322	THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

August 13, 1915.

own. We have not the number of railway companies’
wagons that we had under normal conditions. I do not
think the sidings as a rule are so congested in Warwickshire
now as they were a month ago, but still they are congested,
and we are still feeling it.

In answer to the question ; “ On what principle do the
collieries fix pit head prices for coal not under contract? ”
witness said : We use ordinary business methods there, and
we are actuated by ordinary business principles. We have
no association for the fixing of any price. And both in
London and elsewhere we deal through agents and the local
market. The best coals of Warwickshire do not come to
London; they are t’aken elsewhere. Our best coal has a
very excellent market in the country districts, in the South
Midlands, right away down to Exeter, and under normal
conditions we have a market there for our coal, which is
much better than the London market, and we keep it there
even under extraordinary conditions such as are existing
now. In London you do not get the same fixed demand for
a particular article. It is rather useful as a dumping
ground, and when there is a good supply of coal above the
demand London gets its coal at any price it likes almost in
a good many periods. Warwickshire coal is not a bitumin-
ous coal, and London likes that, as a rule, for house coal. In
the western and south-western district they would not look
at a bituminous coal at all.

In witness’s opinion, the worst period was over. The
spring would make a very great difference, and if it had not
been for the reduction of output that had been caused by the
loss of men who had gone to join the Colours, he felt that the
price of coal would have been pretty considerably less this
winter than last winter. Of course, the railway congestion
made all the difference in the world. He added : Especially,
as far as Warwickshire is concerned, the demand for manu-
facturing coal in the Midlands to-day is keener than it has
been for a great number of years. The demand undoubt-
edly is in excess of the supply. A good deal of this 40 per
cent, of free coal is going forward to the manufacturing dis-
tricts, but there are a good many fairly good contracts for
London. The smaller coal comes very much to London; it
is used for electric lighting purposes and for manufacturipg
purposes generally. We suffer a good deal not only from the
fact that a number of men have joined the Colours, but like-
wise because of the absentees. We have a great deal of it in
Warwickshire. I know it is very prevalent in most mining
districts. ,We have an “ absence ” list of something over 10
per cent, in our collieries in Warwickshire. Now, if you take
2 or 3 per cent, of that 10 per cent, as being due to accidents
or illness, you have 7 per cent, of the men left behind who
could work, but are not working full time or anything like
full time. That is our ordinary rate of absenteeism. I am
not suggesting that it has gone up, but what I want to point
out to you is this, that notwithstanding all our appeals to
them that owing to the crisis we have, and with 25 per cent,
of our men gone to the front, we cannot get this particular
class of man to attend to his work any more than he did
before the war. We should have been able to get more coal
out, and we should have been able to keep our places in
better order for the purpose of getting coal out, if we had not
had this absenteeism. In one or two cases I have known
the collieries have had to play a day or a day and a-half
a week. That might be so, but the output of the day has not
been maintained owing to the shortage of men to keep the
turn going. We are suffering largely now from the shortage
of men, and we have not sufficient men to keep our collieries
in that condition which is necessary for the maximum output
when working. I do not think it is true to say that the
interruption of work owing to the absence of trucks would
tend to have a rather demoralising effect upon the men. With
a considerable number of men, you cannot get them to work
more than a certain number of days a week. It has occa-
sionally happened that men have come to work expecting to
be able to work, and they have even gone down the pit, and
have had to go home. We should not knock them all off in
a case like that; we should keep a certain proportion to do
dead work about the roads and faces, and we should bring
them out at the usual time. That has happened at a good
many collieries when you depend upon railway trucks keep-
ing you going.

Fixing Prices.

