THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN

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January 4, 1918.

17

not find regularity of work at times, even for that in
consequence of the intermittent character of his supplies.
The winter, which set in with undue severity in the out-
going months of the old year, continued with eljual
intensity until well into spring, and the trouble reached
its apex in February, when fog, frost, and heavy snow,
all combined, delayed transit to an unprecedented
extent.

Collieries have been on full time during the whole of
the year, and at no period, even in the mid-summer,
was there more than enough fuel in any avenue of the
trade, unless it might be in common slacks, when for’ a
short time in the height of the manufacturing towns’
holiday season there was a feeling of ease in the small
fuel market, and some moderate tonnage was put into
stock.

In addition to the war wage granted to the men they
received an increase of 5 per cent, in February last.

Prices of fuel commenced and finished under the
Limitation Act, and closed, including the recent 2s. 6d.
advance, about as below: —

Best house coal .............

Do. (f.o.b. Garston).......

Medium.....................

Do. (f.o.b. Garston).......

Kitchen.....................

Common (f.o.b. Garston) ...

Screened forge coal ______

Best screened steam coal (f.o.b.)

Best slack...................

Secondary slack..............

Common	do................

23s. 6d. to 24s. 6d.

26s.

21s. 6d. to 23s. 6d.

20s. 6d.

24s.

20s. 6d.

30s. 6d.

18s. 6d.

17s. 6d.

16s. 6d.

House Coal.

During the first three months depots and wharves
were at their highest strain to keep customers supplied
as best they could, in many cases their anxiety to do
this increasing their work. Instead of having fuel at
reasonable command to deliver in the usual quantities,
small supplies had to be doled out, and repeated visits
made in consequence. The situation eased from May
onwards, but the lesson had its effect, and there was a
general anxiety, encouraged by the authorities, for
consumers able to do so, to stock reasonable quantities
of house coals. By August the Con-
troller’s scheme for emergency coal
was out, and calls were made upon
the collieries to provide, even by
preference, for cities, boroughs and
urban councils, a proportionate ton-
nage allowed to be stocked, to
ensure some supply to the small
buyer in the coming winter. Novem-
ber saw another instruction issued
relating to household supplies, to
the effect that coal should not be
purchased by the householder in lots
of more than one ton unless his stock
in hand did not exceed one month’s
consumption. The close of the year
was marked by a brisk demand, but
scarcely more than a winter average,
and emergency stocks untouched.

In screened coal for forge and
manufacturing purposes, with the
exception of the holiday breaks, full
tonnages have been taken the whole
year through.

Shipping and Bunkering.

■ In February, values had a hardening
tendency, but mostly caused through
traffic dislocation. There has been
little, if any, spare coal during the
whole year, although the necessary
convoy system disturbs the regularity
of demand. Heavy Government
requirements have operated almost
throughout the year. At the end of
June factors and producers received
the Controller’s official regulations
respecting prices for export and
bunkering. Even during July and
August there was no real surplus of
coal, and in September the demand
again increased for export to Allies.
The year closed with a quieter demand
due to the irregularity of tonnage
arrivals.

In the coastwise and cross- Channel
trade for household fuel it has been
a difficult year for the merchant
across the water. At scarcely any
period has he been other than an
anxious purchaser of coal, could suit-
able tonnage be arranged. This
tonnage difficulty has operated
throughout the year, and was, to
some extent, a relief to the colliery
proprietor in the earlier months. In
early July it was resolved to restrict
shipments from the Mersey ports to
Ireland, and eventually 25 per cent,
of a restriction for Lancashire fuel
was determined upon, this being
allocated by the Controller, in the
.main, to inland gas works. It was'
intended that Scotch and north
country coal should fill the void
caused by the Lancashire restriction,
but with the close of the year pressure
was put upon Lancashire to find an increasing tonnage
for the Irish market.

Slacks and Small Fuels.

In the early months of the year it was with difficulty
that users of this class of fuel could get an adequacy,
and it was not until May that any easement was felt.
From that time and during the summer, mainly owing
to the annual holidays in manufacturing towns, the
supply was perhaps a little over the demand, and in the
commoner slacks small quantities were added to stock.
Shorter days and lower temperature brought heavier
consumption, and in the later months the output was
practically called for as produced.

Negotiations for gas fuel renewals were commenced
at an early date, the anxiety being on the part of the
buyer ; and in many cases a second attempt had to be
made later on in the year to purchase additional
quantities—this in consequence of growing consumption
in some cases, and also chiefly due to the fact that the
extraordinary price of oil and the difficulties of procuring
it had put it out of competition with coal.

In addition the Government demands for residuals,
and the desire of gas works to increase the make of
coke with the price they had put it up to, naturally
turned their attention to the carbonisation of more and
more coal.

Sinkings and new work are generally at a standstill.

________

WEST YORKSHIRE.

From whatever standpoint the West Yorkshire coal
trade of the past year is regarded, its most satisfactory
feature is that the output of the pits has been kept well
up to the level of 1916. At one time it seemed more
than possible that 1917 would follow the example of
1916 and give an increase over- the preceding year in
the quantity of coal raised. In the first nine months
the general experience was that irregularity of attend-
ance of miners was a gradually diminishing trouble.
This welcome improvement did something towards

Coal prices have been steadily maintained at the
maximum fixed under the Limitation Act, there has
been a ready market for all the coal that could be
raised, and within the limits imposed by State control
balance-sheets may be expected to reflect a year of
general prosperity.

