746 THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN. April 12, 1918. to be grouped as normal we must to-day include labour disputes, effects due to climatic conditions, to say nothing of the progress of bulk production, or even the speculative cornering of commodities. The follow- ing table gave the average prices for a few commodities from 1869 to 1879 : — The general conclusions to be drawn from the avail- able statistics were that— (1) Foodstuffs, taking wheat as the key, did not revert to their pre-war value until four years after the close of hostilities; (2) That wages in neutral countries like the United States and Belgium took respectively three and seven years to revert to their old money value; (3) That taking the two cases given of belligerent countries, the wages in the defeated country remained until 1876 below those in the victorious country, in neither case reverting to their old value in seven years; (4) That in the four typical cases given, wages rose in both belligerent and neutral countries after the close of hostilities, due in part to high food prices, and in part to the synchronising of a period of good trade with the demands to make good much of the material destroyed in the war or diverted to other uses. Dealing with the period from 1890 to 1909, he pro- duced a diagrammatic table showing the fluctuations in regard to the United Kingdom alone for the four common engineering materials of coal (Wallsend, delivered London, not perhaps a Aery good criterion), Cleveland pig iron, tin and copper. In the course of English coal and iron prices. Wages of French coal miners and in Krupp’s foundries. Wages of Belgian iron workers. Year. Value per ton of coal shipped at Newcastle. ! . | Mean selling price No. 3 Cleveland , pig iron per ton ; Mean value per ton f.o.b. of bar, angle, bolt, and French coal ■ miners’ average values expressed as percentage of wages in 1900. 1 Workmen in Krupp’s foun- dries. Average > values expressed Belgian iron workers’ wages. Average values expressed as a at the works. ! rod iron. as percentage of wages in 1900. percentage of wages in 1900. s. d. s. d. £ 1 1869 9 0 1 43 10 i 7'52 63 60 89 1870 9 0 i 46 11 : 8'14 66 64 89 1871 9 0 47 2 8'37 66 j 63 92 1872 14 5 65 4 11'58 73 ! 71 91 1873 20 5 98 5 ; 13'09 76 1 78 111 1874 16 11 70 1 | ll*>0 79 j 81 I 103 1875 13 2 53 4 ! 9'87 79 ’ 81 ; 107 1876 10 9 46 7 I 8*53 70 ! 76 98 1877 9 9 42 0 ! 7'77 73 70 91 1878 8 7 38 10 1 7T4 73 67 91 1879 7 9 i 34 11 1 6*64 20 years pig iron varied between the relative value of 84 in 1893 and 134 in 1907, copper between 80 in 1894 and 165-6 in 1900, and tin between 74 in 1896 and 223 in 1906. These, it must be remembered, too, were mean prices for the year, not the extreme fluctuations due to a temporary depletion of stocks. While the prices of commodities fluctuated in that serious but inevitable manner, their inter-relation and effect on industry could never be a constant one. High fuel prices were an incentive to fuel-saving ; high prices for metals both served to replace a lavish and rule-of- thumb use of the metal by a scientific one, and also, other conditions being normal, occasioned a glut through over-production accompanied by the opening of new mines. Low metal prices permitted the use of metal for fresh purposes, and while closing down unproductive mines necessitated cheaper production at the large mines. The engineering manufacturer, moreover, always has his own works in a continuous condition of evolution. Machine tools were speeded up, the time required for machining operations was reduced, repetition work was the rule where possible. When raw materials rose in price this could only be off-set by a cheapening of the labour cost of the finished article, to which end con- stant effort was devoted. At the same time the rise in rents, altered standards of domestic comfort and rises in food prices all tended to complicate the industrial problem. In conclusion, he said that so far as engineering manufacturing was concerned, this country would, during demobilisation, at first suffer to a marked extent from the deficiency in regard to two of the chief stabilising factors of the past, i.e., the immense reduc- tion in merchant stocks of raw materials on land or on the high seas, and the lessened means of transport whereby these could be replenished. It must be remem- bered that a highly complex civilisation which had arisen through systems of intensive development, while in some respects finding their safety in diversity, may yet in other respects be the more liable to accelerated rates of disintegration, dissolution, and decay. All would admit that confusion must, if in any way possible, be avoided, lest confusion breed chaos, and chaos give place to anarchy. English Oil Fuel.