September 17, 1915.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

577

dispute has been further complicated by the resent-
ment caused amongst the miners by the working of
overtime on the part of a few hauliers.

The London coal trade during the past week has
been somewhat slower. Public orders have fallen
off, and the depot trade is weak. Derby brights are
strongest in demand, but the quantities available
are small. Best coals are neglected. Steam coals
are firm. Coke and slacks are weaker. House nuts
and bakers’ nuts are selling freely when obtainable.
Factors and wholesale merchants are dominating the
market with their contract coal. Few collieries are
prepared to book any further orders.

Only moderate activity is reported in the outward
freight market. There has again been a scarcity of
tonnage on the north-east coast, and this, in addition
to higher rates and export restrictions, considerably
checks business. As a consequence the prompt,
markets on the Tyne and Wear are dull and values
have weakened. There is apparently an improvement
in the household coal trade of both Lancashire and
Derbyshire, no doubt due to stocking measures being
adopted. Now that there is a better knowledge of
the position as eff ectedby the Price of Coal (Limitation)
Act, business in the Yorkshire district shows signs of.
settling down into a steady groove. In the west,
however, the London household demand has for the
moment fallen off. The market at Cardiff remains
dull, tonnage shortage and licence difficulties holding
up business. The Scottish coal trade shows no signs
of improvement, and values have become easier.

It is understood that the London Coal Merchants’
Society have taken steps to ascertain their legal
position in regard to the Price of 'Coal (Limitation)
Act.

The announcement is made that under Govern-
ment pressure the German Coal Syndicate has now
been renewed.

A new proclamation relating to trading with the
enemy, by which the term “ enemy ” is declared to
include any person or persons on territory for the
time being in hostile occupation.

Scottish owners and miners have communicated
with the Coal Export Committee concerning the great
inconvenience occasioned by delays in issuing export
licences.

The first annual general meeting of the Institution
of Mining Engineers since its incorporation under a
Hoy al Charter commenced at Leeds on Wednesday,
Sir Thomas Holland presiding. Several papers of
interest to the coal mining industry were read. The
gold medal of the institution was presented to
Dr. J. S. Haldane, in recognition of his scientific
researches.

At a meeting of the Scottish Coal Trade Concilia-
tion at Glasgow, on Wednesday, the men’s repre-
sentatives agreed to recommend that the collieries in
all the districts should work 11 days a fortnight in
order to increase the output.

When the council of the Institution
Dr. Haldane, of Mining Engineers decided that
Sir William Gareorth should be the
first to receive the Institution Medal, the proposal
was acclaimed by everyone. Sir William Gareorth
is, in the truest sense, the product of the industry,
and his life has been spent in its advancement to the
exclusion of all other scientific pursuits or con-
troversies. Dr. J. S. Haldane is the second choice,
and quite as happy a choice, because it testifies to
the great gifts that such an occupation as mining
may obtain from pure science.

We envy Dr. Haldane, It is given to few men
of science to witness in their lifetime the beneficent
results of their labours, or to earn the undetached
gratitude of a great industry. The late Lord
Chancellor’s brother has gained an international
reputation as a man of science, but he has found
time to do more for this particular industry than any
man within it or without it during our generation;
and all his works have been crowned by practical
benefits to the miner. How many they are, Sir
Thomas Holland showed in his address on Wednes-
day : mine gases, coal dust, miners’ diseases, gob
fires, rescue apparatus—not one of these subjects has

Dr. Haldane touched without success. Little
wonder that the mining engineer should look upon
him as only less than a deity.

It is a notorious fact that in the
Industrial earlier months of this year, when the
Fatigue. speeding-up of munition works first
came to be recognised as a vital
necessity, some very alarming examples of overwork
were brought to light. Skilled workmen, in their
desire to ‘help the men in the trenches, worked them-
selves completely to a standstill, and, where an utter
collapse did not follow, the efficiency of the workman
was materially diminished; it is certain that this
strain was responsible for much of the labour unrest
on the Clyde, and that workmen were unjustly
censured for what was actually a rebellion of the
flesh against the spirit.

The dangers of overwork are so great, and the
incentives so urgent at the present time, that the
report on “ Fatigue from the Economic Standpoint,”
presented by a committee of the British Association
last week, comes as a timely warning. The report,
being of an interim nature, is not conclusive, but it
provides a cogent argument for the more careful
organisation of human labour in these times when
the value of a man to his country, notwithstanding
the profligate expenditure of human life in the field
of battle, is so greatly enhanced. There comes the
announcement, as we go to press, that the Minister
of Munitions has appointed an expert committee
i( to consider and advise on questions of industrial
fatigue, hours of labour, and other matters affecting
the personal health and physical efficiency of workers
in munition factories and workshops.” This is an
indication that the importance of the subject is being
recognised.

It would almost seem that we have failed to
ascertain the true character of fatigue in the human
being with anything like the scientific accuracy that
has been applied to the study of fatigue in the case
of metals and other inanimate structures; yet the
causes, the symptoms, the consequences, and the
remedies are much the same in either case. As the
committee say: —

If we define fatigue in general as a “ diminution of
the capacity for work which follows excess of work
or lack of rest, and which is recognised on the
subjective side by a characteristic malaise,” we at one
and the same time put forward its most familiar
symptom and its main external cause.

