PRODUCTION GAP IS 50,000,000 TONS

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24984, 19 September 1946, Page 4

PRODUCTION GAP IS 50,000,000 TONS

BRITAIN'S COAL

IBy JAMES LANSDALE HODSON.]

London, September 13.—-Britain’s coal problem is etched in South Wales in lines that are very sharp and clear Some of the outlines are etched in .a kind of acid—those lines, for instance, that mean silicosis. The leaders on both sides, employers and men, see coal as the crucial problem of industry. "Given 50,000,000 tons more, we should be a well-to-do nation, said a coal owner. Again: "Without enough coal we sink to a second-rate agricultural country,” said the miners’ leader. That extra 50,000,000 tons is seen as an elusive gift of the gods—tantalising, out of reach. Yet even that would be 50,000,000 tons less than we took out of the earth in 1913. when wages were lower and mining conditions worse; but then we had nearly half a million piore men in and about the z Coal or Oil Cardiff was our largest coal-shipping port. Speak of Rhondda and you think of coal. Whether the Royal Navy should bum coal or oil was a Brave topic in the Welsh valleys in the old days. Oil won; and Wales regretted it. So it’s natural that I should hear criticism of the plan to switch 13OT heavy locomotives and, it is said, 1000 factories from coal to oil as fast as possible. •’Defeatism,” the miners’ leader called it. Tongues can be blunt as well as eloquent. And yet if you can’t get enough, coal, what then? Six years ago South Wales had 140.000 miners, and the output of saleable coal was 32,352,000 tons. A year later the miners, were down to 105,000. (The others had gone into the forces or were scattered over England in other trades because coal exports had stopped and the pits were' shutting.) In January, 1945, we had 112,000 miners, 2000 of them Beyin boys. The output in 1944 was 22,393,000 tons. To-day the miners number 107,529, and although that is 500 higher than last December, the increase came from returned soldiers. You can’t go on repeating that. The output last year was '20,469,000 tons, a drop since 1940 of 12,000,000 tons in one coalfield. We’re now going to save 1,000,000 tons by switching locomotives from coal to oil, and pernaps 3,000,000 tons more by converting factories Some discern glimmers of light, however. An employer, chairman or managing-director of. half a dozen South Wales companies spoke of a group of pits where he has persuaded men to stop pooling their earningsand allow the individual man to be pud

for the coal he cuts. Ths manshift at the face has risenrS" from two tons to three; andi«S?.!*4 it will rise to five. He is install machinery at other pCT l will, he trusts, treble the oufon. coalface. Fewer Women at Work Third, he saw hope in the f...« in many a household the miner?" "Hi packet has grown in cause fewer women are goine l * work. He spoke of economy iht h ? ut » using of the coal-burner m hi, which does better with five one which formerly took 10 to-; "•< said that when Britain as a nation k, M her coal efficiently she will exfr.M*i much power from IMOOOOOo . ‘*l now takes 170.000,900. This 'them? 3 M men's lips. A mayor asked me if r ’I lised we sent a whole up the chimney? That we more than 30 per cent, of tb»LH value? All very true, no doubt hi?SI reforms are some way offall be achieved this winter. ’ ’’•'l Better Output ' The figures from the South Uu.l Miners’ Federation show the ouh?’i rising a little reckoned by mamlOo rl the first quarter of 1945 it a shift for all men employed: 3SM quarter of 1945 17.35 cwt. This ing the first quarter* it wujGM (The man at the face actually »—Fro 48 to 51cwt a shift, but it j 8 spread over the others not at the jLJI Britain is, as a nation, care of her industrial casusfi3®i are encouraged to leave the tittl soon as disease becomes erXji They're compensated; new being built specially for therCyjsl and right actiqn, since 80 per «ntj more are fit for some form o! nej trial employment. In nine raaoSkl two years, when all the factoriu built, all fit to work will probably hn9 jobs. Numbers, of course, awiTSjpl already—77 in Merthyr Tydifi flTl Aberdare, 157 in Mountain Ash. Xi! KI is different from the past id pneumoconiosis wasn't peukud men feared having a medle»l«SSj| tion lest they be pronounced misHl work; they kept on working gone. We’re dealing with, legacy, tor these lung dlMMtfd mighty deterrents to newcoMnd sons of miners. We've-to conviactH men that (a) dust will be tnmad and much is being done to-flutitaM that the victims will be provldwft3|