—The Ministry of Munitions, in agree- ment with the Secretary for the Colonies and the Petroleum Executive, has appointed the following committee to enquire into certain matters relating to the production of fuel oil from home sources:—The Marquis of Crewe, chairman; Colonel A. Stirling, M.P.; Major Godfrey Collins, M.P.; Engineer Vice-Admiral G. G. Goodwin, Engineer-in-Chief of the Navy; Sir Richard Redmayne, representing the Controller of Coal Mines; Sir Lionel Phillips, Bart., representing the Ministry of Munitions; secretary, Mr. G. C. Smallwood, Ministry of Munitions. The following are the terms of reference:—To consider the report which has been rendered by the Petroleum Research Department on the Production of Fuel Oil from Home Sources, and to advise to what extent and within what time it should be possible under present conditions to carry out the proposals made in this report, and to consider steps which have been taken by the Ministry of Munitions in this connection. MINING INSTITUTE OF SCOTLAND. The forty-first annual meeting of the Mining Institute was held on Saturday, April 6, in the Royal Technical College, Glasgow, Mr. D. M. Mow at, Coatbridge, the president, in the chair. Council’s Annual Report. The fortieth annual report of the council, which was submitted by the secretary (Mr. G. L. Kerr), showed that the membership of the institute stood at 642—the same as at the corresponding period of last year. The council announced that Mr. D. M. Mowat, who had given his services as president for the past three years, had agreed to continue in office for a further term of one year. The finances of the institute were in a prosperous condi- tion. No fewer than 71 members of the institute were serving in his Majesty’s Forces, and of these four had fallen in action. Since the last annual report the following members of the institute had gained decora- tions for bravery or distinguished services :—D.S.O.— Major H. J. Humphrys, Major J. A. S. Ritson, and Capt. A. P. Ninimo; Military Cross—Capt. H. Hannah and Lieut. D. McKelvie. Two members of the institute, Mr. H. Rowan and Mr. G. R. Christie, Cowdenbeath, had been awarded and decorated with the Edward Medal for bravery in rescue work in mines. The report was unanimously agreed to. Election of Office-Bearers. The following office-bearers were afterwards elected:— President: Mr. D. M. Mowat, Coatbridge. Vice- presidents : Mr. T. Arnot, Hamilton, and Mr. H. Briggs, Edinburgh. Councillors : Messrs. D. Burns, W. Cald- well, H, Johnstone, J. Parker, A. H. Steele and J. W. Tweedie. The President said he had to thank the members for again re-electing him as president for the ensuing year. Personally he wished that circumstances had permitted of a change at this time, but the war still remained with them. His hopes, however, of ultimate victory for the Allied Armies were as high now as ever they had been. After the bravery that had been shown by our men in France, on the sea, and in the various ’ fighting fronts, they could not but be optimistic with regard to the future. They could all help to bring the ultimate victory nearer by their sympathy with our brave fighters, and in rendering them all the material assistance possible. (Applause.) Capital Charges Contrasted Along with Current Expenses. A long and informative discussion followed on a paper contributed by the President on “ Capital Charges Contrasted Along with Current Expenses.” A report of the discussion will be given in our next week’s issue. Stripping and Relining a Shaft at Cowdenbeath, Fife. Discussion was resumed on the paper read at last meeting by Mr. Henry Rowan on “Stripping and Relining a Shaft at Cowdenbeath, Fife.” Mr. Wm. Riddell (Bothkennar) said that the work accomplished in the stripping and relining of this shaft was undoubtedly a very creditable achievement, and one outstanding feature was the surprisingly low cost of the job. A few more details would be helpful—such as the thickness of the brick lining, and the proportion of cement and sand per 1,000 bricks. In some other instances of similar work, and where practically the same method was adopted, it had been customary to fill up the whole length of the tubed section of the shafts with ashes. From that point the operations of stripping the sides and removing the old lining were carried through by the men standing on the ashes. Did Mr. Rowan consider that any advantage was gained in this instance .by only filling in a small part with ashes, and was the work of stripping quite satisfactorily per- formed from the bricking scaffold ? Then the work of enclosing the parts where the sides had fallen away appeared to have been more difficult than the other parts, and one wondered if it would be right to assume they would also be more costly. The author mentioned in his paper that these cavities were, in some parts, from 30 ft. to 40 ft. wide. It would be interesting to know what was the greatest height that the brick pillars had to be carried to join with the brick lining above. Mr. William Wilson (Glasgow) asked the author if he had any other means of diverting a portion of his return air to the surface besides bringing it through barren tubes described in the paper. He should like also to know if the forcing of the return air through the tubes had any deleterious effect on the general ventilation of the mines. Further discussion of the paper was continued till next meeting. The Occurrence of Coking Coal in Scotland. The meeting afterwards proceeded to the discussion of the paper by Mr. Robert W. Dron on “ The Occur- rence of Coking Coal in Scotland.” Mr. J. R. Gordon, Glasgow, said it would be inter- esting if Mr. Dron could tell them something of the nature of these same seams leferred to in his paper in a region say where they could not be affected by whinstone. Mr. David Ferguson (Glasgow) said that the f aper was a timely warning that the production of coke would have to be on a much larger scale to meet the demands of the iron smelting industry. If sufficient areas of coking coal could be tapped, the substitution of coke for coal in the furnaces should result in a more rapid reduction of the ores and increased outputs of pig iron. It would, of course, necessitate the setting up of by- product plants at the coke