not be found, the rent and royalties should be paid into court. In the converse case, where the only person who is able to work the coal refuses to do so except upon unfair terms, the Ministry of Mines and Minerals should have power to settle the terms of a lease on the application of the owner of the coal, and the terms so adjusted should be binding upon the adjoining lessee.

It also appears that the industry has suffered from excessive charges for rights of way, whether underground easements or surface "wayleaves." This is a grievance of long standing, and the subcommittee proposes an alteration of the law, quoting in support of the proposal the recommendations of the royal commission on mining royalties of 1893: "We beg to submit our opinion that owners of mineral property unreasonably debarred from obtaining access to the nearest or most convenient public railway, canal, or port on fair terms, or from obtaining underground easements on fair terms, ought not to be left without a remedy."

These abuses on the part of the landed interests have also been considered by the Committee on Acquisition and Valuation of Land of the Ministry of Reconstruction, in a report submitted April 29, 1919, which proposes that such matters shall be placed under a "new general sanctioning authority, analogous in character and methods to a parliamentary committee." This committee disapproved the suggestion that a new ministry be created, and proposed, instead, a mining department under the Home Office. With such an organization, the procedure recommended is as follows:

Where the best development of the nation's mineral resources is impeded by the rights of private property, an application may be made to the sanctioning authority to obtain compulsory powers to deal with the situation on fair terms to the owner.

Where interference in the national interest with existing rights, whether at common law or contractual, is sought in connection with the working of minerals, an application should, in the first instance, be lodged with the mining department.

The mining department should try to effect an arrangement between the parties concerned; if such an arrangement can not be effected, any party should have the right to apply to the sanctioning authority for a compulsory order. If it is brought to the notice of the mining department and they are satisfied that minerals are not being worked, which, in the national interest, ought to be worked, they should be empowered on their own motion to negotiate an agreement with some mineral work for getting the minerals in question, and to obtain the consent of the other parties affected and, on failure of such negotiations, the department should be empowered to apply to the sanctioning authority for a compulsory order of an appropriate character in favor of some mineral worker willing to work.

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*

In cases where neither the lord of the manor on the one hand, nor the copyholder or customary freeholder on the other hand, can work minerals without the consent of the other, if one party refuses his consent, the other party should be entitled to apply to the sanctioning authority for an order settling the terms on which the minerals are to be worked.

Where the minerals are owned in small separate areas by a number of owners, or where, in an area of whatever size, the minerals are owned by a number of owners entitled as tenants in common, and in consequence it is difficult or even impossible to obtain agreement, the intending mineral worker should be able to apply to the mining department, and if the mining department, after negotiation, fail to secure agreement with the owners, the intending mineral worker should be able to apply to the sanctioning authority for an appropriate order.

* * *

Application should be made to the sanctioning authority for compulsory orders for wayleaves, both above and below ground, and accommodation land and other surface rights.

INQUIRY BY COAL INDUSTRY COMMISSION.

Except for the recommendation of the Subcommittee on Electric Power Supply, none of the proposals of the Coal Conservation Committee's subcommittees have been developed to the stage of Government measures. But on February 26, 1919, an act was passed "To constitute a commission to inquire into the position and conditions prevailing in the coal industry," and the Coal Industry Commission, under the chairmanship of Justice Sankey, almost immediately began a series of inquiries. The first interim report of this commission, submitted on March 20, 1919, had to do primarily with hours and wages, and recommendations were presented which were substantially to the advantage of the mine workers.

This report was accepted by the Government. It provided for a day of 7 hours instead of 8 for underground work, effective July 16, 1919, and for a 6-hour day, effective (subject to the economic position of the industry), July 13, 1921; also for a week of 461 hours for surface workers, effective July 16, 1919. In the matter of wages it recommended an increase of 2s. per shift or per day for workers over 16, and of 1s. for those below that age. This means an additional wage payment of £30,000,000 during the present year. To make these recommendations effective, the Coal Mines Bill was introduced into Parliament as a Government measure.

