September 6, 1918.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

501

of tonnage hampered the pits, and inland deliveries
have been resorted to in order to_ prevent pit
stoppages. The demand in Scotland is strong.

Free tonnage is very scarce, and chartering
consequently is almost nominal in extent. In
Newcastle a small business is done in the Scandi-
navian market at firm rates. Loading turns are
easily arranged at Cardiff.

Sir Adam Nimmo, the well known Scottish colliery
owner, has accepted an invitation from the Govern-
ment to assist the Coal Controller in the administra-
tion of the coal control. The Government also
invited the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain to
nominate one of its members to assist the Coal
Controller.

The executive committee of the Miners’ Federa-
tion of Great Britain conferred with the Coal
Controller and the President of the Board of Trade,
on Friday last, relative to the question of increasing
the coal output,

The autumn meeting of the Institute of Metals
will be held in the rooms of the Chemical Society,
Burlington House, next Tuesday and Wednesday.

A conference has been suggested by the Coal
Controller as a means of meeting the difficulty
in forming joint committees for dealing with
absenteeism.

New rules for allocating coal supplies for France
will come into operation immediately. The question
of business with groupements in France is being
considered.

To meet the crisis which has arisen with regard to
the supply of coal to essential industries, and to keep
those industries going, the Coal Controller has
organised a scheme to level up stocks. In the
national interest he is having coal supplied first to
those who need it most.

The Report of the Committee of the
Scientific Privy Council for Scientific and
Research in Industrial Research for the year
the Coal ending July 31, 1918, which has just
Industry, been published, discloses a consider-
able extension of the work of this
new department. This work will grow still more,
seeing that the Imperial Trust for this branch has a
sum of £1,016,390 to its credit, in addition to other
funds subscribed for special purposes. We are glad
to see also that financial support to this project is
being given independently of the grant from the
Treasury. Encouragement has been afforded for
the establishment of research associations by the
various industries to meet the needs of each, and
manufacturers are invited to combine into co-operative
associations, to be formed under the Companies Acts,
for a similar purpose. To these bodies grants may
be made if desirable, but it is open to any industry
to establish an approved association without seeking
assistance from Parliamentary funds, in which case
such associations will be entitled to the same
privileges, as well as assistance by way of advice and
information, as those in receipt of a grant.

It may be asked why any groups of manufacturers
should prefer to forego State aid. The answer is
that some hesitation has been shown to establish any
relationship with the Government in connection with
such special researches, because of the publicity
such a course might entail; and also because it may
not always be desirable that such researches should
be fettered either by conditions or by the control
that the State as paymaster might expect to exert.
The Mining Association of Great Britain, for
example, have under consideration the establishment
of a single Research Association for the whole
kingdom, to include local sections or branches dealing
with the problems pecular to particular localities.
The details of this scheme are not yet available, but
when one recalls the valuable work already done in
this direction at the Doncaster Coal Owners’ Research
Laboratory, it is clear that there is ample scope for
an extension of this work throughout the coal fields
of the country.

Perhaps the best example of a self-supporting
institution of this nature, embracing practically an
entire industry, is the Iron Manufacturers’ Research
Association, which has been founded by the British
iron puddlers to investigate the problems of their
industry. Embracing 97 per cent, of the manu-
facturers, this body has subscribed all the4 funds
necessary for carrying out a most comprehensive
programme, and it has been decided that all the
results of the researches shall be freely available to
each firm, and that all existing knowledge, trade
secrets and procedures shall be pooled for the
common good. Being independent of financial
assistance by the Government, this body has been
able to pursue an absolutely unfettered course, and
perhaps the only substantial advantage it has secured
through becoming an approved association has been
in remission from taxation in accordance with a
decision of the Board of Inland Revenue, already
announced with regard to such cases under certain
conditions. It is but natural that the Committee of
the Privy Council regards this as an example to be
followed by other industries, and the view is
expressed that ultimately the great majority of
research associations will become independent of State
aid. Amongst the numerous schemes initiated by
the Committee a prominent place is occupied by the

