April 12, 1918.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

749

Amongst the numerous activities of
Trade the Ministry of Reconstruction our
Organisation attention has recently been drawn
and to the Engineering Trades (New
Development. Industries) Committee, which, under
the chairmanship of the Hon. II. D.
McLaren, M.P., has been formed for the purpose of
assisting the engineering firms in dealing with the
problems which may be expected to arise in the
establishment of new industries after the war. The
large accession of labour and plant which has been
brought about by the demands of the war has led to
a marked inflation of engineering effort, and if the
position thus created is to be made use of in the
general development of trade when peace conditions
are restored, some means must be found for the
employment of largely increased resources for the
manufacture of material other than munitions of
war. The main question which the above-named
Committee have to consider, therefore, is to determine
how these resources can be best utilised. It is a
matter which will concern individual manufacturers
directly, and the general prosperity of the country
indirectly. Mr. McLaren’s Committee is a strong
body of business men, representing leading manu-
facturing firms, and well qualified by previous
experience to assist the engineering trades, collec-
tively and individually, in turning their energies to
the best account from the moment that British firms
are liberated from their position as controlled estab-
lishments. The functions of such a committee are
twofold. It is necessary, in the first place, to ascertain
exactly what new, departures in manufacture will
afford the most promising field for development. In
the second place, it is essential that there should be
evolved some definite scheme of organisation which
will prevent a number of firms from concentrating
upon the same articles and thus running the risk of
over-production in some directions whilst leaving
other promising lines inadequately provided for.

Obviously the first and most important step to be
taken is to determine as near as possible what will
be most urgently needed after the war. When the
wants are once known, it should not be a difficult
matter to apportion the work amongst the firms best
able to cope with the demand. There should be no
necessity for any loss of energy by internal com-
petition for business.

How then can the required information be best
obtained? This question may be answered by
referring to what is already being done by certain of
the Government departments—such, for example, as
the Local Government Board and the Board of Trade-.

The Local Government Board has recently
addressed letters to various local authorities, asking
to be furnished with information as to works likely
to be undertaken at the conclusion of the war. As
is generally known, a vast amount of public work has
been suspended or held in abeyance for the duration
of the war. All kinds of public works, including
housing schemes, sanitary works, water-supply
schemes, and other enterprises are only awaiting the
sanction of the Local Government Board before
being put into operation. These various projects,
to say nothing of larger national schemes, will
demand a large quantity of engineering plant of
different kinds. It should not be difficult to obtain
accurate knowledge of the number of pumps, boilers,
gas engines, or other plant, orders for which will be
at once ready to be placed as soon as peace is
declared. It is not necessary to leave the huge
demand that will thus arise to be scrambled for. It
ought to be possible not only to make provision for
this work beforehand, but also to arrange for priority
of supply of the materials for carrying it out.

Then, as regards the Board of Trade, the new
Department of Overseas Trade is rapidly being got
into working order. The object of this department
is to maintain direct touch between manufacturers
at home and the various parts of the British Empire
where markets exist. The new Trade Commissioner
Service is designed for the purpose of obtaining
accurate information as to the demand for British
manufactures in the Dominions and Colonies of the
Empire, and it will be equally its business to know
what articles the British manufacturer can supply,
and what steps are advisable to be taken to ensure
that this business does not pass into the hands of
foreign competitors.

These two departments alone should be in a
position to obtain just the kind of information which

the Engineering Trades Committee require. Unfor-
tunately, it has hitherto been the habit of our
Government departments to work in watertight
compartments, without any serious attempt at
mutual co-operation. It would be doing good
work to bring about more unity of effort; and
it would certainly be advisable for the Engineering
Trades Committee to take immediate steps, if that has
not already been done, to turn to practical account
the knowledge which both the Local Government
Board and the Board of Trade will shortly have
accumulated with regard to the prospective demand
for engineering material at home and abroad.

The Engineering Trades Committee should form a
sort of clearing house for the arrangement and
classification of all the most urgent requirements for
plant and machinery. In this way a large amount
of post-war confusion and delay could be avoided,
and controlled firms would be able to pass into peace
conditions with a minimum of disturbance.

In the current issue of The Nineteenth
Coal and Century and After, Mr. J. Ellis
Iron. Barker has written an article
entitled, “Coal, Iron, and the
Domination of the World.” The German concep-
tion, he says, that the nation which dominates the
coal and iron resources of Europe dominates Europe
itself industrially, commercially, financially and
militarily, is correct. He sees grave danger in a
failure to recognise this fact, and he deplores the
tendency, still too prevalent with our statesmen and
diplomats, to pay too much attention to political and
racial questions and too little to the coal and iron
problem. He asserts that the pre-eminence both of
the Anglo-Saxon nations and of Germany is due
primarily to mineralogical causes, and we may add
that this view is also held by many eminent
industrialists and men of science, although it has
been hitherto almost ignored by historians and
political writers.

The thesis which Mr. Ellis Barker advances is
worthy of serious consideration. He adopts, as a
fundamental principle of the cause of all wars,
ancient and modern, the theory that they have been
due to economic considerations rather than to the
effect of personal or national passions. In the early
days, the agricultural question was dominant, and
nations fought for the possession of territory in which
abundant food could be produced, by which alone
large populations and big armies could be reared.
In modern times the growth of population follows
not the development of agriculture but the output of
coal and iron, the raw materials of munitions and
machinery.

