§ The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans)I beg to move, in page 2, line 31, to leave out from the word "that" to the end of the Clause, and to insert instead thereof the words
no partial absorption scheme shall, without the consent of the owner of the absorbed company, provide for the separation of the treating or disposing of coal from the working thereof, or, in the case of an undertaking of which the primary object is not coal mining, provide for the separation from the undertaking of any coal mine worked as ancillary to such primary object.I do not think I need trouble the House with a long statement regarding this Amendment. The first part is practically a re-enactment of the words left out, with one exception, namely, that, with the consent of the owner something can be done which is prohibited by the Clause as it at present stands. The second part of the Amendment, namely, the last three lines, has for its object the prevention of a compulsory absorption scheme which would break up a vertical amalgamation, that is to say, would take a coal mine which was part of an existing organisation consisting also of, say, steel works or iron works, from those steel works or iron works. The intention of absorption is not to prevent an amalgamation which already exists, but to improve the efficiency of the working of coal mines by amalgamating two or more which can be more usefully worked together.
§ Amendment agreed to.