May 12,' 1916.■ THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN. 903 For Sale, Special.—Very High-class pair o? Compound HAULAGE ENGINES; by Worsley Mesnes Co., in practically equal to new condition, cylinders 22 in. and' 30 in. by 42 in. stroke, drum 7ft. diameter, helical erearing ; seen fixed in S. Wales. JOSEPH PUGSLEY, Lawrence-hill, Bristol. IVTanted, Air Compressor, Vertical or V v Horizontal, suitable for compressing about 1,000 cubic feet of free air per minute up to a pressure of 801b. per square inch with steam at 701b. pressure per square innh ab engine stop valve.—Lowest price and full particulars to Box 6400, Colliery Guardian Office, 30 & 31, Furnival-street, Holborn, London, E.C. Wanted, Second-hand Press, suitable for briquetting small iron ore.—Box 6402, Colliery Guardian Office, 30 & 31, Furnival-street, Holborn, London, E.C. For Sale, Second-hand Baulks, Pitch Pine, 10 to 42 ft. lengths. 9 to 13 in. square.—Bos 6404, Colliery Guardian Office, iO & 31, Furnival-street. Holborn, London, E.C. anted, 100 large modern Coal Wagons, V T quarterly hire ; also wanted c and w. price for 500 tons Midland nuts cash down.—DIRECT COALS LTD., Yeovil. For Sale, 28 Cast Iron Pipes, 16 in. diameter, 9 ft. long, with faced and drilled flanges; never been in use.—Apply, W. R. DIXON & GO., Quay, Wallsend cn-Tyne. For Sale, W.I. Chimney, 50 ft. long by 2 ft. 8 in. diameter, | plate ; never been in use : an excellent article.— Applv, W. R. DIXON & CO.. Quay, Wallsend on-Tyne. For Sale, Air Compressor, belt driven, by Pneumatic Engineering Co.. 14 in. by 14 in., equal to 375ft. per minute at 80 lb.: first-class machine, ready for delivery. JOSEPH PUGSLEY, Lawrence-hill, Bristol. Air Compressor wanted, to ba driven by haulage rope running at 180 ft. per minute, and to compress a mini- mum of 120 cubic ft. of free air per minute, for coal cutting machine.— Particulars to Box 6406, Colliery Guardian Office. 30 & 31. Furnival-street, Holborn, London, E.C. J. W. BAIRD AND COMPANY. . PITWOOD IMPORTERS, WEST HARTLEPOOL, YEARLY CONTRACTS ENTERED INTO WITH COLLIERIES. OSBECK & COMPANY LIMITED, PIT-TIMBER MERCHANTS, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE. SUPPLY ALL KINDS OF COLLIERY TIMBER. Telegrams—“ Osbecks, Newcastle-on-Tyne.” *** For other Miscellaneous Advertisements see Last White Page. AND Journal ths Coal and Iron Tradas. Joint Editors— J. V. ELSDEN, D.Sc. (Lond.), F.G.S. HUBEBT GREENWELL, F.S.S., Assoc.M.T.M.E. (At present on Active Service'). LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 12, 1916. The London coal trade continues brisk. Supplies of house coal are coming forward in greater abundance by sea and.rail, but the shortage is still manifest. Stocks are unusually small at the depots. Steam coal and smalls are in urgent request. Prices remain at their maximum. The only change in the Tyne and Wear coal trade is in the direction of higher prices. Best large steams have touched 55s. per ton in a market which is practically nominal. Supplies appear to be scarcer than ever. In Cardiff best Black Veins command as much as superior Cardiff steams. Heavy arrivals of tonnage in the South Welsh ports have produced congestion. The position in Lanca- shire, Yorkshire and Derbyshire is still one of extreme pressure under arrears of orders, and reports do not suggest an early amelioration. Prices in Scotland are still advancing. Exports of coal, coke, and manufactured fuel during April aggregated 3,200,069 tons, of the value of £3,605,115. This compares with 3,985,846 tons, valued at £3,426,883, and 5,445,728 tons, valued at £3,744,643, in the corresponding months of 1915 and 1914 respectively. During the first four months of the year the exports of coal, coke, and manufactured fuel totalled 13,175,345 tons, of the value of £13,760,724, as against 15,684,094 tons, valued at £11,873,625, and 23,680,027 tons, valued at £16,482,705, in the corresponding periods of 1915 and 1914. Of the total exports of coal during April, the mean value of the large coal was 25s. 0’2d. ; through-and-through (unscreened), 19s. 10-2d. ; and small coal, 18s. 4’8d. The average value of all kinds of coal exported was 22s. l’2d., as compared with 17s. l’3d. in