§ Mr. SITCHasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that one contributing factor in the present scarcity of coal in the Cradley Heath district of Staffordshire has been the continued employment, until recently, by the West Cannock Colliery Company of wagons belonging to a local firm in transporting coal to customers outside the district; that not until strong and repeated representations had been made by the owners of these trucks at such a practice was this unauthorised use of this property stopped by the colliery company concerned, which, in apparent reprisal for such objection, turned the firm's wagons into a siding at Hednesford, where they remained empty and idle until notice had been drawn thereto by the railway company; and whether he can see his way to inquire into the matter, having regard to the fact that the firm in question has lost approximately 300 tons of supplies since December last, to the serious deprivation of the district, and is still unable to secure anything like a sufficient supply of coal to meet insistent and clamant local requirements?
§ Mr. NEALI have been asked to reply to this question. I am not aware of the facts mentioned in the question, but will make inquiry and inform my hon. Friend of the result. It appears, on the facts given, to be a dispute between a trader and a colliery company.