LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Boys in Coal-Mines
SIR,—The fears expressed by your correspondent, the Reverend Michael Gedge, that there is still nothing to prevent a boy between the ages of sixteen and eighteen from working underground-in a coal-mine for seven days a week, or from working a night shift between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., are natural enough. That is how the law stands. But, although he recommends a " short and simple Act of Parliament " to remedy the situation, he should know that the National Coal Board are aware of this dan*er to the health and safety of their young employees and have already taken steps to eliminate the practice.
The Board have adopted (with one exception) all the recommenda- tions of the Gowers Committee on " Hours of Employment of Juveniles," in so far as they were intended to apply-to the coal-mining, industry. This Committee, which reported in 1949, recommended among other things that overtime for juveniles should be limited to fifty hours in any year, to six hours in any week and to not more than twenty-five weeks in any year; that boys under the age of eighteen employed underground should have a night interval of not less than twelve hours, including seven consecutive hours between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.:- that Sunday should be a weekly rest-day, and that in each week there should also be a half-holiday beginning not later than 2 p.m.
The Board have found it impossible ,to adopt a recommendation dealing with spells of work, and have been obliged for the time being to continue to employ boys under eighteen on the night shift in Northumberland and Durham: but your correspondent can be assured that a " seven-day week and night work for boys under the age of eighteen " is now (save for the exception noted above) a thing of the
past in the coal industry.—Yours faithfully, NOEL GEE.
Chief Press Officer.
National Coal Board, Hobart House, Grosvenor Place, S.W.1.
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