-The Markham Disaster The disaster at Markham Colliery, Derbyshire, has
filled everyone in the country with sympathy for the widows and children of the 79 men who have died one of the most terrible of deaths. But sympathy is not enough. Coal mining is the most dangerous of all occupations ; the terrible disasters that occur at regular intervals are repeated on a minor scale every day of the year, for on an average, even in a " good " year, more than two miners a day are killed in the course of their work. No one who has studied, for instance, the report of the enquiry into the Gresford explosion can be satisfied that such accidents are unavoidable acts of God ; the Minister of Mines has stated that, as to 40 per cent, they are preventable. A comparison of safety conditions in British mines with those in mines abroad shows that in some respects the former are definitely worse, and there is every reason why they should immediately be improved. But a general scheme of improvement will only be possible after a thorough enquiry into safety conditions, and the causes and cures of accidents, in. British. mines. The Royal Com- mission on Safety in Mines has now been sitting for two years ; its . report has yet to appear. Meanwhile lives are lost unnecessarily, and no miner can go to the pit confident that all possible precaution is taken against the dangers of his work.
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