work of the Fuel Research Board, whose proposals
for the establishment of a national fuel research
station has been approved. Buildings and equip-
ment, estimated to cost about £120,000, are now in
course of erection at East Greenwich on land leased
at a nominal rent by the South Metropolitan Gas
Company, under the supervision of Sir George
BeiLby, director of Fuel Research. Dr. Thomas
Gray, Professor of Technical Chemistry at the Royal
Technical College, Glasgow, has been appointed
Superintendent of the Laboratories, and when the
buildings are completed we may look for the carry-
ing out of that comprehensive chemical investigation
of our coal seams the need for which has so often
been emphasised in these columns. This kind of
work is, by its nature, fitting for State direction and
control. It will in no way clash with the work
contemplated by the National Coal Mining Research
Association. The latter body will presumably be
mainly concerned with problems concerning the
practical work of mining. Already some preliminary
work has been undertaken in this direction, and
grants have been made by the Committee of the
Privy Council to the Institution of Mining Engineers
for investigations into the atmospheric conditions in
deep and hot mines—a problem which it is expected
the Coal Mining Research Association will ultimately
take over.

Another piece of research initiated by the Privy
Council Committee last year was an investigation of
mine rescue apparatus, undertaken at the request of
the Home Office. The experimental work upon this •
problem has been carried out under the direction
of Dr. Briggs, of the Heriot-Watt College, Edin-
burgh, and a first report upon the subject has now
reached the publication stage.* Enquiries have,
in the meantime, been made into the present position
of rescue work in the mining areas, and we are
promised many suggestions for the improvement of
practice as the result of these investigations, in
which Dr. J. 8. Haldane has been also associated.

It is not possible to convey, even in outline, an
adequate view of the activities of the various boards
and committees set up by the Privy Council Com-
mittee, many of which only indirectly touch the
mining industry. Amongst these, special mention
may be made of Timber Research and the Industrial
Fatigue Research Board. There are many others,
and the field is inexhaustible. The country may
well rejoice that amidst and arising from the sad
business of the war there has been a real awakening
to the importance of systematic national research
into industrial problems.

One of the most concrete of the
A Ministry proposals of the Coal Conservation
Of Mines and Committee is that which concerns
Minerals, the establishment of a Ministry of
Mines and Minerals. That a Govern-
ment Department of this character should be set up
has already been suggested by the Iron and Steel
Institute, the Institute of Metals, the Institution of
Mining Engineers, and the Institution of Mining and
Metallurgy. Before the war responsibility for such
State supervision of mines and minerals as then
existed was shared between the Home Office, Board
of Trade and Board of Education, while certain
Crown rights were exercised by the Department of
Woods and Forests, the Admiralty, and the Duchies
of Lancaster and Cornwall. Thus, the Home Office
undertook the administration of legislation affecting
mines and quarries, the Board of Trade was
concerned mainly with statistical and economic
questions, and the Board of Education controlled the
Geological Survey. The last-named arrangement was
the subject of an enquiry by the Wharton Committee
in 1900, and, in consequence of a recommendation
by that body, a consultative committee was appointed
to advise the Board of Education as regards the
technical work of the Geological Survey. It is to
this committee that responsibility must be allocated
for the yearly programme of work which the
Geological Survey has undertaken.

Since the war it has been found necessary to set
up from time to time a number of separate com-
mittees, concerned chiefly with the various branches
of the coal trade, culminating in the appointment of
a Coal Controller in February 1917, with special
powers under the Defence of the Realm Act. In
this way a great part of the control, so far as coal
mining is concerned, has already become centralised.

It is clear that any further unification of control—
such as would follow from the formation of a
Ministry of Mines—would involve a complete reor-
ganisation of the machinery now in existence, and
would necessitate the transfer to the new ministry of
a large part of the powers now exercised by various
Government Departments. It is scarcely conceivable,
for example, that the present powers of the Coal
Controller could be permitted to survive under such
an arrangement. Upon this point, however, the
Coal Conservation Committee speaks with an uncer-
tain voice. “ Whether any of the powers of the
Controller of Coal Mines,” it states, “will survive
the war and the ensuing period of reconstruction,
cannot now be determined ; but, however this maybe,
the argument for unifying the functions of the State

* This report has just reached us, and will be further
dealt with in an early issue.

in respect of the coal mining industry will still
demand consideration.”