April 1915. Otherwise divided, it realised the following:—Steam coal, 22s. 7*8d. ; gas coal, 19s. 2*7d. ; anthracite, 24s. 0*3d. ; house- hold, 24s. 2*9d. ; other sorts, 19s. 0’2d. The average value of the coke exported was 31s. 7-Id. per ton, and of the manufactured fuel 25s. 2’8d. per ton. The average value of coal, coke and manu- factured fuel exported during April was 22s. 6-2d. per ton, as compared with 17s. 2-3d. in April 1915, and 13s. 9’03d. in April 1914. The average value during the four months was 20s. 10’6d. per ton, as compared with 15s. l*6d. and 13s. lP05d. in the corresponding periods of 1915 and 1914. The question of aliens employed in the South Wales anthracite collieries has been satisfactorily settled, and the possibility of miners handing in notices has been avoided. An important conference of the Miners’ Federa- tion this week discussed various questions to which attention was drawn in a letter sent by Sir Bichard Bedmayne. The executive of the Mining Association of Great Britain and the executive of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain will meet in joint conference in London on Tuesday next, to consider what action can be taken to increase the production of coal. The council of the Yorkshire Miners’ Association rejected the proposed suspension of the Eight Hours Act. The South Wales Coal Conciliation Board, on Thursday, referred to the independent chairman (Lord Muir Mackenzie) an application of the work- men for 15 per cent, increase in the wage rate, and of the owners for 7J per cent, reduction. Coal freights from the Tyne to Genoa are fixed at the record rate of 100s. The pre-war rate was about 7s. 6d. The South Staffordshire Mines Drainage Commis- sioners are considering a proposal to reduce their rate in order that ironstone mining should be revived locally. A paper on “ The Micro-Chemical Examination of Coal in Belation to its Utilisation ” was read by Mr. J. Lomax, at a meeting of the Manchester Geological and Mining Society. In a few days, an important con- Output of ference is to take place in London Coal. between the executives of the Mining Association and the Miners’ Federa- tion to discuss the question of the output of coal, and to consider means whereby the loss of production arising from the depletion of mining labour may be reduced to a minimum. Figures are now available whereby the diminution of output can be estimated. The total output of coal in 1913 was 287,411,869 tons. This declined in 1914 to 265,643,030 tons, and last year fell further to 253,179,446 tons. Thus, estimated on the pre-war production of 1913, the percentage loss of output last year amounted to nearly 12 per cent., as compared with 7’2 percent, in the previous year, of which, however the first half was a pre-war period, so that we may estimate the initial effect of the disorganisation at double this amount, or about 14 per cent, per annum. This shows that but little progress has yet been made in recovering from the early results of the war. When we apportion the losses of output and depletion of labour between the several coal mining districts, and express the results in percentages, we arrive at the following figures : — District. Percentage difference in output. Percentage depletion of labour. Scotland .... - 8-6 ... ... -16’5 Northern .... -10’6 ... ... -25’8 Yorkshire and Midland .... + 0’8 ... ... -12’2 Lancashire and N. Wales .. .... - 4’0 ... ... -14’8 South Wales .... - 6’0 ... ... -13’4 Midland and Southern .... + 0’4 ... ... - 8’9 These results are instructive as showing how unequal has been the effect of shortage of labour in the various coal fields. The percentage tonnage diminution per unit per cent, of labour reduction is about one-half in Scotland and South Wales, less than one-half in Lancashire and North Wales and the Northern district, while in the Yorkshire, Midland and Southern districts it has not only been eliminated entirely, but has been converted into a small increase. These figures are particularly striking, because they appear to show that what Yorkshire and the Midlands have done, the other districts can do, and it is to be hoped that when the conference meets it will not fail to look carefully