The demand for all West Yorkshire coals has been
so great that at no part of the year has it been fully
satisfied. Even in the summer the demand continued
on a full winter’s scale. Several circumstances contri-
buted to this. The crisis in London’s coal affairs, left
as a legacy from last winter and increased by the
difficulties of transport by sea, kept up the demand at
an abnormal level. As the details of the coal transport
scheme became known, districts whose supplies of
Yorkshire coal were to be disturbed in the early
autumn made strenuous efforts to get as much as they
could before the appointed day. The general shortage
of coal gave rise to public alarm, which was further
fostered by official advice to everybody with storage
room to lay in stocks in readiness for winter. The
manufacturing districts of West Yorkshire, largely
engaged in the production of Government war require-
ments, were working at full pressure. If this be true of
the summer months, it need hardly be said that it is
true of the winter. With everybody wanting coal more
', the output moved away regularly and
quickly except where shortage of
wagons presented a difficulty. The
problem of maintaining a regular
supply of empty trucks sufficient for
each day’s output, while not on the
whole so acute as last year, has almost
always been present—as it appears
likely to be to the end of the war,
unless the transport reorganisation
scheme does more than realise
general expectations. In January
and February especially there was in
many cases extreme difficulty in keep-
ing the pits at full work. Occasional
loss of shifts was not unknown, and
there was some ground stocking in
order to avoid loss of output. With
these exceptions stocks at
collieries, either in sidings or on the
ground, have been practically non-
existent.

It hardly need be said that the
development of State control of the
coal trade was watched with keen
interest in West Yorkshire. Until
the details of the redistribution
scheme became public knowledge, the
uncertainty caused forward business
to be affected, but the point was met
by adding to most contracts a clause
safeguarding against disturbance of
contract deliveries under the opera-
tions of State control. As to the
redistribution scheme itself, so far
as it was calculated to increase the
available supplies of coal, it obviously
could not benefit very greatly the
West Yorkshire district, where the
pits were already working full time,
and the output pretty nearly approxi-
mated to the reasonable maximum
under existing labour conditions ; and
this consideration was possibly at
the root of a good deal of the rather
strong feeling that was prevalent
during the early weeks of the scheme
in actual operation. The soundness
of the underlying principles of the
scheme were generally recognised
and appreciated, but many of its
details were the source of much dis-
satisfaction. The criticism, which,
it must be added, came mainly but
by no means entirely from the dis-
tributive side of the trade, increased
in both sharpness and volume when
more or less flagrant anomalies were
revealed in practice. The scheme
came into force in regard to
the Furness district of Cumberland,
with very short notice, on August 1,
five weeks in advance of the
appointed date for the scheme as
a whole, and immediately instances
were cited of coal totally
suitable to the purposes of the
consumer being
mpplies, and even then at a higher

or less urgently.

The above illustration, which we reproduce from a coloured poster issued by our
American contemporary, Coal Age, embodies in an extremely forceful manner a
sentiment which should appeal strongly to all classes of the community. As our
contemporary says“ Those of us who cannot get ‘ over there’ can at least back
up the boys in the trenches and help them win.”

If









balancing the loss of labour through enlistment in the
Army and Navy, and if it had been maintained to the
end of the year the aggregate output would probably
have shown an advance. The increase of miners’ wages,
commencing in September, however, was accompanied
by an increase in slackness in work. This may have
been a mere coincidence, but past experience points to
the contrary, and those competent to judge find a
relationship of cause and effect. While absenteeism
has been less a cause of reasonable complaint than in
the previous year, it has still had a material effect in
limiting production. Full time working of the pits, six
days per week, has been the general rule, with Bank
holiday stoppages restricted to two days. There has
been remarkable freedom from labour disputes. Minor
trouble of this kind there has been, but rarely has it
led to actual stoppage, and then of only brief duration.
One exception is to be recorded in the Wakefield
district, where a difference over the price charged to
certain classes of colliery workers for “home” coal, led to
several weeks’ idleness. It is pleasant to record also that
the year has been remarkably free of serious accidents.

Financially, the results to the colliery owner, if for
various well known reasons not quite so favourable as
in 1916, are not likely to cause dissatisfaction. Costs
of production have continued to increase. All colliery
materials have appreciated in value, until some stand
at four or five times the normal values of pre-war days.

s'

the

Un-

substituted for

West Yorkshire
cost in both price and railway rate,
this period working in the dark, with contracts can-
celled, deliveries diverted and substituted, and with
no information available as to prices, qualities, sizes
of substituted supplies, and a feeling was aroused
entirely unsympathetic, if not antagonistic, to the
scheme as it came fully into practice. There were
gloomy forebodings of chaotic disorganisation of the
whole trade, all to no purpose; the cure was regarded
as even worse than the disease. At the same period,
merchants saw their supplies of house coal diverted
from their more or less needy districts in order __ to
relieve the greater needs of London, and the growing
agitation received an impetus from that source. The
state of confusion and unsettlement was such that in
some quarters it was felt that the full operation of the
scheme would have to be deferred until matters were
smoothed out. The representations made to the Coal
Controller resulted in considerable modifications being
made to the scheme that were calculated to meet objec-
tions and remove anomalies, and therefore to allay a
good deal of the dissatisfaction. Despite this episode,
it is unquestionable that the real attitude of local
trades towards control is one of readiness to comply
loyally with the wishes of the authorities. The wagon
shortage difficulty has not yet been so pressing this
winter as it was a year ago.

Traders were at