§ Mr. SMITHERSasked the Secretary for Mines whether he can now inform the House what steps have been taken to make the process known as the low-temperature carbonisation of coal a commercial success, and with what results?
§ Colonel LANE-FOXI would refer the hon. Member to the Reports for 1924–25 of the Committee for Scientific and Industrial Research and the Fuel Research Board. A great deal of research has been, and is being, undertaken at His Majesty's Fuel Research Station; and an offer has been made to test free of charge plants which claim to have solved the problem of low-temperature carbonisation. Promising results have been obtained in a number of cases, but so far as I know no plant has yet been working on a commercial scale for a long enough period to enable any definite judgment to be formed.