§ Mr. JOHNSONasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to a notice which has been posted up in the Nuneaton Labour Exchange stating that colliers are wanted for a large new colliery near Doncaster which requires experienced coal facemen, good conditions, work, and wages 8s. 6d. per day, and that a representative of the colliery will attend on Wednesday from 9 to 11 to answer any questions that may be required; and whether, in view of the shortage of working miners in the Warwickshire coal-field owing to such a large number, some 20 per cent., joining His Majesty's Forces, and of the functions of the Labour Exchanges to find work for the unemployed, he will take steps to prevent 997W these Exchanges being used to induce, minors working full time at equally good wages and conditions to leave their own district to go to new untried coal-fields, and also to give facilities for such inducements by allowing and permitting colliery representatives to use the Exchange rooms for Such purposes?
Mr. RUNCIMANThe notice referred to was exhibited at the Nuneaton Exchange in pursuance of the ordinary work of the Labour Exchanges. It is part of this work to secure that vacancies notified by employers which cannot be filled locally should be communicated to other districts and brought to the notice of workpeople there who may desire to apply for them. I am, however, considering whether the special circumstances of the coal-mining industry at the present time call for any modification of the usual practice, and in the meantime I have directed the withdrawal of the notice referred to.