Witness said some coal that would normally be household
coal had been diverted for manufacturing purposes. There
was great competition in the Midland district for large steam
coal, which under ordinary circumstances would be a lower
priced coal, and they had paid a jjauch higher price in order
to have a supply of coal to keep their works going. The coal
that had supplemented the steam coal would possibly be used
for household purposes. In one case especially, he knew
where works had been shut down for a couple of days; that
was in connection with work for the War Office. They
would have taken any sort of coal, house coal, or anything
else, to keep the place going. As regards the mechanism of
fixing prices, witness said : Erom what I know of the London
market, when prices are going up, colliery proprietors are
very well aware what the merchants are doing, and the
collieries and the London market, I Should fancy, work fairly
simultaneously. We do not let the agents fix our prices.
We fix the prices for them, subject to their advice. Of
course, they are in close touch with the merchants in London,
and the conditions of trade in the district in which they are
selling, and we keep ourselves in close communication with
them, and frequently see them. In Warwickshire the agent
as a rule is a paid servant of the colliery company, and does
not as a rule sell for. anybody else. We keep in touch with
him, and we decide the prices that shall rule, that shall form
our list, according to our own judgment formed by the advice
that we generally get from our agent from first knowledge of
the market which he has got to sell in. In some cases he is
paid a salary and commission, and in other cases he is paid
on commission alone so much per cent, on his selling price. r
In some cases it is so much per ton irrespective of the selling
price. We have a good centre of distribution in Birming-
ham, Leamington, Cheltenham, Gloucester, and lots of towns
in the West. I should say that not more than 30 to 40 per
cent, of our output of all kinds comes to London. It is not
a considerable part of the London consumption. The fact
that competition in one district is not so keen as in another
might very materially affect the price that a colliery gets for
its coal in a particular district. For instance, take a place
like Birmingham, where there is fairly keen competition under
ordinary circumstances, you would not be able to get the
same price for some coals there that you get for the same
coal at other places at the pit. For instance, we send coal
on to towns in the West that we should never dream of send-
ing to Birmingham, because we can get a better price at the
other place than we get at Birmingham for it. The cost of
freightage does not touch it very much, only so far as this
is concerned. Our railway rate to London is 5s. 3d. .a ton

from Nuneaton, which you may call the distributing centre
for Warwickshire, on the London and North-Western; and
there is Is. per ton for the wagon, which makes it 6s. 3d. It
may be that if the railway freightage is low the colliery price
is high, and that if the railway freight is high the colliery
price is low; so that where the railway rates are low, the
colliery gains the increased profit and not the consumers. It
just depends how many people are competing for that parti-
cular coal. For instance, if you had a 5s. rate to a certain
place, and there was no other colliery with a similar class of
coal that could get there for less than 6s., naturally the posi-
tion of Warwickshire would be that much better. Speaking
generally, the prices at the pit head have little or no relation
to the cost of production, because there are times when the
cost of production is very close to the average price at which
you are selling your coal, and there have been times not very
far away when the price we could get for our coal was not
equal to the cost of production. There was no constant
between the average selling price and the average cost of
production. It is not altogether true that in the more modern
well-equipped pits there is a larger margin of profit between
cost and selling price than in the older fashioned ones, because
a good deal depends upon the natural conditions fisting in
the mine, and likewise in the quality of the coal that mine
is producing. I have in my mind a colliery excellently
equipped that has never paid a farthing yet. The
natural conditions of a colliefy vary so very greatly even in
the same district, and it even does not become a question
of management. If a man is getting coal under very dis-
advantageous circumstances, he cannot get a single farthing
more for it than a colliery more favourably situated. The
demand for coal as a rule fixes the market price you can get.
It does not matter how disadvantageous the position is, it does
not affect the price you can get for the coal. Any argument
or discussion as to the cost of production and increased
expenses may be interesting, but it does not affect the result
at all.

Witness said they had no specific name for the coal which
was sent to London. It was classified under different names
at different collieries. There was a classification which was
called screened cobbles, and the size of that coal ran from
4 in. cube up to 6 or 8 in. cube. Then there was a class
below that, a nut coal, which ran about 3 in. cube. Then
there was a class—bakers’ nuts—even below that, which was
very largely used by bakers in London. There was a good
trade for Warwickshire coal as a rule amongst bakers in
London. It was a free burning coal, and there was an
absence of sulphur in the coal which made it a desirable and
useful coal for bakers to use. In connection with costs,
witness said the increased cost of production varied very
considerably. The minimum increased cost at. any colliery
could not be less than Is. per ton, including everything. As
to the profit that was being made, they must not lose sight
of the fact that there was a small amount of free coal. The
average selling price—witness was speaking now for his own
colliery—was only from 10 to 12J per cent, more than it
was in February 1914.

