July 5, 1918.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

25

J. W. BAIRD AND COMPANY,

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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, JULY 5, 1918.

The London market continues very short of
supplies, steam coals being particularly scarce.

All grades of fuel in Northumberland and Durham
are scarce, and prices do not show any sign of
weakening. . The Norwegian State Railways have
placed orders for 14,000 tons of best steams at 60s.
The pressure for supplies remains very strong in
Lancashire and Yorkshire, and the reports from the
Midlands show the same state of affairs. Supplies
everywhere are inadequate. There is a firm demand
for best qualities of both large and small steams in
South Wales, but inferior grades are more plentiful.
The demand in Scotland is unabated.

Chartering is quiet, but the enquiry from non-
limitation ports is good in Newcastle. Scandinavian
rates have advanced. South Wales fixtures have
been confined practically to scheduled ports.

A substantial reduction in the coal output has
occurred in consequence of an epidemic of influenza,
which in many collieries has incapacitated over 50
per cent, of the men.

A new Household Euel and Lighting Order has
been issued. The object is to save not less than a
quarter of the coal hitherto available for domestic
use, whether in the form of coal itself, or of gas and
electricity produced from it.

JIhe annual conference of the Miners’ Federation
of South Wales was opened at Cardiff on Tuesday.
The agenda contained motions relating to the entire
abolition of Sunday labour, a five-day week of
six hours daily, and £1 a day pay to all workmen
above 18 ; the abolition of the Daylight Saving Act;
pensions for all workmen after 35 years in mines;
and substitution of standard rates of wages for piece
.rates.

The annual conference of the Miners’ Federation
of Great Britain will be opened at Southport on
Tuesday next. The agenda includes proposals for
a six-hours working day; the abolition of all piece-
work ; alteration of the Conciliation Board procedure
with regard to advances in wages; compulsory pro-
vision of pithead baths; Government payment of
firemen and deputies, etc.

The Departmental Committee ap-
The pointed in 1916 by the Board of
Coal Trade Trade to consider the position of the
after coal trade after the war, sat origin-
the War. ally under the chairmanship of the
late Lord Rhondda until he became
President of the Local Government Board, when Sir
Adam Nimmo took his place. Both the composition
of the Committee and the standing of the witnesses
who gave evidence before it, entitle their views to
the serious consideration of the Government, if
authority and experience are allowed due weight.
The chief business of the Committee was to consider
the position of the coal trade after the war with
special reference to international competition, and to
report what measures, if any, are necessary or desir-
able to safeguard that position. It is essential to
keep clearly in mind what this Committee was asked
to investigate. It was not their business to consider
questions of policy or national expediency, but
rather, as business men, to state what, in their
opinion, is requisite to restore and sustain the great
industry which they represent. We can imagine
that their conclusions will not obtain the unqualified
approval of some exponents of theoretical economics
who are not so much concerned with the prosperity
of the coal industry as with the advancement of
certain visionary doctrines and academic principles.
These, however, need not concern us for the moment.
We have to examine this report solely from the point
of view of the coal trade, and upon the assumption
that the national interest is absolutely bound up in
its continued and, if possible, its increased prosperity.
Let us take, for example, the coal export trade,

which many would like to see curtailed, or even, in
extreme cases, prohibited. If this were done it
would result in throwing out of employment a large
number of men, as well as a serious loss to the
country of a considerable amount of wealth. It
would, as the Committee state, have a serious effect
upon the shipping tonnage engaged in overseas
trade, and would both raise the level of homeward
freights and the cost of bringing food and raw
materials to our ports. More than this, it would raise
the cost of the coal consumed in this country, and
would lead to a serious loss to those railway and dock
concerns which have been established to deal with
this class of business. These considerations have in
fact already received the sanction of the Royal Com-
mission on Coal Supplies, who gave careful attention
to this question. The conclusions then arrived at
have never been questioned, and they have been
accepted hitherto as incontrovertible propositions.