In connection with this award the commission estimated that its effect upon output would be a 10 per cent reduction. This is open acknowledgment that a serious condition exists in the British coal industry; for if the assumption is true that higher wages and shorter hours will result in reduced production, the outlook is most unfavorable. Since 1913 there has been a decline in both total output and output per employee, and during the first half of 1919 the rate of decline increased. Absenteeism, always an important factor in the reduction of output, is still great, for a variety of reasons. Strikes have been frequent, and some of them have had nothing to do with compensation, hours, or working conditions. Indeed, Welsh miners have struck in protest against the income tax; and it is charged that they have restricted their earnings as a means of escaping the tax. There are also miners who seem to be content with a certain standard of living, and as their rate of wages is increased they either reduce their output while employed or work for a shorter time. Other conditions contributing to reduced output are the unsatisfactory railway service, the shortage of pit wood, and the general relaxation of effort that has been apparent in industrial circles since the signing of the armistice.

This situation has been made the subject of a number of statements by the President of the Board of Trade. On June 4, 1919, he declared that for the first year under the award there would be a working deficiency of £46,600,000, to meet which an increase in the price of coal at the mines amounting to 4s. 6d. per ton would be required; and on July 9 he said that the increase must be 6s. An order was therefore issued by the Board of Trade making the increased price effective on July 16. This order was suspended for a few days to allow the labor interest to take action upon the Government's offer to defer the increase for three months provided the

miners would agree to refrain from striking or stopping work_aud to attempt to increase their output. It was finally put in force from July 21 after the refusal of the miners had been received.

According to the figures presented by the President of the Board of Trade in the House of Commons on July 19, the average price of coal at the mines in 1913 was 11s.; the new price was 29s. 31d. and the cost to the London consumer 49s. 6d. In 1913 Derby coal costing 13s. at the mines sold in London for 27s.

What this increase might mean to British industry is apparent. According to the president of the Board of Trade:

We have got at the present moment to face a rise in the price of our pig iron of anything from 15s. to 20s. a ton-perhaps more. In steel and finished iron we have got to face an increase of 25s. to 30s., and perhaps a bit more. Coke will go up about 10s. a ton, I should say; spelter will go up £2 a ton; gas, 6d. to 9d. per 1,000 feet; electric power, one-fifth of a penny per unit [kilowatt hour]; paper, 10s. a ton; glass, 5 per cent to 10 per cent; textiles, about 4 per cent; bricks, about 5 per cent; machinery, about 12 per cent; chemicals generally, about 10 per cent-some of them, such as caustic soda, sodium sulphide, and bleaching powder, 20s., 30s., and 50s. a ton.

As to the probable effect of these increases upon British exports he cited the following figures:

Rails.-In Britain, before the rise in coal, £16 a ton; after the rise, £17 10s. a ton; in the United States to-day, £10 a ton.

Ship plates. Before the rise in coal, £17 15s. a ton; the probable new price, £19; American price, £14.

Brown bars. Before the rise in coal, £21 a ton; probable new price, £22 10s.; American price, £11 15s.

Pig iron. Cleveland No. 3 foundry, before the rise, £8; after it, £9; and No. 2 Pittsburgh, £6.

During the third quarter of the year the output of the mines increased, and in November it was announced that the price of coal for household use will be reduced 10s., and that bunker coal for coastwise traffic will also be reduced to the industrial price level. This indicates the willingness of the Government to respond to improved conditions and gives ground for the belief that the price of industrial coal also may be reduced.

THE MOVEMENT FOR NATIONALIZATION.

COAL.

For many years the principle of national ownership of industry has been advocated by British labor. The movement developed gradually until 1912, when the Miners' Federation gave its approval to a bill to nationalize the coal mines and minerals of the United Kingdom and to provide for the national distribution and sale of coal.

