HC Deb 05 December 1911 vol 32 cc1331-2
Sir C. CORY

I beg to move, in Part A ("return of persons ordinarily employed"), to leave out the word "Amount" [Amount of coal won, including small or slack].

All that is required at present is the quantity, and surely that is all that is needed. It has nothing to do with safety.

Mr. S. ROBERTS

I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. McKENNA

The Department is responsible for annual statistics, and it is desirable that they should be in every respect accurate. The Royal Commission in 1893 reported very strongly on this point, and recommended that there should be power to require exact statistics. There was a general Report of the Royal Commission on Coal Supplies in 1905, and they stated that if the suggestion of the Departmental Committee that this kind of statistics should be prepared had been carried out, it would have greatly assisted their inquiries. Not long ago the Census Production Act was passed, and colliery proprietors have to make a return once in five years, and it means that the statistics furnished to the Board of Trade must be accurate.

Sir C. CORY

Those statistics under the Schedule may not be accurate, because a colliery may be working at a loss.

Mr. McKENNA

All we ask is that we shall be supplied with these statistics, and that they shall be accurate.

Amendment negatived.