G WA UN-CAE-G UR WEN SIR,-1 do not know whether
your correspon- dent has been underground in the anthracite section of the South Wales coalfield, but cer- tainly he would not find at East and Steer the conditions he describes in his article 'The Men of Gwaun-cae-Gurwen.'
In the first place the two mines are entered by shafts, not by slants. The thickness of the working face averages three feet to three feet six inches, and so there is no question of the miner at the coalface 'for the next seven and a half hours crawling on his belly, pushing his tools in front of him.' (In any case, as the total working day is seven and a half hours plus one winding time, he will actually be at work at the face for far less time than that.)
Again, both collieries arc worked on the long-wall system, so the miner has no need to start by 'digging out more working room for himself.' The stint should have been given by your correspondent as 17 feet, not 17 yards It is not true that the assessors did not go down until 11.15 a.m. The circumstances affecting production were assessed at all material times during the three shifts of the cycle of opera- tions—afternoon, night and day shifts on numerous occasions over the last five weeks.
It needs to be stressed that the team of assessors was made up of two senior techni- cians on the staff of the Divisional Board in administrative areas outside that in which the collieries lie and two representatives of the National Union of Mineworkers who are miners' agents, one from the area concerned and one from another arca. The four assessors are men experienced in mining conditions in South Wales and aware of the productive effort in the coalfield generally. They made a most thorough examination of all phases of work before arriving at their decisions.
The Chairman of the Board, of course, has never said that 'the coal industry is carrying thousands of unnecessary white-collared pas- sengers.' Earlier this year he assured repre- sentatives of the NUM, who had asked the Board for information about implementation of the Fleck Report, that he would not allow the industry to become 'overloaded with black- coated workers': but he went on to tell them of the very real advantage to the industry which an efficient and adequately staffed man- agement could bring.—Yours faithfully, NOEL GEE Director of Public Relations National Coal Board
PS.—All the faces at both pits are now satis- factorily working the stints set by the joint NCB-NUM assessors.
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