COAL MINES, & c. REGULATION BILL. (Hansard, 8 September 1887)

§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Viscount CROSS)
, in moving an Amendment authorizing the Secretary of State, in the case of mines employing not more than "30" persons underground, to provide, if considered expedient, the payment of such persons by any method other than that in the Act, said, that the effect of the Amendment would be to bring under the regulations of the clause a number of mines other than coal mines. The question of the thin seam mines was involved. According to the existing law, the Secretary 1628 of State had the power of exemption in all thin seam mines; but according to the Bill, as presented to their Lordships, that power of exemption was taken away, except in cases where only 20 persons were employed underground. The reason of the limit was this. In the cases where minerals had to be weighed it was necessary that weighing machines should be provided at the top of the pit, in order that the material should be properly weighed and the machine properly inspected. But it had always been thought that in the case of small mines this would put the owner to great expense; and therefore the object of the clause, as it at present stood, was to allow the Secretary of State to make an exemption in the case of small mines where 20 persons were employed underground. The Amendment he proposed would meet the objections of some mine owners by raising the number from 20 to 30. The noble and learned Lord opposite (Lord Bramwell) had asked, on a previous occasion, the reason of the provision. He (Viscount Cross) understood that since 1867 the miners, as a body, had thought that any other way of measuring the amount of their work was rough and uncertain. There was a great deal of dissatisfaction among the miners, owing to this uncertainty of receiving a due amount of pay for the due amount of work performed. It was, therefore, thought that it would be advisable to institute a uniform practice, so far as it could be attained. The noble and learned Lord asked if the miners in a particular mine were agreed, and the" Secretary of State was agreed, why not leave them alone? The question was difficult to answer; but the only reply he could give was that the miners, as a body, decidedly objected to the discretion of the Secretary of State.

§ LORD BRAMWELL
said, if the noble Viscount was satisfied, it was no use for him (Lord Bramwell) to object; but he must say that it seemed to him that the proposition was a most unreasonable one.

§ VISCOUNT CROSS
said, he would undertake that before the third reading he would consider what further could 1629 be done in the matter of relaxations to meet the case of quarries where wages were paid at present by measure.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HALSBURY)
read a telegram from the solicitor of the Associated Colliery Owners of Monmouthshire and South Wales, representing the injuries that must arise to all colliery owners and working miners by an Amendment carried without previous Notice in the other House on the Report stage of the Bill. The Amendment was to Clause 49, General Rule 26, requiring an automatic contrivance to prevent over-winding when the men are being raised out of a mine, or, alternatively, that the speed should not exceed three miles an hour. There was, the writer said, no safe and reliable automatic contrivance to prevent over-winding. Their use was full of peril, and their presence led to carelessness by the engineman, who left the machinery to its own operation. Hence, such an apparatus would cause more accidents than it would prevent. On the other hand, the telegram went on to represent the three miles an hour alternative was absolutely impracticable; it could never be observed. The working men themselves would resist it, because, under it, in a colliery, say, only 500 yards deep, and employing only 500 men, more than six hours would be required to clear the mine, for, as a rule, only 80 men could be lifted in an hour; and, consequently, it would take 12½ hours to lift 1,000. 1630 The hope was expressed that the provision would be expunged, or that it would be so qualified as to give a dispensing power to the Home Secretary. The telegram was signed by "W. Simmons, Merthyr Tydvil," who, the noble and learned Lord said, was not only a person very familiar with collieries, but had been consulted by colliery owners and working miners for many years in that district.

§ VISCOUNT CROSS
said, the provision referred to in the telegram was Clause 26 of the General Rules, and he would be prepared to deal with it in its order.

§ VISCOUNT CROSS
, referring to the matter brought forward by his noble and learned Friend (Lord Halsbury), said, he quite agreed that it was clearly absolutely impossible that the stages should only go at the rate of three miles an hour. Therefore he would move for the purpose of meeting the objection, the rule being, as it stood, incomplete owing to an oversight in the House of Commons, to add words providing that the cage when raising the men should not be wound up at a speed exceeding three miles an hour, after the cage has reached a point in the shaft to be fixed by the special rules.

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