THE REAL CAUSE OF MINERS' RELUCTANCE TO
WORK. THE evidence taken before the Parliamentary Committee on Coal appointed last March has just been issued. That Com- mittee was formed at a time when the Coal panic, consequent upon the abrupt and enormous rise in the price of coal, was at its height, and had for its object the investigation of the cause of that rise. It cannot be said that the result is anything very fresh, or that the inquiries have done much to give us hope that coal will speedily be cheaper. Most of the conclusions which are come to in the Report are such as the public have now for some time been disposed to bold. The astonishment and dismay which seized everybody at first—when coals kept leaping up from day to day until it was feared they might soon be 60s. a ton has subsided—and the more or less wild suppositions of conspiracy are now abandoned. The present prices of fuel are due in the main to quite natural causes, and the silence with which they are borne proves that people have come to look upon them as inevitable. The most that the Committee has done is to prove the justness of the popular conclusion. They have inquired dili- gently, but have not found any substantial trace of conspiracy, either on the part of owners or merchants, to raise prices, or of men to lessen out-put, the simple facts being that since 1870 our manufactures and trade have been growing at an enormous rate ; that the surplus labour and supply which had resulted from the previous dull years, when, as one witness said, many really good collieries were " worked in hope," yielding no profit whatever, were gradually overtaken ; accumulated stocks became exhausted, and suddenly in the beginning of the present year it was found that the supply was insufficient to meet the current wants. The tether, as it were, instantly tightened with a sharp strain, which brought a shock that startled everybody. For a short time there was a rush to the opposite extreme, and then matters settled down to the point which about represents the actual state of trade necessities. Whilst trade continues at its present level, coals will be scarce and dear in comparison to what they were two years ago, and there is nothing at present to show that the calamity of a stagnant trade is at hand. Europe cannot and America is not yet ready to take our place in supplying the world with iron, for instance ; and be the price what it may, therefore, foreign countries must continue to buy from us.
These facts are, no doubt, so, but it is also true that there are now and were a year ago more men employed in collieries than io previous years, while the out-put has been not at all pro- portionately increased. How many more it appears to be impos- sible to say, for until last year the statistics were very loosely kept, and many people employed about collieries now included by compulsion were then never returned at all. Still, there is a con. sensus of opinion and evidence amongst the witnesses that there are more people employed in getting coal than there were two years ago, and yet that the proportion of out-put per man is con- siderably less. The men did not conspire to lessen the out-put, nor did they combine to raise wages until after the price of coal rose ; they simply followed that rise. But for all that, there has been a decrease in the quantity raised, the men have tacitly ceased to work as hard, and it appears that iu some cases at least sloth and wages increased purl passe. Men no longer work so many hours in a day, nor so many days in a week, as formerly. Various causes are assigned for this, the most common one perhaps being the ignorance and consequent sensual character of the men, which leaves them so utterly without self-control, that so soon as the means are within their reach they make beasts of them- selves. Formerly they had to work harder when wages were low, and could not afford to do this ; but now three or four days' work will give them more money than they formerly earned in six, so that they are able to secure work for almost half the time men usually devote to labour.
There is doubtless considerable truth in these statements. Colliers are not a cultivated class, and small blame to them—they have had but few opportunities and fewer inducements to seek culture—but clearly it is not all the truth. We question if it is the more important half of it. Mr. Pease, M.P., one of the members of the Committee, and a large colliery proprietor, who has had many opportunities for studying the character and condition of his workmen, gives some most interesting evidence before it, which goes to show that there are other causes at work producing the collier's reluctance to labour hard, causes which are likely now to increase their force rapidly, and to work serious consequences, if not attended to. He emphatically states that intelligence, order, and good behaviour have increased amongst the men very much in late years, and cites the instance of a miner he knew who was a really skilful entomologist as only a sample amongst many. But his evidence was hardly needed to prove it. The miners them- selves did so by the men—their agents—whom the Committee ex- amined, men who had been coal-heavers, working for their daily
bread, and who exhibited themselves to be shrewd, well in- formed, reasonable men, a good deal more so than many of the so- called leaders amongst the artisan population of our towns. In spite, then, of the popular notion that the idleness of the miner is due to his degradation, we believe there is reason for thinking that in a rapidly increasing number of instances it is due to just the reverse. Mining is a very disagreeable work in any shape, and in the most important branch of it—the hewer's work—it is superla- tively so. Men have to toil hard in a stifling atmosphere and in cramped postures, and in some cases, where seams are thin, lads have to do so, who can now-a-days find ready enough market for their labour at employments far more healthy and agreeable. They are subject to more or less constant danger ; their work is devoid of interest or pleasure, being perhaps the most purely physical toil in existence, a toil, that is, where the workman is absolutely shut out from almost every source of pleasure, whether ; in or surrounding his labour. His only satisfaction on leaving the mine at night is that he has escaped without injury, or per- haps that the coal has yielded to his efforts with less than the usual difficulty. Clearly, to intelligent men, labour such as this can offer no attraction whatever. It is so severe and so repulsive that high wages cannot tempt them to put forth ordinary exertions upon it. The natural acquisitiveness which usually comes to the rescue of a trade that can tempt with high wages, which has kept even the race of puddlers from becoming extinct, for instance, is here overborne by a dislike which is stronger still. Idle men may desist, but the more intelligent are idle as well as the drunken, and they are so evidently because they have a growing dislike for their work. As intelligence grows, which it is doing very rapidly now, this dislike must also spread, until the prospect of a labour supply for our mines is indeed alarming. Not the least ominous sign is the reluctance which mothers are showing to let their lads go down the pits. They lay it to the door of the danger they are exposed to, but formerly, when no work was to be had elsewhere, necessity outweighed such a consideration. It is by no means to be lamented that the conditions of life have become so far human- ised for these long-suffering women that they can now speak out their fears, but it is none the less a grave source of danger to the mining industry of the country. The sloth of the father may become positive desertion in the son. There is but one way, in fact, in which it can be prevented from becoming so. The severest and most dangerous labour of the mine must be done by machinery. There has been far too little attention paid to this subject by mine- owners. It is surprising even now to notice how little interest witnesses appeared to have in the experiments which are here and there tried to substitute machine for hand labour. All sorts of excuses are used, and the imperfection of the machinery urged as ground for neglecting it. Had our manufacturers neglected their earlier inventions till they were perfect, where would they have been to-day ? Perfection comes only by experience and use, and whether owners care for them or not, if machines are not soon introduced generally into mines, the scarcity of coal, even with a less trade than we have, will be enough to put prices on a much higher level than they now stand at. There is no doubt that the present scarcity has given a great impetus to this question, and if we have to pay 40s. a ton for our coals for the next winter or two, few who really understand the bearings of the case will grudge the price, if it drive masters to substitute generally machinery for doing the dangerous and most severe work done at present by the hands of the hewer. While the demand for coals was feeble, owners were content to slumber in the old way, so that there is no region of labour where so little has really been done to civilise toil as in mining; but they will have to bestir themselves now, for many reasons. If they do not, their workmen are in danger of leaving them ; or else they will work so feebly that the enormous prices resulting from a restricted supply will tempt America to enter the field, and bring her inventive genius to overcome her present disadvantages. There are more dangers that threaten our prosperity than the exhaustion of our coalfields.
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