into the reasons why a 12 per cent, loss of labour in the Yorkshire and Midland district resulted in a gain in output of 0-8 per cent., while almost the same labour conditions in South Wales have been followed by a loss of 6 per cent. It must not, however, be at once assumed that this great contrast is entirely due to the indifferent working capacity of the South Wales miners, because the results in that coal field are not appreciably worse than in Scotland, and only slightly inferior to those of the Northern district and Lancashire. We are not in possession of statistics of absenteeism, and it is therefore impossible to say how much time has been lost from this cause. We may, perhaps, admit that 5 per cent, of absenteeism is unavoidable, owing to the special conditions of the mining industry and the liability of miners to more or less trivial accidents. But the proportion of absenteeism is often consider- ably higher than this, and in places is said to have amounted to 17 per cent, or even more, and if this high figure has been anything like general it might itself explain the distribution of output results shown above. The evil of irregular hours of working is undoubtedly serious in many cases. We are told that in the pits of Graham’s Navigation Collieries Limited only 60 per cent, of the hewers worked full time, 24 per cent, working only five days, 11 per cent, only four days, and 5 per cent, three days or less. It was estimated that regular working hours all round would increase the output at these pits by 20 per cent. It is clear that if such conditions are at all common it is within the capacity of the miners themselves to do much more than make up for the depletion of labour by the simple expedient of doing an honest week’s work; and in no other way can they be said to be doing their duty at the present juncture. We suspect that no small part of the good results achieved in Yorkshire and the Midlands is due to the organised effort that has been made to deal with the question of absenteeism. Particularly good results appear to have followed in some cases from the appointment of a workmen’s committee to reduce absenteeism, as, for instance, in the pits of the Wigan Coal and Iron Company, whose example might well be followed generally. A man’s moral sense must be depraved indeed if he cannot be made amenable to reason and abandon idling while his comrades are shedding their blood abroad for the sake of those at home. If appeals prove to be unavailing, persistent cases of idling in war time should be ruthlessly “ combed out ” and sent to the trenches to meditate upon the vital importance of munitions to the soldier at the front. While discussing this matter, attention should also be given to the question of the dilution of colliery labour owing to the influx of men desirous of escaping military service. It is not easy to arrive at an estimate of the full extent to which this has been done. Mr. Stephen Walsh stated in the House of Commons a few days ago that in the Wigan district alone there were 3,000 men of this sort. If we take the total enlistment of miners to be 300,000, there must have been an influx of about 120,000 men into the mines, because the actual shortage of labour is only about 180,000. Many of these newly-arrived miners 'are necessarily unskilled men, whose efforts at the best could scarcely be equal to the men they have replaced. To this extent, therefore, colliery labour is diluted by their accession, and there is no doubt that some of them will eventually be placed in the hands of the drill sergeant. A more promising kind of dilution of labour would be an increase in female labour at the pit brow, and this is a matter that will certainly be considered at the forthcoming conference. Coming next to the Eight Hours Act, there are many who clamour for its suspension during the war, and it is a course we have more than once advocated in these columns. It has been estimated by a writer in The Daily Telegraph that a nine-hour day Avould give the country either the full pre-war output, or release 60,000 men who have drifted into the pits, as well as the 10,000 men wanted for tunnelling at the front; while a ten-hour working day would give