"GEORDIE PITMAN."
(To THE Emma OF TEM " Srrersroa."3 Bra,—The Spectator has excelled itself this week by the sane. ness of its leading articles, but the contribution of "A Coal Company Director" under the above title, I fear, cannot he very helpful to the cause of the miner whose actual grievances are being lost eight of in the deluge of words and the political intrigue of revolutionaries of the Smillie type. In my opinion "A Coal Company Director" is more concerned about the composition of his Spectator article than the subject he writes about. For instance, take the following :—
" The writer once employed a pitman as a sort of assistant gamekeeper. The writer remembers giving an address on George Meredith in a colliery centre.
The writer attended a Durham miners' gala, and refused a ' drink' from a workman.
The writer would far sooner be a hewer of coal than an agricultural labourer. The writer remembers one pit village cottage well lined with books. The writer has in his mind's eye a burly veteran hewer, six feet high and sixty years of age, who could hew coal with the best of young men, who confessed he had still several • follies' to get through, and still had his • favorytes • amongst s omenkind. He could demolish a leg of mutton at a sitting, and as for the ' gills' he could dispose of, ho would have delighted Rabelais."
To what extent do these egotistical references advance the mining problem, which is surely one of extreme urgency both in the matter of housing, conditions of work and pay, &c.? " A Coal Company Director," however, offers no solution, con- tenting himself by reiterating the belief that improvements in housing are overdue, and that wages could be increased if production was assured. He fails to mention one even of the hundred different causes whereby production is retarded—the limited capacity of hutches, narrow roads, blockages, the re- strictions of the " Union," and the failure of the Government, which provides a law for pit ponies but none for the human mole who has to burrow through mud and water in coal seams two feet high or less daily, and who for want of bath accommo- dation must, in most cases, travel long distances in his muddy attire before the first stage of comfort, where such is possible, is reached. The non-enforcement of the Mines Regulation Act, to my mind, is the chief cause of a great deal of the unrest and dissatisfaction among the mining class, and it is up to " A Coal Company Director " and others in authority to get to the root of the matter quickly, and that can only be achieved by getting into touch with the men, not at a " morn- ing meeting," but at the "mine face," and for a period long enough to prove that the miner is not wholly responsible for the restricted output or increased cost of coal.—I am, Sir,
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