July 19, 1918. THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN 133 SOUTH WALES MINING TIMBER TRADE. The imports of foreign pitwood into South Wales ports for the week ended July 12 were as follows :— Date. Consignee. Loads. July 6 Budd and Co............... 66 „ 6 Grant Hayward and Co..... 90 „ 6 Grant Hayward and Co..... 120 „ 6 Evans and Reid ............ 60 „ 6 E. Marcesche and Co........ 48 „ 6 Vyvyan Kelly and Co.... 2,620 „ 6 Lysberg Limited .......... 192 „ 6 Lysberg Limited .......... 192 ,, 8 T. P. Thomas and Co....... 600 „ 8 E. Marcesche and Co...... 108 „ 8 Lysberg Limited .......... 240 „ 8 Morgan and Cadogan........ 120 „ 10 E. Marcesche and Co........ 96 „ 10 Matthew Thompson ....... 2,800 „ 10 Morgan and Cadogan ....... 360 „ 11 Vyvyan Kelly and Co....... 1,200 „ 12 Lysberg Limited ........ 1,140 „ 12 Lysberg Limited ....... 2,400 „ 12 Lysberg Limited ........... 24 „ 12 Lysberg Limited ........ 1,200 Total..... 13,976 The quantity received was most satisfactory. These foreign supplies have been largely augmented by good imports from Ireland, a business which is increasing. Good quantities have also been received from Devonshire and Cornwall. The deliveries to collieries in the district have been heavier than for some time past. Notwith- standing the scarcity of hauliers and the further combing out of the younger men from the wood trade, the volume of deliveries to the collieries has increased. There is a prospect of collieries securing a larger reserve margin, which will be effectual in tiding over the periodical de- clines in delivery of home-grown wood during the bad weather of winter. THE LONDON COAL TRADE. Thursday, July 18. The London trade has been seriously exercised with reference to the recent advances in the pit prices. The 2s. 6d. rise on .June 24 was accepted without much demur, although some of the traders wrote and spoke very strongly about the short notice, but the further Is. 6d. from July 8 has completely obliterated any further protests. From indications already received from the Board of Trade this seems to be the final advance contemplated. The tonnage coming forward has been materially reduced during the past week, both railborne and seaborne, for in addition to the unusually heavy tonnage commandeered for France, the output has been seriously lessened by so many of the miners suffering from influenza. One district computes that at least 20 per cent, of the men are away entirely on that account, and this fact on the top of the already dim- inished number of men following the calling up for the war, is telling upon the weekly tonnage. Many of the colliery representatives, however, realise that the higher rate of wages is having a deleterious effect upon the actual working. The new regulation has been made clear that the householder is entitled to the number of tons of coal in accordance with the number of rooms and 15,000 ft. of gas, or 300 units of electric light in addition to his quantity of coal, but the main problem is how to regulate the supply to two houses of precisely the same number of rooms—one occupied by a widower and housekeeper, and another occupied by husband, wife and seven or eight children. What would be a fair quantity for one is inadequate for another. Some little trouble seems to have arisen amongst shipping merchants owing to the new set of allocation orders issued by the local committees. The output of the various collieries must be allocated strictly in accordance with the several markets—firstly, the home trade; secondly, the Admiralty and the Allies ; and thirdly, the neutral export trade. But so many difficulties have arisen that at present something like a deadlock exists at some of the home ports. Both the Tyne and Humber ports are very busy, but supplies are very short. So far as London is concerned, a fair number of boats have been available, and no less than 50 vessels were reported on Monday’s market as arriving in the Thames, and 12 for Wednesday. No free coal, however, was offered. This will bring the weekly average beyond the normal. In the inland market the tonnage has fallen off since the special request has been in force for building up such a large stock of coal for France. Ass-»rances have been given that the maximum quantity must be maintained for the London district; but the special demand just now for Admiralty and shipping purposes does not permit much coal to come forward for the Metropolitan area, and, with such an extraordinary pressure from the general public, there is no possibility of putting coal in stock at the present moment. There are, however, still two or three summer months in view, and it is felt that if only the ordinary regular supplies are avail- able, the cellars may yet obtain a fair supply in anticipa- tion of the winter’s demand, leaving the winter output to cope as it did last winter with the pressing demands from the poorer neighbourhoods. Municipal bodies are busily engaged in an endeavour to make adequate provision for supplying their poorer constituents with a supply of fuel. To do this they are buying stocks at the present prices, in readiness to retail the coal in one hundredweight lots during the winter. Borough councils are taking the matter in hand freely, and although here and there some diffi- culties have arisen in connection with municipal trading, yet the exigencies of the war seem to warrant it, and the difficulties of the private purchaser are to a large extent shelved, in order to provide for this contingency. Collieries are largely in arrear with deliveries on account of contracts, and, now that the Controller is endeavouring to regulate the smaller output amongst the most pressing traders, it has become a severe tangle, resulting almost in a frantic endeavour to secure whatever coal is available. Fortu- nately the wagons, immediately on arrival at the stations in London, are cleared rapidly. The demand for gas coal is still very strong, and manufacturing coals are difficult to obtain. Slacks are also fetching good prices, and there is a good enquiry for all kinds. Railway companies are very heavy buyers, and are keenly alive to the pressing need for the contract supplies. Many of the merchants on the London market find it impossible to buy any coal, and are seriously concerned about their inability to put some coal into stock for the winter. From Messrs. Dinham, Fawcus and Company’s Report. Friday, July 12.