The restoration' of the coal export trade to its pre-
war level must necessarily depend upon the tonnage
available for the purpose; and the Committee foresee
the absolute necessity of securing enemy tonnage
to replace, as far as possible, our losses due to sub-
marine action. Otherwise this country will be
placed at a disadvantage as compared with Germany,
whose coal exports are largely conveyed by rail and
canal.

But the country is concerned. not only with the
restoration of pre-war conditions, but also with the
anticipated expansion of the coal trade. It is esti-
mated that in the next decade a considerable increase
in coal output may be expected. The Committee
gives reasons for concluding that the total coal pro-
duction in the United Kingdom in 1927 should
exceed that of 1913 by an amount between 28 and
34 million tons. This view, by the way, is in contrast
with the opinion of the Royal Commission on Coal
Supplies, which came to the conclusion that the output
curve had already nearly reached its peak, and would
shortly show a decline.

Admitting, however, that the anticipated expansion
in output is possible, it is important to consider how
it will be absorbed, The Committee looks to foreign
markets rather than to home consumption for the
increased demand, and there is much to be said in
favour of this view. For although a large increase
may be anticipated, in our manufacturing industries,
there are ways and means by which greater economy
in fuel consumption will probably be secured, and
the high cost of coal, which will certainly be main-
tained after the war, will be a direct incentive to the
introduction of fuel-saving devices in every possible
direction. Foreign markets, however, are practically
unlimited, and although high prices will also tend to
promote economies abroad, the comparative scarcity
of fuel supplies over large areas will ensure the
absorption of all the coal we can reasonably expect
to export for many years to come, provided that we
are not unduly hampered by foreign competition.

Thus, the Committee arrives at the conclusion that
the policy of the country should be directed towards
stimulating the coal export trade in every possible
way. To this end it will be necessary, in the first
place, to remove all the artificial restrictions now in
force. The next step will obviously be to increase
the supply of tonnage.

An increased output will also demand an adequate
supply of labour, and the reinstatement as soon as
possible of miners now engaged on military duties.
The output per person employed should also be
raised, not only by the more general use of labour-
saving appliances, but also by the abandonment by
the men of the policy of restriction. The. men,
whether rightly or otherwise, have acquired the
notion that wage rates are adversely affected by
increased output. This idea should be dispelled, and
the men should receive some assurance that their
earnings will not only not be diminished by increased
efforts in production, but that they will receive the
full rewards of diligence. We regard this as one of
the most essential conditions for the continued
prosperity of the coal trade. Precisely how it can
be accomplished will be a matter for negotiation
between masters and men, but it should not be
beyond the bounds of possibility to come to an under-
standing upon this point. Without more cordial
co-operation between employers and workmen, the
speedy recovery of the country from the effects of
the war can scarcely be achieved.

Amongst other recommendations by the Committee
are the establishment of a statutory tribunal to
enforce the granting of wayleaves, and to facilitate
the erection of coke ovens, by-product plants,
chemical works and workmen’s dwellings on land
adjoining collieries. The effect of the Land Valua-
tion Act has been detrimental to building operations
generally, and mineral leases do not, as a rule, confer
any right to erect works of the above description.
Leases, therefore, should be made more elastic, and
statutory power should be given to fix the requisite
conditions. It is pointed out, also, that the law of
support, in its present state, leads to avoidable loss
of coal beneath public works, railways and canals.

Other suggestions, covering the improvement of
dock facilities, both at home and in foreign ports, the
compilation of monthly statistics of trade in British
coal, and the improvement of foreign commercial
intelligence, bring to a conclusion this valuable and
business-like report.

Nothing is more profitable to the
Blackdamp scientific mind than a critical exami-
in Mines, tion of accepted theories regarding
common phenomena. A good illus-
tration of the truth of this assertion is afforded by
the paper on the “Origin of Blackdamp,” read last
week by Mr. J. Ivon Graham before the Institution of
Mining Engineers. It might have been concluded
that the last word had been said upon this subject
when Dr. Haldane and Sir W. N. Atkinson showed
that pure blackdamp is a mixture of carbon dioxide
and nitrogen, such as might be expected to result
from the oxidation of coal in air. Ttere still
remains to be solved, however, the problem of varia-
tion in composition of this gas, and its occasional
occurrence in abnormal quantities—as, for example,
in the remarkable outburst which took place some
years back at a pit in the Gard coal field in France.
There are also other examples of a similar nature,
and the conclusion seems to be warranted that there
are at least two varieties of blackdamp, which may be
distinguished as normal and abnormal respectively.

