LONDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 1918. The London coal market assembled on Wednes- day after an interval ef nine days. The depots report a fair stock of coal on hand* Country stations are now having more attention. Steam coals (excepting smalls) in Northumberland and Durham are readily absorbed, and gas, coking and manufacturing sorts are in brisk demand. Bunkers have improved, as shipping is freer. Both house coal and industrial fuel were inclined to be quieter in Lancashire this week. Steams and manu- facturing sorts are scarce in Yorkshire, and a keen demand exists for nuts and rough slack. The Hull market is firm. Owing to the holiday break, busi- ness in South Wales is negligible, and stocks are large. In Scotland the demand for all classes of coal is maintained, and collieries have plenty of orders. The Lothian collieries have a considerable quantity of Admiralty orders on their books, and local demands are improving. Anthracite qualities are plentiful in South Wales this week and the demand is slow, no fresh business being forthcoming. Business in the freight market is very difficult, and very few fixtures are reported. Forward loadings are fairly numerous in Newcastle. Humber to London is still quoted at 17s. The market in South Wales is quiet but firm. The executive of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain decided, as a national organisation, to abstain from co-operating in the comb-out of miners. Great numbers of the men are enlisting voluntarily. The workmen’s section of the Coal Conciliation Board for the federated districts decided upon pro- posals for a new wage agreement. Notice has been given to terminate the present agreement. The annual meeting of the Mining Institute of Scotland will be held in the Royal Technical College, George-street, Glasgow, to-morrow (Saturday), com- mencing at 3 p.m. Mr. D. M. Mowat’s paper on “Capital Charges Contrasted with Current Expenses,” Mr. H. Rowan’s paper on “ Stripping and Relining a Shaft at Cowdenbeath, Fife,” and Mr. R. W. Dron’s on “ The Occurrence of Coking Coal in Scotland” will be discussed. A paper on “The Education (Scotland) Bill ” will be read. Yet another paper has been added Local to the recent contributions to the Taxation, subject of local rates ; but the theme is so inexhaustible, and has so many points of view, that its treatment is scarcely likely to be overdone. The paper read by Mr. Edgar J. Harper on the 19th ult. before the Royal Statistical Society was directed mainly against the principle of ratable value, which the author declares to be economically unsound, and to constitute an obstacle in the path of all measures of reconstruction. We propose to examine this argument so far only as it appears to touch certain matters of special interest. Amongst other popular misapprehensions, the author calls attention to the common belief that local taxation is raised on the single basis of the net annual value of hereditaments. This is not the case, since there are many total and partial exemptions—in many cases under statutory authority. The Royal Commission came to the conclusion that this system of exemptions is inadvisable, and should not be further extended, since it introduces inequalities, and gives the advantage to parishes having a large proportion of exempted property. Coming next to the vexed question of rating of machinery, Mr. Harper states that the courts, as a result of considerable litigation, have held that in estimating the annual value of a building containing machinery, such machinery, while not to be valued per se, must nevertheless be taken into account in so far as it enhances the value of the premises for the purpose for which they are used. This course involves serious hardship where a large amount of machinery has been installed; and machinery users have for many years been engaged in an effort to secure the exclusion of machinery from consideration in arriving at annual value. Again, the principle of the hypothetical tenant, as has often been shown, is altogether unworkable in the case of many profit- earning undertakings. For example, as Lord Campbell pointed out many years ago, it is adopting an absurd supposition to imagine that any person would be found willing to take over as a yearly tenant that portion of a railway which passes through a single parish. Under the system of valuation in such cases, as usually adopted by the overseers, good management is penalised, and where, by mismanage- ment, the project is financially unsuccessful, the concern may escape paying any rates at all. In the case of woodlands—of particular interest in these days when afforestation should be encouraged —the Rating Act of 1874 leaves to the assessment committee considerable latitude in fixing a basis of valuation according to the use of the land for the growth of saleable underwood dr otherwise. The author’s contention from these and other examples is that ratable value is an unsound basis, because it tends to distribute the charge unequally, and acts as an obstacle to the growth of industry by taxing an occupier upon his expenditure. Mr. Harper then proceeds to examine the principle of ability to pay. It has often been argued that rental value is a true criterion of a man’s ability to pay. The Departmental Committee on Local Taxation, in a majority report published in 1914, admitted that rental value could only be a rough approxi- mation to ability to pay. The minority report went further and condemned this principle as unsatisfactory. A considerable portion of this paper