November 6, 1914.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

977

much below the normal. , There has been no change
at Cardiff, and the amount of business transacted is
infinitesimal. Inactivity is still very marked in
Lancashire. The markets in the Midlands, however,
are more reassuring, Trade in Scotland continues
good in the west and very quiet in the east.

A committee consisting of representatives of the
Treasury, the Bank of England, the joint stock
banks, and the Association of Chambers of
Commerce of the United Kingdom has been formed
to advance money to British tenders in respect of
debts outstanding in foreign countries and the
colonies.

Two large collieries in Northumberland, the
Newburgh Colliery and the Pegswood Colliery, have
found it necessary to close down.

The committee appointed by the Home Office to
consider whether first aid certificates other than those
of the St. John and St. Andrew’s Associations should
be recognised for the purposes of the Coal Mines Act,
1911, has decided in the affirmative.

A Home Office prosecution against the Walker
Coal Company for alleged breaches of the Coal Mines
Act, 1911, was dismissed by the Newcastle magis-
trates last week.

The question of the recent Minimum Wage Award
for West Yorkshire has again claimed the attention
of the Yorkshire Miners’ Association, who have
resolved to urge the Miners’ Federation of Great
Britain to take immediate action in the matter.

The annual meeting oi the Lancashire and Cheshire
Coal Association took place at Manchester on Tuesday,
when Sir Henry Hall was elected president for the
ensuing year.

A Safety Lamp Order has been issued under date
October 7. The following lamps are thereby
approved : Flame safety lamps for use of officials only
—Messrs. J. H. Bothwell and Co.’s Al, A2, Cl and
C2 lamps. Electric lamps for general use: The
Bristol Safety Lamp, Type B.T. 4 V.; Manley and
Sandy (M. and S.) Miners’ Electric Safety Lamp
(with electric gas indicator). Electric safety lamp
for use by officials, or for special purposes only : The
Bristol Safety Lamp, Type BB 4V. There are amend-
ments also in the schedules to the Orders of August 26,
1913, and March 16, 1914, relating to Hailwood lamps
No. 01 and No. 01 S; Best’s “Excelsior” lamp
No. 1 ; Cremer Marsaut lamp No. 12 and Patterson
lamp No. 12; Messrs. John Davis and Son (Derby)
Ltd.’s No. 1 and No. 2 lamps; Mr. J. H. Naylor’s
Bifold Burner Marsaut, Marsaut A, and Marsaut
C lamps ; Messrs. J. H. Bothwell and Co.’s lamp A;
Teale’s “Protector” lamps Nos. 1 and 2, Standard
Bonnetted Marsaut lamp No. 4A, and “ Protector ”
lamps Nos. 1A and 2A; and the Cambrian lamps Nos.
1 and 3 An addition is made to the description of
the F.F.L. brand of glasses.

In issuing a compendium of the

An Official law relating to mines under the
Guide to the Coal Mines Act, 1911, the Home

Coal Mines	Office have done a really useful

Act.	thing. The volume of 172 pages

gives the text of the Coal Mines
Act, 1911, the Eight Hours Act, &c., with notes,
followed by lists of cases cited, Government publica-
tions, and official forms, with an excellent index to
the whole.*

Every colliery manager will appreciate the value
of such a work. Cross references to other provisions
of the Acts or of the Orders and Begulations enable
him to find all the information on any point of which
he may be in search instead of a part, as must be
the case when he has merely the text to guide him.
He is also told what forms and orders have been
issued, and what are still undelivered. As regards
the annotations, it is possible that there may be
some disposition to suspect a Home Office rendering
of the text, but, so far as we can discover, there
is no ground for this suspicion in the present
instance. No attempt apparently has been made
in the notes to furnish any technical commentary
on the provisions of the Acts. They are limited
to stating the effect of cases decided by the

* The Law Relating to Mines under the Coal Mines Act,
1911. 1914. H.M. Stationery Office. Price 2s.

superior courts, and to giving such explanations
of, or comments on, various provisions as seemed
likely to be helpful to those concerned with
administering or carrying out the Acts. It is
expressly stated that “such explanations have
no binding authority, but they give the views
which are taken by the Home Office, and on which
the Inspectors -of Mines are instructed to act in
administering the law.” It is something, at least,
to know what is at the back of the Home Office
mind, without the vexatious and costly expedient of
a prosecution, and we think the mining engineer will
discern the true motive of the work, for it is this
feature of the book that uplifts it above the ordinary
legal commentary.

In a future issue we shall discuss some of these
constructions, and refer in greater detail to this
useful volume ; in the meantime, we heartily
congratulate the Home Office on its enterprise.

There are hosts of good people
German to-day, albeit less sanguine than the
Collieries in late respected Mr. Micawber, who
England. are waiting for “ something to turn
up ”—to wit, the Germans. Miserable
themselves, by distorted views and haphazard
rumours, they do their best to make their neighbours
miserable also; like the Fat Boy in “Pickwick,”
their great desire is to make our flesh creep.

We are a fairly level-headed people, but since our
indefatigable war correspondents have made up for
the scarcity of military intelligence by fantastic tales
of hidden arsenals and gun emplacements on the
battlefields of France and Flanders, Zeppelin
bases have been discovered in the most unlikely
places, and every bit of concrete has been held to
convey a dire hidden meaning.

