COALMINING IN BRITAIN

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27097, 21 July 1953, Page 11

COALMINING IN BRITAIN

Impressions Of N.Z.

Minister

WORKING CONDITIONS COMPARED (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, June 25. The New Zealand Minister of Mines, Mr Sullivan, today completed a tour of Cronton Colliery, one of Britain’s model coal mines near Liverpool, satisfied that working conditions for New Zealand miners compared favourably with the most modern British pits. “Our miners often have to work in wet and difficult conditions but they are not so cramped as the coal faces I saw today,” said Mr Sullivan. “Mechanisation in New Zealand mines is up to the standard reached in Britain although with the assurance of having a site with coal resources that will last about 100 years, the ventilation system at this pit is more efficient,” he said. “Our pithead facilities—showers, changing rooms and canteens —are well up to standard.” During his two hour tour of drives and faces in' the Cronton colliery, Mr Sullivan, equipped with miner’s helmet, light and overalls, crawled along a 140 yard cutting face more than 1700 feet underground. As the face was only 4ft 6in high, the Minister, who is 6ft sin tall, had to crouch double to make his way along the dark tunnel where the coal cutters were working. Two cutters, Messrs Bill Berry and Bill Linnett, paused in their work to talk to Mr Sullivan about conditions in English mines. “Conditions are real good now compared with when I first started in the pits.” Mr Linnett told him. “When I first went underground 30 years ago, it was hard slogging all the time. Now we’ve got mechanical cutters, ‘connies’ (conveyors) and diesel locos to 'shift the coal back. And we get a fair wage for our work now.’’ Keen League Followers Along with all the ‘ 1700 men employed in the Cronton mine, the two cutters proved to be keen followers of Rugby League. Although they were hazy about the whereabouts of New Zealand (“It’s somewhere near Australia, isn’t it”), they had the football records of all the New Zealanders playing in the local

clubs at St. Helen’s and Warrington off by heart and they talked eagerly about the last tour made by a New Zealand League side. One of the latest improvements at the colliery which Mr Sullivan inspected was the pneumatic stowage system. All coal is washed at British pits and instead of waste dirt and rock being dumped in huge piles as at other mines,' the Cronton engineers have fitted a stowage system to fill worked out drives with waste material to prevent roof collapses or outbreaks of spontaneous combustion which might lead to underground fires. The waste material is brought down the shaft from the washing plant by the returning coal bins and then carried by a system of conveyor belts back to the coal face. It is fed into a compressor which forces it under pressure into the back of each drive as the cutting front progresses long the 140 yard face. When the waste material has consolidated the miners move to the level above to continue to cut the top of the coal seam. National Coal .Board officials who accompanied the Minister on his tour told Mr Sullivan that the Cronton colliery’s output was 1950 tons of first class coal a day. Its yearly production was more than 500,000 tons, while the 15 collieries in the area produced more than 10,000,000 tons a year —more than three times New Zealand’s total production. The first shaft at Cronton was sunk in' 1914 and engineers estimate that the seams will not be worked out for another 75 years.