The Report of the Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into
the effect of a legal eight-hours working day in coal-mines was published on Wednesday as a Blue-book. We can mention only a few of the principal conclusions. The present average time from bank to bank is nine hours three minutes, the variation being as much as from six hours forty-nine minutes in Durham to nine hours fifty-seven minutes in Monmouthshire. When allowances are made for stoppages, the average theoretical full week's work amounts to forty-nine hours fifty-three minutes. The institution of an eight-hours day would reduce this time by 1027 per cent. If this loss meant an exactly proportionate reduction of output, as most of the witnesses from collieries contended it would, the reduction would be nearly twenty-six million tons, calculated on the production of 1906. But the Committee do not accept this conclusion, as they find that irregular stoppages and voluntary absenteeism reduce the theoretical average week's work from forty-nine hours fifty-three minutes to forty-three hours thirteen minutes. In other words, the average day in practice is already considerably less than eight hours. If an eight-hours day were introduced, the Committee think some time now lost would be saved, and the labour might be expected to be more efficient. In any came, how. ever, a certain diminution in the output would follow, and this would vary greatly according to the districts. An immediate advance of prices and wages, and in the demand for labour, would be the consequence, but the permanent result " is impossible to foresee." Finally, the Committee think it might be advisable for the Government to reserve large powers of regulation in the hours of work.
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