Under the circumstances it is not surprising that
our collieries should have come under the general
ban of suspicion. Every unfortunate borehole or
disused shaft can be converted, in fancy, into a
copious store for petrol or ammunition ; every colliery
engine-room becomes an ideal heavy gun emplace-
ment. We should really congratulate our mining
engineers upon their deep foresight in sinking shafts
in the valleys instead of on the neighbouring heights,
from which the enemy could make their assault;
what they would assault is not quite clear-, but no
range of fire is too great for the confirmed pessimist.
It is just as well, however, that the authorities should
be aware of these facts, for, on the approach of the
enemy, they will now be able to thwart his plans by
blowing up all the pithead gears.

We do not wish it to be thought for a moment
that we belittle the exercise of adequate precautions.
It is understood that the military authorities have
been examining the collieries and boreholes in the
county of Kent, and in view of the fact that large
numbers of German workmen were employed in the
boring and shaft sinking operations, and that the
usual diffidence has been shown in allowing outsiders
to trespass upon the precincts of the boreholes, it
would seem to be a matter of commonsense to examine
these sites, which command the whole of Dover
Harbour and its fortifications as well as Canterbury
Cathedral. In connection with the Kent coalfield,
another danger in this quarter ‘ was pointed out by
The Times some months ago. It wras held to be
quite possible that the workings might be
employed to sap the Dover defences if in the
control of unscrupulous foreigners. From this
source, doubtless, came the scare that broke out
in Newcastle at the beginning of last week
The mechanical difficulties that beset such designs
would be well nigh insuperable, but it is not
altogether futile to suggest that, unwittingly and m
perfect good faith under certain conceivable circum-
stances, irretrievable damage might be caused at
Dover through the failure of the undersea burden,
were the workings projected beneath the Channel.
Not very long ago, enormous damage, practically
entailing the ruin of a large colliery concern, occurred
at the mouth of the Wear, where the enormous
thickness of magnesian limestone had always been
thought to provide complete protection.

Suspicion in Kent has probably been accentuated

by the implied existence of German capital in two of
the enterprises now in progress in that coalfield.
These are the operations of the Anglo-Westphal:an
Kent Coalfield Limited, and the An gio-Westphalian
(Chislet, Kent) Colliery Limited, the first of
which, a parent company, acquired a valuable
lease from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1911
to work coal under some 3,400 acres of land near
Chislet. The shafts, which are being sunk by the
cimentation process, are now approaching completion,
and the permanent machinery is being erected.
It appears that a certain amount of German
capital was originally embarked in these ventures,
amongst the shareholders being the Allgemeine
Tiefbohr und Schachtbau A.G., and the Kolonial
Handelsbank. At a meeting of the Chislet Com-
pany on the 29th ult., the chairman, in the
course of a reassuring speech, stated that the
company had now but one German shareholder,
who has since resigned his directorship. To
quell apprehension, however, it may be stated
that the board of the parent company, according tc
the last issue of the Mining Manual, was as follows : —
Messrs. A. Woolley-Hart (chairman), F. L. Davis,

J.	P., W. Peritz, C. Seitz, and Joseph Shaw,

K.	C. Mr. Carl Seitz has a German address, but the
presence of Mr. Joseph Shaw, the chairman of the
Powell-Duffryn Company, and of Mr. Fred L. Davis,
chairman of D. Davis and Sons, of Ferndale, should
be sufficient guarantee that the concern is essentially
British in character. Mr. Shaw is chairman of the
Chislet Company, of which Mr. Peritz vas. until
recently, and Mr. Woolley-Hart is still, a director.
Additional members of the board are Mr. C. B. 0.
Clarke, coal factor and director of the P. D.
Company, Sir John Prescott Hewett, G.C.S.I,
C.I.E., a distinguished Indian civil servant, and
W. Mewburn, of Hawkwell-place, Pembury,
a director of the South-Eastern Bailway Company.
Mr. H. L. Hann, of Bridgend, is consulting
engineer to the company. Amongst the largest
shareholders are the owners of the Pelton Collieries.
As things have turned out, the choice of name was
unfortunate, but applications have now been made,
we understand, to adopt the titles of the North Kent
Coalfield Limited and the Chislet Colliery Company
Limited, and these more accurately describe the nature
of the companies. As Mr. Shaw pointed out, nearly
every large industrial concern in this country has
some German shareholders. Their case can be met
by withholding dividends; a far higher duty, how-
ever, rests upon us to prevent these concerns from
being controlled by, or run in the interests of,
German capital.

Let us turn next to South Wales. We were not
surprised to read the following in one of the Welsh
papers lately: —

A rumour has been current in the Neath district that
some concrete foundations had been discovered at the
Whitworth Collieries, Tonmawr, near Port Talbot, and
that these foundations were similar to those found in
other towns and suspected of having been prepared as
foundations for German guns.

The police, however, found that the only foundations
were those in connection with the workings of the
colliery. The purchase of this property on the part
of German capitalists in 1905, our readers may
remember, created a furore in the daily Press at the
time. A small colliery had been worked at
Fforchtwm, and this was disposed of to Mr. de
Freitas, of Hamburg, by Mr. J. C. A. Henderson,
a JSouth African mineowner, after it had been hawked
all round Cardiff without success. The Colliery
Guardian pointed out at the time that the theory that
in allowing this transaction to be consummated we
were surrendering “a unique source of our naval
mobility,” as some rhetorician in Parliament called
it, was quite untenable. We showed that there was
little reason to believe that the seams underlying
this section of the coalfield contained smokeless steam
coal, and that the existence of numerous drowned out
levels in the upper measures would render working-
most costly, if not impracticable. As a matter
of fact, the transaction was purely commercial; the
de Freitas firm expected to do some trade in
bunkering, and Herr Eberbacu of the International
Boring Syndicate, who was associated with the
purchase, saw some scope for his enterprising