ovens, and the transfer of those now operating on coal-fed furnaces. He believed that one at least of the iron smelting companies in Scotland ran their furnaces with some coke added to the coal as a reducing agent. It was not unlikely that coke would gradually, but not abruptly, replace coal as the splint or hard seams became exhausted. It was an interesting fact that the coking coals were generally low in moisture and were more numerous in the carboniferous limestone series than in the higher zone of the coal measures series, whilst the coking seams in the latter series were in its lower portion. It would be reasonable to infer from that fact that the Hurlet coal, lower than any of the coking coals, had coking qualities; and a sample he obtained in the Campsie district had been examined with that end in view. The results obtained were:—Moisture, 4 06 per cent.; volatile matter, tar, gas, etc., 34'04 per cent. ; fixed carbon, 55'30 per cent.; ash, 6.60 per cent. He did not trouble about estimating the sulphur, as it was quite evidently very high and might have given a high and rather fictitious value to the ash. The coke, so far as hardness was concerned, was fairly good but, owing to the amount of sulphur, was unsuited for metallurgical purposes. This confirmed the opinion of the late Mr. T. Thomson. It was unfortunate that the thickest seam with coking qualities in the carboniferous limestone series, and covering a vast area in proximity to the iron smelting works, could not be utilised until scientific research had discovered a process for eliminating the excessive amount of sulphur It would be interesting if Mr. Dron could obtain samples of coal still lower than the Hurlet and submit them to coking and moisture tests, say, for example, the Houston coal of the oil shale series of the Lothians and its probable contemporary the Quarrelton coal of Renfrewshire. It was at least a reasonable inference that time and superincumbent pressure had had some influence in producing coking qualities in the Kilsyth and Bannockburn coking coal, but had failed to produce the same effect in the Fife coal fields. Clearly it was not the main influence deter- mining the coking qualities of a coal seam, but only an accelerating agency when the main influence, whatever it might be, had been in active operation. He was rather inclined to the view that the coking qualities of the Kil- syth main coal were quite independent of any intrusive agency. The Dumbreck Colliery stood highest in the list for the coking qualities of the main coal, and whilst he could not say whether it was underlaid by an igneous intrusion in the colliery workings, he could affirm that in the outcrop, and lying immediately to the north of it,, there was no evidence of such from a considerable distance above right down to the Blackhall limestone, 464 ft. below. The influence of igneous intrusions on coal deposits was worth studying, not only in the interests of pure geological science, but from an economic point of view as well. The Ayrshire coalfield had been exposed to the intensity of the volcanic activity in early permian times, and had been much affected by the accompanying igneous intrusions. There was a wealth of scientific data to be collected there if the Geological Survey took the subject in hand as early as possible. To his mind, they were indebted to the author for drawing attention in his paper to the approaching necessity of an increased supply of coke for the metallurgical industries. The paper was held over for further discussion. OBITUARY. Mr. Philip Archer, manager of Mickley Colliery, was knocked down by an express train on the local railway line last Saturday night and was killed instantly. Mr. S. Corby, under-manager, who was with him, escaped unhurt. Mr. Archer leaves a widow and three young children. The death took place at Roscobie of Mr. Robert Leitch. Deceased for many years occupied the position of commer- cial manager of the Townhill Coal Company, and latterly was lessee of the Roscobie Limeworks, which he had developed to a considerable extent. The death is announced of Mr. Ronald Wakley at the early age of 28. He was the son of Mr. W. J. Wakley, one of the original partners in the firm of Morgan, Wakley and Company, coal exporters, Cardiff, and was himself associated with the company, although for some years past he has lived in London. Sir John Wolfe-Barry, engineer of the Tower Bridge, the Barry Docks, the Middlesbrough Docks, the Hull Joint Dock, the Immingham Dock, and other big works of construction, left estate valued at £278,362. Partnerships Dissolved.—The London Gazette, announces dissolution of the following partnerships:—M. Gibson (who continues the business) and B. Gibson, coal merchants, trading as Jubal Gibson, North Bridge, Halifax; and A. Pickles and R. H. Pickles, trading as T. H. Pickles and Sons, general ironfounders, Empress Foundry, Mytholmroyd. The business will be continued without change of title, by A. Pickles. Miners and Man-Power.—Mr. David Gilmour, the well- known Scottish miners’ leader, who for the past 25 years has been general secretary of the Lanarkshire Miners’ Association, has issued a personal statement of the causes which have produced friction between himself and the miners’ organisation. The trouble has arisen from Mr. Gilmour’s action in support of the war, and he makes some strong statements as to action by certain pacifist leaders among the miners in hampering the National Service scheme for the mobility of labour in the mines.