Arrangements have been made, it is stated, to release two
thousand miners daily from the Army. A greater out put of coal is an indis- pensable sinew of war for all the Allies, and the Government have no doubt acted quite rightly in recalling the miners, about the necessity of whose work they clearly made a miscalculation. But even a return of two thousand miners a day will not settle the question if there is still a lack of timber, machinery, rails, horse. fodder, and so on. Let us make two suggestions. The first is that the clause in the Miners' Eight Hours Act which provides for the increase of the hours of work in a national emergency should be put into effect. Of course some of the statisticians will rush out from their lairs to inform us that it has been proved that men can produce more in eight hours' work than in nine hours'. We would answer, however, that statistics on this subject cannot be considered apart from the moral factor, and that if the miners chose to make a very special effort throughout a compara- tively short period they could undoubtedly produce more in nine hours' work than in eight hours'. For a long period the same thing may not be true, but our proposal concerns itself only with a special temporary effort. If our argument is not sound, why on earth was the clause ever inserted in the Act ? Surely there cannot be a greater national emergency in the coal trade than there is now.
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