MACHINES FOR MINING
Snt,—Mr. Attlee has announced that the Government intend to give priority to the production of coal-mining machinery. May I suggest that giving priority—whatever that vague phrase may mean—is not enough, and that the Government should mobilise the engineering firms of the country for the production of coal-mining equipment in the same way as they were mobilised for the production of munitions during .the war. There are two principal coal-cutting machines available for ,use—the British-produced Meco-Moore machine, which both cuts and loads the coal, and a German machine which, according to an account in The Daily Express, is peculiarly suitable for cutting thin seams. Thus we now have machines suitable for both thick and thin seams, and each, manned by a small team, capable of turning out thousands of tons per month, particularly if they are worked right round the clock by three
shifts of men. Yet, according to The Daily Express, only one firm is engaged in producing the Meco-Moore machine, and I doubt if a single firm in this country is yet producing the German machine. Instead of all the leading engineering firms in the country being engaged in their construction, assisted by extensive sub-contracting for the smaller parts by the smaller firms, we are promised only a vague "priority." We are continually assured that the solution of the problem must take a long time. Why? If this spirit had prevailed during the war we should have lost it. But, instead of whimpering about the long time production would take, we then set about organising output, with the result that we obtained machines and munitions within a short time.—Faithfully
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