If this sentence foreshadows an intention to treat
the coal mining industry as something different and
exceptional, it would go far to nullify any advan-
tages that may result from the establishment of a
Ministry of Mines. In a sense, it must, of course,
be admitted that coal mining is by far the most
important branch of the mining industry in this
country. It must, also, be remembered that it is the
Coal Conservation Committee that is making the
present recommendation. Nevertheless, it is not
clear from their Report to what extent the proposed
new Ministry would control Metalliferous Mines as
well as coal mines. There appears to be some
hesitation with regard to making a clean sweep of
the whole system of multiple control now in force.
Thus, it is suggested that the Geological Survey
shall not be transferred to the Ministry of Mines,
but to the Committee of the Privy Council for
Scientific and Industrial Research. No doubt a
great deal can be said in favour of such an arrange-
ment. Regarded solely from the point of view of
the Survey itself, its functions belonging primarily
to the domain of research, it might be advantageous
to dissociate it from the distractions inseparable from
the routine of a Ministerial Department. From
the point of view of a Minister of Mines, however,
there would arise no little inconvenience if the
Ministry had no control over the activities of the
only body capable of solving fundamental technical
problems concerned with the distribution and
economic value of mineral deposits.

Amongst other reservations made by the Com-
mittee that which concerns the powers of the
Admiralty with regard to coal may be allowed to
pass without comment; and the same may be said
with respect to the position, as mineral owners,
of the Crown itself. The Commissioners of Woods
and Forests, and the Duchies of Lancaster and
Cornwall have not hitherto been concerned with any
further rights than those of owners of minerals
within their jurisdiction, and their case resembles
precisely that of other owners of mineral properties.

With regard to the Home Office, it is suggested
that all responsibility for regulations as to safety
and health, now exercised by that Department,
should pass to the new Ministry. This, indeed,
would be inevitable ; for a Ministry of Mines could
scarcely carry out its duties efficiently otherwise.
All such regulations are by their very nature
restrictive. It is necessary to preserve a nice balance
between ideal and practicable conditions—a position
which the Home Office has hitherto maintained
with conspicuous success, mainly because it has
recognised the conflicting interests concerned. But
an intolerable situation would be set up if the new
Minister of Mines, having assumed the responsi-
bilities of his office, found his administrative freedom
controlled by another Department of State.

- There would be also some delicate adjustments to
be made in the matter of the relations of the proposed
Ministry of Mines with the Imperial Mineral
Resources Bureau on the one hand and the Com-
mittee of the Privy Council for Scientific and
Industrial Research on the other. The future
creation of a Ministry of Public Health, also, might
introduce certain complications respecting the respon-
sibilities of inspectors of mines,’ all of which call for
due consideration.

All such difficulties, and some others as well, have
been fully recognised by the Committee, and account
for the reservations made by seven out of eleven
members of the Mining Sub-Committee. With
regard to these it is only now necessary to say that
we heartily approve of the proviso that State regula-
tion of mining should be rigidly separated from any
kind of control over its commercial and industrial
sides. The functions of a Minister of Mines should
be concerned mainly with facilitating prospecting
and exploitation, leaving the disposal of output to
individual effort.

Mr. S. Gompers, the American Labour leader, has
appealed to British miners to produce more coal, and to
British householders to economise in the use of it. He
speaks strongly of the vital necessity of coal for the
successful prosecution of the war.

Mr. L. Edwards, presiding at the half-yearly meeting
of the Bengal Coal Company, complained that coal com-
panies in India are obliged to sell coal at practically
pre-war rates, while all the items of cost of production
are mounting up, and depreciation and development have
to be provided for as usual.

Italian Gas Works and Coal Shortage.—The difficulties
in marine transport due to the war have produced a
grave crisis in the gas-making industry in Italy, which
is particularly indebted to foreign countries for its coal.
Many small gas works have had to close down gradually
for want of coal, whilst the large gas works have had
to suffer a gradual reduction of the supplies, so that the
production of gas has considerably declined, and measures
have had to be taken for the reduction of the gas con-
sumption. The pressure has been reduced in Milan so
low that lower floor users have had to go without, owing
to the low specific gravity of the gas. Coke might have
been largely employed, but the Vado Ligure coke ovens
have only been working half time, although equipped to
recover by-products. 80,000 tons of coke have been
imported from England through Genoa and Savona.