This measure was introduced in the House of Commons. It provided for a Ministry of Mines in which were to be vested all coal mines and collieries and appurtenances thereof, including "patent fuel" plants, coke ovens, coal cars, and all colliery-owned houses occupied by miners; also all coal or other minerals used for fuel beneath the surface, whether worked or not. It further provided for the purchase of all such property, without taking into account the value of minerals or the right to work them ("royalties ") or mineral wayleaves" (rights of way), at a price to be assessed by commissioners, half of whom should be representatives of labor. Payment was to be made in guaranteed 3 per cent coal-mine stock, on which dividends should be paid out of the income of a coal-mines' fund, or, if that should be insufficient, out of the consolidated fund of the nation.

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The ministry was to have the responsibility for working the mines through its own staff, and for selling the output, the proceeds going into the coal-mines' account and the net surplus being transferred annually to a sinking fund and a depreciation fund.

The various acts regulating labor in mines were to remain in force. Employees were to be free to join trade-unions and to participate in civil and political action, and their representatives must be consulted before regulations or conditions affecting them, including wages, should be made or altered. Failing agreement, the matter was to be referred to arbitration.

Thus the ministry would have a monopoly of the production of coal, and also of sales, wholesale, retail, and export. All royalties (estimated at £6,000,000 a year) would be abolished, and all middlemen excluded from the trade. The estimated purchase price under the scheme was about £150,000,000.

This bill was not accepted by the Government; instead, a minimum wage scale was fixed as a compromise measure. However, it is of present interest; for its chief provisions still represent the policy of the Miners' Federation, the largest trade-union body in Great Britain. The only essential change that has been made in the scheme is in the direction of joint control of the national mines by the Government and the miners.

As a result of the war the matter of nationalization was held in suspense; but after the signing of the armistice it reappeared as a live issue, coupled with a demand for an immediate increase in the rate of wages and a decrease in working hours. A general stoppage of all mining activities was only averted by an agreement between the Federation and the Government that a joint Coal Industry Commission should be set up to inquire first into the matter of wages

and hours and later into the matter of organization of the industry, whether on the existing basis, on the basis of joint control, nationalization, or any other basis.

In the preceding chapter attention has been given to the award recommended in the report of the chairman of the commission— Justice Sankey-under the terms of the first reference; and, as has been said, that award was accepted by the Government as its proposal for the settlement of the dispute. The chairman's report, however, went beyond the scope of the first reference when it declared:

Even upon the evidence already given, the present system of ownership and working in the coal industry stands condemned, and some other system must be substituted for it, either nationalization or a method of unification by national purchase and/or by joint control. * * *

We are prepared, however, to report now that it is in the interests of the country that the colliery worker shall in the future have an effective voice in the direction of the mine. For a generation the colliery worker has been educated socially and technically. The result is a great national asset. Why not use it?

During the second stage of its inquiry the commission took evidence on the subject of organization, and on June 20, 1919, a fourpart report was issued. On one great issue the recommendations of the commission were unanimous that is, that the State should acquire the title to the coal underground and the rights to work it, although the labor representatives were opposed to the giving of compensation. It must be borne in mind in this connection that the royalty owners had no representation upon the commission. There was also practical unanimity in condemnation of the existing method of working by private enterprise, or at least in admitting that it should be improved; and nationalization of the working of the mines was favored by a bare majority, which included the chair

man.

Justice Sankey's report is worthy of careful consideration, both on its own merits and as an expression of opinion of a jurist of distinction whose relation to the controversy is that of an independent. Its importance is materially enhanced by the qualified indorsement of the labor representatives on the commission. Its chief recommendations are here reproduced:

I. OWNERSHIP OF ROYALTIES.

1. That Parliament be invited immediately to pass legislation. acquiring the coal royalties for the state and paying fair and just compensation to the owners.

The acquisition of the royalties in one final settlement is declared to be preferable to the piecemeal scheme proposed by the Committee on the Acquisition and Valuation of Land (and discussed on page 26 of this report).

II. OWNERSHIP OF MINES.

1. That the principle of State ownership of the coal mines be accepted. The principal reasons upon which this recommendation is based are:

Coal mining is our national key industry upon which nearly all other industries depend. A cheap and adequate supply of coal is essential to the comfort of individuals and to the maintenance of the trade of the country. In