SAFETY FIRST

Grey River Argus, 1 April 1932, Page 8

SAFETY FIRST

In Donbas CANADIAN MINER’S TRIBUTE (Millerton Correspondent.) Just over a w-eek ago, one saw in the papers a report purporting to deal with the conditions obtaining in the mining areas of Soviet Russia. I n the report, one read that the miners were not able to follow up their work through starvation. It also referred to the filthy conditions obtaining everywhere. Anyhow, in an article written by a miner hailing from Scotland, with long residence in Nova Scotia, there is the lie given to such reports. Surely, if the miners are able to organise working conditions, they will see to it that food is supplied in quantity and quantity. The article is by J. B. McLachlan, a Nova Scotia miner, and is as follows:—

Having spent three weeks visiting the coal miners of the Donbas, I wish to give niy impressions of the conditions under which I found the coalminers working. Behind me, }i e 40 years’ experience in the coal mines of Scotland and Canada; and I know something of the hazards of coal mining in these countries, hazards absent in the mines visited by me in the Donbas. Canada has the highest deathrate of all coal mining countries in the world. The prime reason for this bad record is not gas explosions, but falls from the roof and sides. In all the mines visited in the Donbas, I found only three broken timbers in all the haulage roads and roads where me n travel underground. Although I looked carefully for “ overhangs ’ ’ I was unable to find one; but, on the contrary, found the roadways timbered safely

and all sides squared up, eliminating all “overhangs." The result of this was a very low death rate —nearlv

equal to the lowest in coal-mining countries—when one remembers the large number of “Green Peasants" who have entered these mines in recent years, this record of the Donbas is a wonderful achievment. Canada’s annual death rate per thousand has stood for years around five. In the mines visited in the Donbas, the death rate was 1.5 per thousand, so that a man digging coal in Canada has three times the chance of being killed than a miner in the Soviet Union. Not only did I find the safety of the worker a first consideration, but also his health. The matter of having a healthful quantity of fresh air circulated around (he working face costs real money. This fact determines the rotten conditions under which miners have sometimes to work in the coal mines of Canada. I have dug coal in a Canadian coal mine, where, if a third lamp came into the face, then all three would die out for lack of oxygen, and where in a six foot high coal, if you raised your lamp to the roof, your light was extinguished for the same reason. Wherever I went in the Donbas, I made it a point to test the a-'r current at the working face. There, one had no need to raise his lamp to the roof to find a little oxygen. The fresh current struck your face, and if you desired to test the rate at which if passed a given point, you haj but let some coal dust slip through your fingers, to see the air current carry the cloud of dust awav from you.

HEALTHFUL CONDITIONS The matter of safety and the matter of healthful working conditions for the miners in the Donbas were better than anything with which my 40 years’ experience was acquainted. The cost for bed and board for young single men is from 30 to 35 roubles per month. (A rouble is equal to about 2s). The wages earned run from 120 to 300 roubles per month. I met contract diggers who earned 400 to 500 roubles per month. Nothing is deducted from these earnings for rent, coal, light, water, and so on. At the present time miners are working in Canada two and three days per week and earn, for this working time, from 25 to 50 dollars per month. In Cape Breton, the deductions from these earnings are: rent 7.50 dols. coal 6.00 dols. explosives 1.50 dols., hospital .50 dols., doctor 1.00 dols. Union 1.00 dols. polltax 1.00 dols. These are all paid befor e a bit of bread can be bought. ROUTE TO SOCIALISM I visited all types of mines in the Donbas, those with a very low mechanization, anj those with a very high one, but everywhere found the workers having as their objective, 100 per cent, mechanization and the rationalisation of the coal industry a s the correct road in the building of socialism. In Capitalistic countries the word “rationalisation" has become a word of terror to the workers. It means creating wealth for the capitalist for which they can find no market. It means huge masses thrown out of work, longer bread lines, more starvation, and a bitter experience for millions of workers, filled with utter hopelessness. Rationalisation in the Soviet Union is very different. It means that the workers in the mines and factories are creating more products for themselves, r sulting in higher wages, better working conditions, better homes, and more cultural opportunities. In capitalist countries, rationalisation is an attempt workers outdoing each other in starvation—in the Soviet Union , an attempt to satisfy ©very human need and det-ire.