is devoted to the discussion of the influence of the rental value basis of taxation upon the development of land for building purposes. This aspect of the matter is of special interest now that the housing question is so prominently in the public eye. Nor is the mischief confined to new buildings. It also tends to discourage improvements and generally to retard the adoption of housing schemes. In discussing the attempts which have been made to reform the system of local taxation, mention is made of Lord Goschen’s Committee in 1870, as result of which two Bills were introduced into Parliament, the main object of which was to divide the rates between owners and occupiers in accordance with the practice in Scotland. These Bills, as well as another introduced by Mr. Walter Long in 1914, fell through. Equally abortive was the Premier’s proposal in the 1914 Budget, which had to give way to the greater demands of the war. If we may venture to offer an opinion upon our interpretation of Mr. Harper’s views with regard to this question, we should urge that one of the first measures of rating reform should be to introduce some uniformity of principle. In recent discussions upon the subject it has been shown what a chaotic state of affairs exists in regard to the rating of mines. The question of the incidence of the rates seems to be of less practical importance than that of the assessment basis; and the poverty of sound constructive schemes in the midst of so much destructive criticism is in itself a striking testimony to the inherent difficulties of the problem. The conditions of coal production in Coal Control India and the shortage in supplies in India. have led to the appointment of Mr, G. C. Godfrey as Coal Con- troller, with the assistance of Mr. R. W. Church as his deputy. The adoption of this course serves as a reminder of the world-wide influence of the war. The scheme which Mr. Godfrey has evolved for improving the position has aroused a considerable amount of criticism amongst the Indian coal trade. Briefly, attention has been fixed upon the following questions, viz., (1) fixing a maximum price for the various better-class coals; (2) stopping inferior coal from getting into the market, and (3) making the best use of labour for the purpose of producing serviceable fuel. The situation had become unsatisfactory under the old scheme, under which the owners of first-class collieries were compelled to hand over their produce to the Government at a fixed price, while second and third-class coals had a free market and were able to command a higher price than was possible in the case of the better sorts. Under normal conditions, first-class fuel more than maintained its position by the laws of supply and demand, and collieries pro- ducing inferior kinds had a difficult task to make both ends meet; and for some years they had been having an exceedingly poor time—about half of them having failed to pay any dividends and many having been compelled to close down. When, therefore, the first-class collieries were requisitioned, it was natural that the producers of lower grades should have felt that their chance had come. On the other hand, there are many who believe that the Indian coal trade has suffered considerably from the indis- criminate marketing of inferior fuel, and they are therefore inclined to welcome any proposal for driving out the lower grade coals. The difficulty seems to lie in the definition of what is to be called first-class fuel, about which there appears to be some difference of opinion. To all such questions, however, there is the obvious answer that Government requirements were in grave danger of not being forthcoming. The situation was aggravated by the labour question, and there was the ever-present danger of miners being induced to leave the first-class pits to seek higher wages in the inferior coal mines. Then, again, there is the question of transport. The supply of wagons for coal conveyance has been a continually-recurring difficulty on Indian railways, and, at a time of stress like the present, it is clearly bad economy to utilise rolling stock for the carriage of poor coal. It unfortunately happens that the racial problem enters largely into this question. The majority of the low-grade, outcrop mines belong to native pro- prietors, many of whom first entered the coal trade as labour contractors. These natives form the majority of the members of the Indian Mining Federation, the owners of the better class collieries belonging chiefly to the Indian Mining Association. Thus the Coal Controller has by no means an easy task to reconcile the interests concerned, and it is not surprising that some of his proceedings have excited strong comment. Especially has this been the case with his action in restricting the supply of wagons. Neither the Mining Association nor the Mining Federation have been at all pleased with the arbitrary proceedings of the Coal Controller. The coal trade in India seems to have been greatly per- plexed at the situation which has arisen, in which there is the apparent paradox of an enforced restric- tion of output at a time when the demand for coal exceeds the supply. There is a prevalent feeling that the Coal Controller will not succeed in increasing the output of the first-class collieries by restricting that of the lower grades. We are not, however, disposed to offer any opinion as to the merits of these criticisms. Under present conditions of delayed communications, and other adverse circumstances, it is not easy to maintain a close touch with Indian