As justifying their interpretation of the clause in their
contracts, witness pointed out that he had sold coal to works
and a breakdown had taken place; during the time of the
breakdown the supply of coal had been discontinued, and he
had not claimed against that man. He added : You might
contract to a considerable extent with a certain quantity of
coal, which it is not remunerative to stock at all, and if you
had all your eggs in one basket, or a good proportion of them,
you might find yourself with unremunerative coal on your
hands; but, nevertheless, you cannot contract without such
terms. I have contracted with a large cement works for
coal, and there has been a stoppage at the works for two or
three weeks, and during that period the people have not
taken the coal, and they have claimed exemption under the
terms of the contract. The provision as regards cancellation
is a mutual arrangement. The customer can cancel it if he
likes. The colliery can cancel it if it likes. If a man has
bought coal at a price which is higher than the current rate,
and for some reason the works have been stopped and the
customer has not been able to take the coal, the quantity is
reduced for the time being, or it is proportionately reduced.
When the contract finishes by effluxion of time at the end
of the period, if the man makes a demand for the coal, and if
it suits us to deliver it, we may deliver it, and if he tells us
not to deliver, the contract is at an end. If the price is
mutually agreeable at the time the contract finishes, of
course, we should deliver it. As a rule a man does not
repudiate a contract because the price has gone against him.
There must be exceptional reasons, like a strike, or some-
thing equal to it. Witness said they had had wagons away
as much as 70 davs between the time of going out and coming
back again. Taking the collieries as a rule in Warwickshire,
thev have something like 50 per cent, of the carrying capacity
in their own wagons; the other half is carried in the railway
companies’ wagons and likewise private traders’ wagons.

Witness said that as a rule they would not be in a position
to supply contractors beyond the 80 per cent, out of their
free coal, because they kept a certain percentage of their
coal for the open market for customers who did not contract.
They had a good many in the country, comparatively small
merchants, and as a rule they did not contract for their coal.
They were regular customers, both summer and winter, and
the colliery reserved for them the quantity of coal they would
take.

Traffic Questions.

On the subject of wagons, witness further said : When
there is a good demand for coal, such as there is at the present
time, a customer gets his wagon at his depot, and he is not
very long in unloading, even if he puts it on the ground and
lets it go. We have not the same control at the destination
as the customer has over his wagons. We are not getting
nearly as many railway companies’ trucks now as we did
under normal conditions. I would be rather inclined to say
that, taking merchants’ wagons as a rule, they are doing
quite as well, or even better, under present conditions than
under normal conditions, because they do not need to keep
them loaded at their destination when ^they get them there.
I do not say it happens in every case, and I will not say it
happens in the London depots. We do not suffer so much
in the country as in London. Tn fact, it is getting so acute
on the South-Western Bailway, that I will not agree to send
my wagons unless thev will pay so much a week for them.
From 30 to 40 days is not an unusual period now in a large
proportion of wagons, especially if they have to go south of
London. In no case are we restricting the contracts to less
than 80 per cent, of the total. Un to the end of February,
my contracts were practically delivered. There were just
one or two cases where thev had suffered owing to the
railway company not taking the coal. I find that the whole
of my neighbours had faithfully delivered their contracts up

to the end of February, less the 20 per cent. Woolwich is
about the worst place we can possibly send our wagons to.
My trucks are now doing about as near as possible one-half
their duty and nothing more. We have a large number of
customers who have trucks of their own, and they are now
sending rather more trucks than usual. Two-thirds of the
trucks that come into the colliery sidings are now customers’
trucks. The country merchants’ trucks are working better
now than under normal conditions, because there is no
detention at the destination. Under normal conditions, a
small country merchant will have two or three trucks of
various qualities standing for several days. At the present
time he does not need to do it.

Mr. Phillips said the cost per ton of coal for timber at
normal times varied very considerably. The price of timber
was up .anything from 60 to 80 per cent. The average cost
for timber was anything from 4d. to 6d. per ton. He had
been connected with collieries where the cost was Is. per
ton, but that was a big cost. The wages per ton, owing to
reduced' output, made a very material difference. If they
reduced their output 20 per cent., they soon found that their
cost per ton for post wood and other materials and wages
had gone up in proportion, apart from any increase in prices,
and these had been considerable. The cost of iron and steel
had gone up, and they used a good deal of steel for supports
now. So far there had been no rise in wages in the pits.

