March 17, 1916. THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN. 513 At a meeting of the Chemical Society, yesterday, Mr. T. J. Drakeley read a paper on the “ Influence of Iron Pyrites in the Decomposition of Coal.” Prof. H. E. Armstrong read a paper before the Royal Institution on Thursday, entitled “ Organic Products as Propulson Agents.” At a meeting of the Coke Oven Managers’ Associa- tion at Leeds on 'Saturday, the 25th inst., Prof. Corm will read a paper on “ Refractory Materials and Salty Coals.” The Coal Conciliation Board for the English Federated area will again consider, on Wednesday next, the men’s application for an advance in wages of 5 per cent. The Scottish Coal Trade Conciliation Board, on Monday next, will consider the men’s application for an 18f per cent, increase in wages. The decision in the House of Lords, Disease in the appeal by the Glasgow Coal V. Company Limited, published in our Accident. issue of last week, is worthy of notice on account of the apparently extended definition thus given to the term “ accident.” In common life no one would dream of giving the name of1 i accident ” to an attack of rheumatism brought on by prolonged exposure to damp. In this case the miner, P. Welsh, is said to have remained immersed in water up to his chest for a period of eight hours. It was stated that he did this under instructions, and so far as can be gathered, unex- pectedly, for on going down into the pit he believed he was going to follow his ordinary occupation as a hr usher. The result was that he was incapacitated, wholly or partially, for 17 weeks, and compensation was awarded under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, against which the colliery company appealed. It is needless to speculate upon the wisdom or other- wise of carrying a case of this kind to the House of Lords. The result must have been foreseen, failing some rather remote chances of establishing a technical point arising from the legal definition of the term “ accident.” Upon ethical grounds the claim could scarcely have been contested, and upon the whole there can be no surprise that the legal quibble broke down. In regard to the definition of the term “ accident,” employers will often save them- selves from the extravagance of costly litigation if they can be brought to realise that a term is often used in law in a different sense from its ordinary signification. We are accustomed to regard the word “ accident ” as denoting something of a totally unexpected nature. It may be either a cause or an effect, but it must, in its popular sense, be an unforeseen occurrence. If a man misses his train because he allows insufficient time to reach the station, it is not an accident; but if he sprains an ankle in the attempt, he may claim that he could otherwise have caught the train, and his failure might be legitimately called an accident. In the present case this immersion of the miner led to consequences which can scarcely be claimed to be unexpected, and in that sense there was no accident in the ordinary acceptation of the term. The Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1906, lays it down that to establish a claim a workman must prove personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment. There is nothing here to exclude disease from the category of personal injuries. Lord Haldane considered that an element of miscalculation entered into this case, and gave it the character of an accident. It must be assumed that this was so, for otherwise it would be impossible to justify the order under which the miner acted. It was clearly thought by the party respon- sible for this order that no grave result would follow. Therefore, a miscalculation had been made, and this constitutes an accident within the meaning of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. As Lord Kinnear pointed out, it is equally clear that the Act applies to disease, as much as to visible bodily injury. For certain industrial diseases are specifically included in this Act as liable to be treated as accidents, and it is also provided that this does not affect the right of a workman to recover com pensation in respect of a disease, not scheduled as industrial “if the disease is a personal injury by accident in the sense of the Act.” Lord Shaw argued the supposed difficulty in applying the Act because the event could not be fixed in date. He said that the disease and its contraction stand together so far as date is concerned. This assumption, however good it may be in law, is neither sound logic nor good scientific argument. It by no means follows that Welsh would not have fallen ill that day in any case. Immersion in water may not have been even the determining factor. What the law does in this case is to assume the most probable event, as it does also in regard to many other unprovable contingencies, but it is not always right, or even equitable, in so doing. But clearly no other conclusion is possible in regard to personal injuries under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, since no one can define the moment when disease begins. If we wish to be precise in point of time, it is necessary to regard as the accident in this case not the disease, but its contraction or development, for either the disease or a predisposition to it was possibly already existent in a suppressed form. The accident is the thing which happens, either cause or effect, as the case may be. This judgment goes far to clear away any misconceptions that might have existed as to the scope and intention of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. The difficulty of interpreting the law Increment respecting increment value duty Duty on under the Finance Act, 1910, is well Coal Seams.. illustrated in the judgment just given in the case of “Inland Revenue Commissioners v. Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation Company.” The canal company had leased to the Denaby and Cadeby Main Collieries Limited certain minerals under the canal at Lower Strafforth, Mexborough. The lease was for a term of 10 years from January 1, 1910. On March 13, 1912, a provisional valuation was made, and on November 10, 1913, duty was assessed at £57. On appeal, the referee held that no increment value duty was payable, on the ground that a lease for a term not exceeding 14 years is exempt under section 1 of the Act. The Commissioners appealed to a higher court, and Mr. Justice Rowlatt reversed the decision of the referee on the ground that this case comes under section 22 of the Act, which forms a new code dealing with minerals comprised in a mining lease. The canal company took this decision to the Court of Appeal, where it has now been upheld by the Master of the Rolls and Lord Justice Warrington, Lord Justice Phillimore dissenting. The Master of the Rolls, in giving his opinion, confessed to a measure of doubt in the case, which really turns upon the question whether increment value duty is payable only on one of the specified occasions mentioned in section 1. These occasions are the transfer or grant of a lease for more than fourteen years, or the death of the mineral owner. None of these occasions had arisen in this case, and for that reason Lord Justice Phillimore held that no duty was payable. Apparently the object of section 22, which covers minerals comprised in a mining lease, is to regard such a lease as virtually a sale of minerals; but instead of appropriating one-fifth of the increment value, as provided in section 1, an annual charge of 5 per cent, is levied upon this value. The difficulty is to prove an increment value at all in the case of wasting assets of this nature. Lord Justice Phillimore suggested that the problem might be solved by ascertaining the difference between the previous capital value and the present value regarded as an annuity. Regarded in thig light we take it that the actual capital value of the ascertained increment is given by the relation— whence x — (28,500) = £14,250—that is to say, the value of the minerals comprised in this lease were worth, in March 1912, more by this amount than they were worth on April 30, 1909, when it may be presumed they were not being worked at all. It would be interesting to know upon what this hypo- thetical accretion of value is based, but that know- ledge is not available, and, moreover, is not relevant to the present issue. The fact that this lease was dated December 23, 1909, removes it from the specially excluded leases in existence on April 30, 1909 ; but the fact that it was only for 10 years would seem to exclude it from the provisions of section 1. The only remaining ques- tion, therefore, is whether section 22 replaces section 1, as Mr. Justice Rowlatt contended, or whether it is to be taken in conjunction with section 1, as Mr. Justice Phillimore’s judgment would seem to imply. That question has now been decided in favour of the former view. It would appear that this decision will have but a limited application, and that only in the case of short term leases. Clearly under this finding it will not be possible to escape increment value duty in this way. It is, therefore, more than ever important to get valuations established upon an equitable footing. Probably more good will result from challenging the valuations than from endeavouring to escape from the entanglements of the Act itself. Some rather wild statements have Mines and been made as to the number of men the Military of military age who have entered the Service Act. pits with the object of evading military service. These allegations have been emphatically denied by Mr. Smillie, the president of the Miners’ Federation, who says that a large propor- tion of the 160,000 fresh men who have entered the pits since the outbreak of war are youths and old men. On the other hand Lord Derby, in the House of Lords on "Wednesday, definitely declared that there were a great many men who had gone to work in mines in order to avoid military service, and he hoped that these men would be taken out and made to join the Army. With these conflicting opinions in high circles, it is difficult to gauge the situation or to prophesy what steps may be taken. There are two facts that cannot be ignored whenever the liability of the miner to service in the Army is in question. The first is that, although the coalmining industry is not officially regarded as a munition trade, neverthe- less the Government is now clearly convinced that any attrition of labour, resulting in a further decrement of output, would result in economic disaster. The second is that the miner has been found to have special qualities rendering him exceptionally valuable to the commander in the field. This is the real crux of the difficulty, for the more skilled a miner is in getting coal the more probable is it that he will attract the eye of the recruiting sergeant. The proceedings before the recruiting courts amply illustrate the difficulties under which owners and managers are labouring in supporting appeals for exemption; for, in addition to the question of individual efficiency and indispensability, there must be the question of general utility. It is still more difficult to discover what motive actually has led a man to exchange his occupation for that of a miner: whether it may have been the money, the congenial hours or conditions of labour, the anxiety to assist in producing an article of public consumption, or, again, a less honourable desire to escape alternative duties more irksome or unpalatable. The true arbiters, in practice,- are the trade unions. Those young men who have entered the mines and have dutifully enrolled themselves as members of the unions are to be protected from molestation ; only those who wish to preserve their status as free workmen will be held up as shirkers sheltering in the mines from enlistment—just as all the natural methods of relieving the shortage of output, the legalisation of overtime, the employment of women and foreigners, are effectually barred, not by public interest, but by the strong arm of privileged labour. The late Mr. Thomas Clarke, head of Thomas Clarke and Sons, iron founders, Attercliffe, left £19,289. Mr. H. S. Dunn, late managing director of the Caprington ■and Auchlochan Collieries Limited, left estate valued at £22,996. The council for the Organisation of British Engineering Industry have arranged