§ 8. Sir C. CORYasked the President of the Board of the Trade whether his attention has been called to suggestions which have been made, as a result of certain figures given on page 8 of the Independent Accountants' Report on the Coal Industry, that colliery owners have sold coal to other departments of their undertakings at less prices than those charged to outside consumers; whether any difference between the average prices of coal sold by a colliery to works connected with the colliery and to outside consumers, respectively, is due to differences in the average quality of the coal in the two cases; and whether the prices charged by a colliery to works connected with the colliery are fixed on a commercial basis by the Coal Controller under the Coal Mines Agreement (Confirmation) Act, 1918, and not by the colliery owners, and are the same as those at which the works would be able to obtain the coal as ordinary purchasers from other collieries?
§ Mr. BRIDGEMANThere is no ground for the suggestion that colliery owners have transferred coal to other departments of their undertaking at a price less than that obtainable for coal of similar quality in the open market. Clause 17 of the Coal Mines Control Agreement (which Clause is embodied in paragraph 2 (1) of Part II. of the Second Schedule to the Coal Mines (Emergency) Bill provides that the Controller shall fix the transfer prices in all such cases "on a commercial basis," and in each of the composite concerns in question the Controller has fixed them at the market price at which the non-colliery department could have brought the coal from other collieries. These market prices are governed by the Price of Coal (Limitation) Act, and the subsequent Orders of the Board of Trade affecting inland prices. As suggested by the hon. Baronet, the average transfer price is below the average price of coal sold for inland use because the average quality is poorer. The bulk of the coal transferred is slack, which is used for coke ovens, iron and steel works, and kindred purposes; and its average market price during the period covered by Messrs. 8 Alfred Tongue and Company's report was not only below the average market price of other coal sold for inland purposes, but below the average cost of raising all coal, large and small.