Sta,—Your statement that of "746 separately owned colliery under- takings
416 produce 991. per cent. of the total output" means in effect that, whereas 33o undertakings produce only an average of 3,390 tons per annum, the remaining 416 undertakings produce an average of 550,000 tons per annum. It is evident from these figures that those collieries within the former group must either be paid for at the expense of the consumer, both domestic and industrial, or at the expense of subsidy, merely another method of increasing the price of coal.
Mr. Foot's recommendation to reduce the number of undertakings to say, fifty, together with the vast managerial changes he suggests, would at least result in giving the nation fifty coal-producing units with an average output of 4,500,000 tons per annum. Whether it would be sound economics to include any of the 33o undertakings in these 50 groups must surely depend upon their contributory value as potential productive units under the new scheme. nth a total annual output of only 1,119,000 tons it appears on the surface that they could be regarded as redundant and dealt with accordingly.
Your criticism of Mr. Foot's omission of Trade Union representation upon the suggested Central Board fails to take into consideration the fact that the Miners' Federations are more forcibly political organisations than they are Trade Unions. The Labour Party's platform of " nationalisation of the mines " will not be forsaken even if the party leaders are convinced that the proposed Central Board offered better em- ployment, working and wage conditions. To support Mr. Foot's suggestion would in fact destroy the logic of their claim for nationali- sation over a much wider field of policy, and as it is obvious that Mr. Foot's scheme needs greater guarantees against political interference than either present-day conditions or nationalisation could offer, it appears in- evitable that it will go the way of all good attempts by coal-owners to help the miner and the nation collectively.—Yours faithfully,
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