Mr. Graham now shows, as a result of numerous
experiments, that the relative proportions of carbon
dioxide and nitrogen present in blackdamp are seldom,
if ever, consistent with the view that the oxidation
of coal alone is responsible for its production. Thus,
powdered coal from the Barnsley seam was found
capable of abstracting all the oxygen from a given
volume of air without producing any appreciable
volume of carbon dioxide at all. If blackdamp is
simply a residual gas resulting from the oxidation
of carbon in air, for every hundred volumes of
oxygen absorbed there should be produced nearly
sixty-seven volumes of carbon dioxide. But the
experiments conducted by Mr. Graham show that
this result was never attained even after a long
period. A certain amount of the deficiency was
shown to be due to the adsorption of carbon dioxide
by finely divided coal, which phenomena is more
marked when the coal is moist; but even when this
difficulty is overcome by using a continuous air
current, there is still found a considerable deficiency
as compared with the theoretical production of black-
damp: Still another difficulty arises from the fact
that carbon monoxide is produced by the oxidation
of old coal dust, its amount increasing slightly with
the time of oxidation. Carbon monoxide, therefore,
would be expected to occur as a normal constituent
of blackdamp. But this gas does not form any
appreciable quantity of normal blackdamp, and, on
the whole, it appears to be necessary to accept
Mr. Graham’s conclusion that some other explanation
must be sought for the composition of blackdamp
when it shows a high percentage of carbon dioxide.

Looking for other possible causes, Mr. Graham
first considers the question of the oxidation of mine
timber, and he thinks that this is a very probable
cause in certain pits where timber is plentiful and
the mine is wet. Prof. Groom, in discussing this
matter, points out that the production of carbon
dioxide from decaying pit timber may be ascribed to
the normal exhalation of fungi, but that it might
also conceivably be the result of the action of
anaerobic bacteria on the cellulose of the wood.
Whether he was right, however, in suggesting that
methane—and even hydrogen—might be evolved
from timber fermentation must be regarded as
problematical. There is still much to learn respecting
the behaviour of buried timber in a mine. As
Dr. Haldane pointed out, timber will last for very
long periods of time if kept thoroughly wet, but
soon decays if it is liable to alternations of wet and
dryness. A further possible source of blackdamp in
mines is to be found in the action of acid water upon
carbonates, which in some pits is very likely to occur,
and it would easily explain certain occurrences of
blackdamp in which the proportion of carbon dioxide
is fairly high. With regard to the mystery of carbon
monoxide, there is still room for further investiga-
tion. Dr. Haldane finds that the behaviour of this
gas in the presence of other gases is often unintelli-
gible, and he refers to its strange disappearance
when coal gas is kept for some time over water. It
is equally mysterious in its unexpected appearance
in certain cases—as, for example, in coal bunkers,
where carbon monoxide poisoning has been known
to occur among the trimmers.

It is fortunate, perhaps, as Mr. Mowat points out,
that, owing to better ventilation of the pits, the
blackdamp problem has lost much of its former
interest, when pits were shallow and mine air was
far more dangerous than now. It is undoubtedly a
fact that the increasing risks of firedamp, as the pits
become deeper, have resulted in greater freedom from
the effects of chokedamp. But we do not, on that
account, regard Mr. Graham’s paper as being in the
least degree academic. His researches on the
chemistry of coal oxidation have already added
considerably to our stock of information upon this
subject, and he is to be congratulated upon the skill
and energy with which he attacks the further
problems that present themselves. Every research
opens up new fields for investigation, and carries us
further towards the attainment of a more complete
knowledge of the chemistry of coal Researches like
those carried on in the Doncaster Coal Owners’
laboratory encourage the hope that the time will
speedily arrive when there will be no longer such
mysteries as those which still surround this subject.