MINERS’ SAFETY FIRST

Evening Star, Issue 22276, 29 February 1936, Page 14

MINERS’ SAFETY FIRST

MINISTER ON MACHINES FOR PILLAR WORKING

(Per United Press Association.l

HAMILTON, February 29

In the fantastic shadows cast by the flickering safety lamps in a mine drive 200 feet below" ground, two Ministers of the Crown, a member of Parliament, and the mine managers, and men weighed the pros and cons of the dispute in the • M'Donald Colliery at Huntly yesterday afternoon.” Whether the use of machines in the pillar workings constituted a menace* to the miners was the point at issue, »and no words were _ minced by the speakers as the position was outlined to the Minister of Mines, the Hon. P. C. Webb.' The party of 20 which formed an interested audience included the Minister of Agriculture, the Hon. W. Lee Martin, Mr C.. A. Barrel!, M.P., Mr A. Tyndall, Under-Secretary for _ Mines, -the managers, of all the mines in the Huntly coalfields, together with representatives of the Northern Miners’ Union.

A practical man, Mr Webb declined to accept finality in tbe dispiite between the men and the management until ho had inspected the pillar workings, and so it was that, shortly before noon, the party, equipped with acetylene safety lamps and light rain coats, filed through the entrance into tbe bewildering maze of passages. Poised on the-higuest point of a fall of coal, the Minister heard the case presented by both 1 sides; and cross-ex-amined those who elected to give evidence for more than two hours, until the acetylene supply was almost exhausted. He inspected the myriad of drives and pillar workings. Subsequently, he said he would state defin-, itely that the Government would not be a party to forcing the men to work in places which they considered dangerous to their lives. He agreed that machine working in pillars was in most cases definitely undesirable, and so long as the men considered that such work was a hazard he thought the opinion of the men who risked their lives underground should be respected; but if at any time the men and the management agreed Upon some modified system of machine extraction of pillars that would guarantee the safety 'that the'men required, the department could take no exception. Its first consideration, however, must be the safety of the men. •