It is perfectly true that population tends to
segregate in the manufacturing areas at the expense
of the agricultural districts. This is proved by
experience alike in the United Kingdom, Germany
and the United States. It is equally incontestable
that the intensive production of machinery is only
possible in countries where iron and coal are
abundant, and if we are to attach to the possession
of this mineral wealth the importance ascribed to it
by Mr. Barker, there is no escape from his conclu-
sion that North America is destined in due time to
become the world centre both of population and
military power ; for the coal resources of that country
are at least five times as great as those of the whole
of Europe.

Mr. Barker proceeds to show that the industrial
backwardness of certain countries is due not so much
to lack of enterprise as to lack of coal. The
industrial growth of Germany he attributes to the
fact that that country possessed before the war
55 per cent, of the coal of all Europe and more than
70 per cent, of the coal of the European Continent.
By the temporary conquest of Belgium and Northern
France, Germany has greatly increased her relative
preponderance in the possession of coal and iron;
but we cannot help thinking that Mr. Barker
attaches too much importance to quantity and too
little to the quality of the material.

Arguments based upon statistics of estimated
mineral resources are likely to be somewhat wanting
in perspective. This is the case not only in regard
to coal, but still more so in respect to iron. The
consideration of this point may not, perhaps, alter
the order of precedence, but it tones down much of
its significance. Suppose, for example, we compare
Germany’s mineral resources with those of the

British Empire—the only true comparison from the
point of view of national ascendancy—the figures
would point to a very different conclusion from that
indicated in the article before us. From Mr.
Barker’s figures, the united resources in coal and
iron in Canada alone are certainly ten times greater
than those of Germany. It seems to be scarcely
reasonable to take the British Islands as representing
the total potentiality of the British Empire. There
has been too general a disposition to ignore the
almost undeveloped mineral wealth of our young
and self-governing dominions. Much of the latent
resources of this large area remains yet to
be exploited, for the simple reason that countries
like Canada, Australia, India and South Africa
have hitherto devoted their available energies
mainly to other industries. But it would be
wrong to conclude that this condition of things is
permanent. The truth is that these countries are
still in the making. Their full opportunities have
not yet come, and new industries must always await
their markets. Does anyone believe that the British
Empire could not outbid Germany in any effort for
supremacy based upon output figures of coal and
iron ? Signs are not wanting that the old order of
things is even now in a state of flux, and it is at
least permissible to conclude that amongst the many
changes that the war will bring about, not the least
in importance will be a fuller development of the
mineral wealth of the British Empire. Germany’s
rapid industrial progress has been largely due to the
fact that the war of 1870 gave her the possession of
the minette ore of Lorraine—an important asset,
without doubt, but still infinitesimal in comparison
with the potential reserves in the hands of Great
Britain.

Nevertheless, we agree with Mr. Barker with
respect to his main contention—viz., that our states-
men have lived too much in the past, and have
failed to realise the great importance of mineral
development. That failing has already been fully
recognised by the British Government, and it will be
surprising if the lesson the war has taught us will
ever be forgotten. It is for the people of the British
Empire to see that this does not happen, and
Mr. Barker’s contribution to the subject will certainly
be helpful to this end.

PARLIAMENTARY INTELLIGENCE.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.—April 9.

Military Service and Miners.

Mr. Lloyd George, in referring to the levy in connection
with the Man-Power proposals, said that there must be
a very strict comb-out of some essential industries. Already
100,000 Grade 1 men had been taken from munition works.
A call had been made on the coal industry for 50,000
men, and he regretted to say that military needs would
necessitate the calling up of another 50,000 from that
industry. The Government was convinced that these men
could be spared without endangering the essential output
of coal for national industries. The miners were loyal in
meeting the present demand for 50,000 men, and he was
confident they would meet this further demand in the
same spirit in view of the great national emergency. The
transport services were also being called upon to release
the greatest possible number of picked men. The first
new proposal was to raise the military age to 50, and
in certain specified cases to 55, but only where men with
special qualifications were needed. It was idle to imagine,
as some light-hearted people seemed to think, that we had
an unlimited reservoir of man-power in this country. We
had already raised in this country for military and naval
purposes nearly 6,000,000 men. We could not raise the
same proportion of men per population as in other belli-
gerent countries. The navy and shipping must be first.
We had also to supply our allies with coal. Owing, how-
ever, to the greatly increased efficiency of women’s labour,
there was a reserve of men, consistent with the discharge
of these obligations, that might be withdrawn in a great
emergency for our battle line without impairment to the
striking power of the country for war.

The Brentford Gas Company has given notice of an
increase of 8d. per 1,000 cu. ft. in the price of gas for the
present quarter.

Institution of Mining and Metallurgy.—The annual meet-
ing of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy was held
yesterday (Thursday) evening in Burlington House,
Piccadilly, London, W. The report stated that the council
has dealt with questions of national importance affecting
the future of the mining and metallurgical industries, and
is confident that its action on these questions will result
in far-reaching benefit. The council is watching carefully
and preparing for dealing with problems of organisation
and reconstruction after the war. As a result of negotia-
tions the Revenue authorities accepted the claim that
mines are wasting assets, and that amortisation of capital
during life should be allowed. During the year 63
members were admitted into the institution. The total
membership at December 31, 1917, was 2,365, as compared
with 2,409 at December 31, 1916—a decrease of 44. Mr.
Hugh F. Marriott has been elected as president in succession
to Mr. Edgar Taylor. Mr. H. K. Picard has been elected
as vice-president to fill the vacancy created by the death
of Mr. George T. Holloway. Messrs. J. A. Agnew, C. O.
Bannister, A. B. Suart and Sir H. Ross Skinner were
elected members of council to fill existing vacancies.