Coal Slipping
The coal industry is not doing nearly well enough. The good performance at the end of 1947 was largely seasonal, and it has not been kept up. Average production in the first six weeks of 1948 has not been high enough to give any promise that the unambitious objective of 211,000,000 tons Swill be reached. The summer holiday season of low production is so long, and the difficulties of recruiting new men at an even higher rate than last year are so great, that at the present time a weekly production of at least the November rate of 4,250,000 tons would be needed to ensure success. It is running well below that level. At the same time, it is revealed that absenteeism is rising again ; the experiment, decided upon after much waste of time, of working a Saturday shift in alternate weeks in some fields, is failing ; the Grimethorpe miners, after a mere token resistance by the manage- ment of the pit, have insisted on working the old stint of 21 feet in a new district which is now being opened, instead of the stint of 24 feet which was recommended ; and the National Union of Mine- workers is preserving something like armed neutrality towards the Government's proposals for a wage stop. This simply will not do. The accident of a mild winter is no excuse for any slackening off in the mines. The alarming figures of the balance of payntents revealed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week are alOne enough to show how great is the need for a rapidly rising level of coal pro- duction-and exports. If the Saturday shift will not produce sufficient coal, then the Government's original proposal (put forward con- fidently and after due enquiry) for an extra half-hour on the working day must be re-examined. And if the national effort is to be based on coal, as it must be, then there must be more evidence that the public is awake to the dangers of the present situation.
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