It has been pointed out, however, that the subjective
and objective symptoms—as indicated by the amount
or quality of the work performed—do not always run
parallel courses: either may be present in the absence
of the other. From the economic standpoint, subjec-
tive fatigue is only important in so far as it influences
objective fatigue.

Now one of the conclusions which the committee
arrive at is that it is the duration of work previous to
any point of time that will be the main factor corre-
lated to the degree of fatigue at that given time ; in
other words, it is desirable that long working spells
should be broken up by periods of rest. And what
is true of the working day is also true of the working
week: the weekly rest-day is not purely a religious
convention, it has been evolved from human experi-
ence. For that reason estimates of increased output
arrived at simply on a mathematical basis frequently
prove fallacious.

In the organisation of industry on an economic
basis, this need for periodical rest is the first thing
that must be recognised, but, as the committee
observe, there are other predisposing conditions
enabling excess of work or lack of rest to take effect
to different degrees than as “active” determining
causes. Such “enabling conditions” include the
nature of the work ; temperature and humidity, light,
room, noise (amount and regularity), and smell; the
incentive to speed or quality; the nature of the
worker, and his habits. Most of these factors are
discussed at length in the report, some of the
experience set forth being extremely valuable, and,
although factory work is dealt with mainly, there is
much that has a bearing, in some cases an accentuated
bearing, upon the occupation of the miner.

In the “nature of the work” there are several
influential characteristics—viz., concentration of the
actions involved, their complexity, their uniformity,
frequency, and periodicity: the engineer will be able
very readily to appreciate the distinctions. Monotony
would seem to be caused by a combination of great
uniformity and great frequency of recurrence in the
work; worry by complexity of actions in combina-
tion with great frequency and little regularity of
recurrence; care (or strain of attention) by a com-
bination of great frequency and little uniformity; the
helpless feeling of being driven by a combination of
great frequency and great regularity of recurrence ;
and lack of interest by that combination of great
uniformity and great regularity usually coupled with
a complete absence of intelligibility or purposiveness
in the work.

It is not necessary to discuss here the influence of
heat and moisture upon work, as the relation of
these two factors to the productivity of the miner is
well recognised. It is interesting to note, however,
that considerable difference of opinion exists as to
the effect of temperature in the absence of moisture.
In factories and workshops the comparison between
day and night work is complicated by the factor of
lighting, a point to which especial attention is called
in the report of the Departmental Committee on
Lighting in Factories and Workshops that has just
been published. In mines, where the lighting factor
does not greatly alter from night to day, the variation
in temperature is also much less marked.

The tests of fatigue that are generally applied,
apart from laboratory tests, are (1) the output of
work, (2) the accidents occurring in the course of
work. It goes without saying that the utmost
discrimination must be employed in the use of such
material; the output of work may be varied without
any relation to the fatigue of the worker ; accidents
also may occur from other causes, many being truly
“ acts of God.” There are certain classes of work
and accidents, however, that readily submit them-
selves as tests, although it is necessary to remember
that one of the two effects of fatigue—loss of speed
and loss of intensity—may increase the accident
immunity, whilst the other reduces it. A nicer test
of fatigue appears to be the distribution over time of
accidents per unit of output, but, unfortunately,
accident and output statistics are extremely difficult
to correlate, as has been the experience of students
of mining statistics, quite independently of the
question of fatigue. Thus the comparative accident
ratio in Indian mines appears very low, when based
upon the output of mineral, until we come to consider
the numbers.employed ; it then rises considerably.

The committee have, therefore, been put to consider-
able trouble in dealing fairly with the extremely inter-
estingstatisticsthattheyhavebeen able to accumulate,
but there is no difficulty in reading the lesson which
they convey. The figures show “there is little
weekly fatigue, little daily fatigue, but a great deal
of spell fatigue. In this, nearly all our statistics
agree remarkably.” This immediately brings us
back to the point from which we started—the
importance of the rest pause. Anyone who has been
engaged in the management of mines will appreciate
the significance of this conclusion. To a large extent
it explains why engine-winders and others engaged
in work which may in itself be a tax upon the mind,
but is intermittent in character, have traditionally
worked longer hours than others from whom the
exertion of continuous effort is demanded.

To our mind there is a lesson here for our legis-
lators ; for this important conclusion has been entirely
lost sight of in Acts that have been passed to regu-
late working hours. When the Eight Hours Act
was established a lavish use was made of the plea
that the hours worked before the Act came into force
were beyond the physical limits of the workmen, but
no evidence was produced to substantiate it. When
Mr. Charles Pilkington told the Eight Hours Day
committee that the Lancashire collier was already
working at his maximum of energy, and Mr. Alfred
Hewlett declared that, in his experience, the last
hour’s work was as good as the first hour’s work,
the committee refused to accept these statements
respecting a county “ in which the miners work the
longest hours, and the practice of absenteeism is the