At the close of his evidence, the chairman quoted from a
letter of affirm of Leicestershire colliery owners informing
a firm of London coal merchants that they had got to cut
down their supply to 240 tons a month, instead of 300 tons,
at a contract price of 9s. 9d.. These gentlemen had the con-
sideration to say a month later ; “ Referring to your contract
with us, we beg to advise you that our prices for excess
supplies over 240 tons a month until further notice will be
as follows : main cobbles, 20s. per ton; main nuts, 20s. per
ton.” Witness said that was not an uncommon practice
or an uncommon case. There were merchants who con-
tracted for a certain quantity every year. In some cases
they sold that quantity to their customers, who perhaps
might be a works, or an institution, or something of that
sort. In other cases, and a good many of them, too, a man
contracted for, say, 200 tons per month of a certain quality
of coal for 12 months., He knew what his average require-
ments were for that particular depot or depots he was going
to supply. He did not contract for the whole amount that
he required, but he contracted for one-half or three-quarters
of what he required, and he would depend on the market for
the remainder.

(To be concluded.)

Notice is given in the London Gazette that at the expira-
tion of three months the under-mentioned companies will
be struck off the register and dissolved :—Automatic
Centrifugal Pump Limited; Barnsley and Central Coal
Agency Limited; Cymric Rhondda Colliery Company
Limited; Dovecote Moor Colliery Company Limited; East
Kent Electric Supply Company Limited; Gaudron Limited;
Irish Mines Limited; Rabble Chain Colliery Company
Limited; Treibel {E>moke Combustion Company Limited;
United Sherardizing Company Limited; Wern Collieries
Limited; Western Canada Coke and By-products Company
Limited; Wolf Engineering Company Limited.

Coal, Supplies and Prices. — How to secure adequate
adequate supplies of coal for home consumption, and how to
ensure that reasonable prices shall be charged to the domestic
consumer by the coal merchants, were the subjects of a con-
ference on Wednesday, between the Government Exports of
Coal Committee and representatives of the South Wales coal
owners. Mr. Russell Rea, M.P., chairman of the Com-
mittee, presided. Among the members of the Committee
present were Sir Richard Redmayne, Sir Douglas Owen, and
a representative of the Admiralty. The questions of coal
supplies and prices have been considerably affected by the
passing of the Act limiting prices, and also by the regulations
of the Government necessitating the obtaining of licences
before coal can be exported. To meet and deal with the
situation created a representative committee of the South
Wales coal owners drafted proposals which, after receiving
the approval of the coal owners generally, were submitted to
the Exports Committee for their consideration and approval.
The scheme suggested has also been forwarded to Sir T.
Ratcliffe Ellis, secretary of the Mining Association of Great
Britain, and to the secretaries of the coal owners’ associations
throughout the country, with a view to action on similar lines.
The proceedings were private, but the main pointe of the
scheme considered were :—To ensure to home consumers
adequate supplies of coal’ for their requirements; to ensure
the fair distribution of the burden created by the Price of
Coal (Limitation) Act; to assist collieries which will suffer
as a result of the Act to obtain redress provided by sub-
section 2 of section 1 of the Act; to advise the colliery
owners and to assist them in negotiations with the Govern-
ment in relation to any difficulty which may arise in the
working of the Act; to adjust any differences arising from
the Act, whether between individual collieries or between
the collieries and the home consumers. (2) Particulars as to
quantities of all contracts for coal intended for consumption
in the United Kingdom made prior to and uncompleted on
August 1, 1915, such particulars to include the description of
the coal, the period during which and the rate at -which
delivery is to be made and the quantity undelivered on
August 1. The collieries may at any time refuse to supply
to any consumer or works more coal than in the opinion of
the committee is necessary for the carrying on of such
works, or the current requirements of such customer. The
collieries may refuse to supply any applicant with coal
intended for consumption outside Monmouthshire and South
Wales, unless such applicant has prior to the war been
obtaining supplies from collieries within the district of the
committee. The committee may from time to time enter
into agreement with local authorities, coal merchants, or
hauliers in their area fixing the price at which various
descriptions of coal shall be delivered to houses for domestic
use, and in all cases the prices so agreed shall be advertised
or otherwise made public within such area. The committee
shall endeavour as far as practicable to arrange that the.
respective collieries shall supply coal for use in the United
Kingdom in approximately the same quantities as they
were supplying coal for similar purposes at the date of the
Act. The cases of new collieries shall be dealt with by
the committee on their respective merits. The Exports Com-
mittee are understood to have received the scheme in a
friendly fashion, although, of course, they were not in a
position to signify general approval of it at the present time.
It is expected that the views of the coal owners in other
parts of the country will be considered before any action is
taken to draft an official scheme.