—There was no alteration in the seaborne house coal market, no cargoes being on offer. Cargoes, 10. Monday, July 15.—Although there was a good arrival of colliers at to-day’s market the supply was fully arranged for, and no spare cargoes of seaborne house coal were on offer. Arrivals, 50. Wednesday, July 17.- The seaborne house coal market was rather quiet, although the demand for supplies keeps good. No cargoes available at present. Arrivals, 12. THE IRISH LOAL TRADE. Thursday, July 18. Dublin. The situation in the past week is unchanged. Some merchants have small supplies in stock, while others have none at all, and the outlook is now becoming very serious for manufacturers and other large consumers. In some instances only one or two qualities can be supplied by; the local firms, and no steam coal is offered. The following are the present quotations for house coal : Orrell, 56s. 6d. and 55s. fid. ; Wigan, 54s. 6d. ; Whitehaven, 54s. 6d. ; Pemberton Wigan, 53s. 6d. ; standard coal, 51s. ; slack, 50s. ; all less Is. per ton discount. At the Wolfhill Collieries (Queen’s County) work has been suspended for some time past, and has not yet been resumed. The com- pany is not at present in a position to quote prices, owing to the large number of orders on hand. Somewhat similar conditions prevail at the Castlecomer Collieries (County Kilkenny). The total quantity of coal discharged upon the Dublin quays during the past week from cross-Channel ports was 22,017 tons, as compared with 27,074 tons the week previously. At a recent meeting of the Port and Docks Board it was mentioned that the Corporation was asking the Board of Trade for power to cut off the entire supply of coal of any person or firm that used anything above two-thirds of the quantity which they used last year. Draft regulations have been approved with regard to the further conservation of coal supplies, and the Lord Mayor has been requested to convene a special meeting of the corporation in order to have them adopted. A depu- tation has been appointed to wait on the Irish Shipping Director with reference to the diversion of traffic and the waste of coal. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, accom- panied by the Trish Coal Controller, last weely visited the Arigna district and made a minute examination of the coal fields and the site for the proposed extension of the railway to serve the mines, extending from Arigna Station, on the Cavan and Leitrim Light Railway, along the Arigna Valley for about 3^ miles. The coal areas in Dungannon and Coalisland districts were also examined. Belfast. Business was somewhat interrupted last week by the July celebrations, and at the time of writing any prices quoted might be subject to alteration. Prices of house coal, recently advanced 3s. per ton, are as follow : Best Arley, 54s. per ton; Scotch house, 48s.; Orrell nuts, 53s.; Orrell slack, 50s. Supplies continue to be much below requirements, and stocks are low. It is stated that through the enterprise of a Dublin person, at present residing in Ballycastle, a coal field at Murlough Bay, Ballycastle, which has not been worked for 100 years, has been developed, and mines reopened on six seams of excellent coal, the product of the White mine being equal to the best imported coal. The seam which has been proved varies in thickness from 2 ft. 6 in. to 8 ft. One of these seams was worked extensively in 1790. The coal field is distinct from the workings at Ballycastle, which are the oldest in Ireland and are now being developed by a Scotch company. THE BY-PRODUCTS TRADE. Tar Products.—Both tar and pitch are practically un- changed in the London market, which means firm prices and steady demand. The pitch quotation—55s. per ton or more at makers’ works—and the tar control operate against any material development, although if shipping accommodation were better, the current price of pitch would not prevent a great rush of new business on foreign account. Regarding tar, the demand will grow by the very fact that a great deal of private and public work is necessarily in arrear. Meanwhile the position is a good one. Solvent naphtha is still in a dull state, which may be traceable very largely to the stocks already held by users, and we are not likely to have a revival for awhile. Heavy naphtha is in fair request. As 60 per cent, crude carbolic is not under control, the trend of business is largely governed by the seller’s standpoint, but an approxi- mate figure is 2s. 6d. per gallon ex works. The basis of transactions in the provinces is rather uncertain at present. Nothing else in the by-product market is moving outside ordinary lines, which under the control system have a great deal of sameness in them week after week. Sulphate of Ammonia.—A substantial business is current at the official price, and forward enquiries are numerous. THE TIN-PLATE TRADE. Liverpool. The tone of the market is firm, and the maximum official figure for coke tinplates—33s. to 33s. l|d. per basis box, net cash, f.o.t., at maker’s works is generally adhered to by all manufacturers, most of whom are fully booked up over the next two or three months. There is a steady demand for the home trade,,and top prices are freely paid. Wasters of all kinds are in demand ; 28 x 20 are exceed- ingly scarce. Terneplates in keg quality are in good request, but makers are so heavily booked up with this class of plate that it is difficult to obtain a quotation. Messrs. Guest, Keen and Nettlefold Limited, owners of Dowlais and other steel works, have promised £12,000 to the Merthyr Technical College funds. Offence Under the Coal Distribution Order. — At Bromley, Kent, Sir Everard Hambro, of Hayes Place, Hayes, was fined £30 and ordered to pay six guineas costs for having more coal than he was entitled to under the Coal Distribution Order. He had been allotted a year’s supply of 100 tons (including 19 tons already in his cellars), and was told in April that he could not have any more coal until the autumn, yet last month he accepted delivery of over 20 tons of anthracite from Swansea, and used 18 tons of it in his greenhouses. THE SOUTHPORT CONFERENCE. (From Our Labour Correspondent.) The decisions of the Southport Conference fore- shadows an aggressive campaign by the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, both as to working hours and wages. The real danger of the industrial posi- tion in the coal mining industry lies in the abnormal condition of national affairs. If we were in normal times this new and ambitious programme launched by the Southport Conference could be discussed on its merits—or, rather, demerits. Those' who engineered the Southport programme of a six-hours day, a five days working week, a National Wage Board in sub- stitution for the District Wages Boards, know all the national circumstances; they have their own represen- tatives on the Coal Controller’s Advisory Committee, and they have intimate inside knowledge of the posi- tion on the fighting front in France, in Italy, and in this country as to the requirements of coal supply. Hence the Southpbrt decisions savour of an attempt to exploit the nation’s peril for the advantage of the miners by demanding terms unobtainable under normal conditions. The resolution from the South Wales coalfield for a six-hours working day was unanimously carried. It provides for the obtaining of a six-hours working day by legislation and not by industrial action; so that it w’ould be a statutory offence to employ any man in the industry for a longer period than six hours in any one day of twenty-four hours. It is also proposed to strengthen the driving force of the Miners’ Federa- tion, great as that has proved to be, by an alliance of this campaign with the railwaymen and the transport workers; and the campaign is to be carried on during the war period, because therein lies the strength of the miners, the railway and transport workers to enforce demands which otherwise would be beyond the possibility of realisation. What is the real reason for this demand for a six hours working day? Is it that the men may have more leisure, more time for recreation, a fuller enjoy- ment of their lives? Nothing of the kind. These reasons might have been plausibly given, and the case for a reduction of the working hours from eight to six built up on this argument. But the promoters of the six hours working day have a different purpose; that purpose is the expropriation of the coal mines by the State, and the running of the industry not for the profit of those who have devoted their capital and technical skill to the development of the mines, nor for the profit of the State which is to confiscate the property of the private owners at the dictation of the men, but for the profit of the workmen them- selves. In a sentence, the income derived from the output of coal is to be divided among the workmen in the form of Wages. It is pure syndicalism. This is no reading of a meaning into the speeches, but the frank avowal of the mover of the resolution adopted by the conference. Mr. Frank Hodges said : u You can understand how difficult it will be to have a reduction of hours and maintain the wages and the profits without inflicting a terrible burden upon the community. Is the public to always bear the burden of maintaining the rate of profit to the owner? If we have a six hours working day, and wages and selling prices remain the same, the coal owner passes automatically out of this industry.” Here is an open avowal that the intention is to squeeze the coal owner out of the industry. Mr. Hodges emphasised this argument, for he went on to argue that it was possible to make the industry unremunerative for the owners of the mines. What are the lines along which the appeal is to be made to the railway and dock workers to come into alliance with the miners to force a six hours day from the State? It is that when the war ends and the present armies are demobilised, those industries will be unable to reabsorb the men who are now fighting for their country’s existence and for the liberty of the world. “The railwaymen know,” said Mr. Hodges, “ that their members who are at present engaged on active service cannot be reabsorbed into the railway industry under the present hours of labour. It is physically impossible to reabsorb the men in the railway industry without discharging large numbers of women who are now engaged therein. Can we reabsorb our 300,000 men on the eight hours working day? They cannot be reabsorbed, and if it were attempted to reabsorb them, you would have an economic effect which would be disastrous to the workers engaged in the industry.” Thus the workers who are now employed in the coal mining industry, in the railway service, and in the handling of over- sea-borne traffic at the docks are told that their present rates of wages and security of tenure in their present jobs depend upon the enforcement of a reduc- tion of hours by a statutory six hours day. But the miners will not be content with a statutory six hours day; they also want to enforce as a fixed arrangement in the coal mining industry a five days working week with six days’ pay. It is true that very few of the workmen employed in and about mines work more than five days a week; indeed, very large numbers of the men do not work regularly more than two, three or four days a week. When an increase in wages was granted some time ago to the South Wales miners, the coal owners’ secretary, Mr. Finlay Gibson, pointed out that one of its effects would be to increase the percentage of absenteeism, to make the irregular workmen still more irregular in their working time. That has proved to be so. And the payment of six days’ wages for five days’ work was actually put forward as a bonus or reward to the workman to do five days’ work. At a later stage of the conference, when they were discussing further demands for exemption from income tax by raising the taxable limit, it was stated that men were de- liberately absenting themselves from work because of their objection to having their earnings taxed. ‘ The- proposal to scrap the existing Conciliation Boards and to substitute for them a National Wages Board raises economic problems of considerable