MINERS AND THEIR GRIEVANCES.*
• Transadions and Results of the National Association of Coal, Lime, and Ironstone Miners of Great Britain, held at Leeds, November 9, 10, 11 12, 19, and 14, 1862. London: Longmans. Leeds : D. Green. 1864.
41V OTHING is more remarkable at the present day amongst us i than the growth of a working men's business literature. Friendly societies, co-operative societies are now never satisfied without printed reports and balance-sheets, to which is. now and then added an almanack; trade societies, although frequently the last to recognize that the shackles of adverse legislation have really fallen sway, and that it can only benefit them to step forward into the full light of publicity, are following rajoidly in their wake. The publications relating to the great .financial crisis of the " Man- chester Unity" of Odd Fellows, some years ago, make up a portly volume. The reports of the "Amalgamated Society of Engineers" form another goodly collection. Every important strike nowadays brings forward a crop of pamphlets. Several trade societies, e. the Bookbinders, have their periodical journals or circulars.
Among the latest in the field, but yet determined, it would seem, to cut a figure for themselves in the world, are the "Miners" The first, "Transactions and Results of the National Association of Coal, Lime, and Ironstone Miners of Great Britain" (for to these the term "miner" must at present be confined) bear Messrs. Long- mans' name on their title-page,and form a thin octavo of 174 pages, chiefly compiled, it would seem, by that indefatigable "miners' friend," Mr. John Holmes, of Leeds, treasurer of the association, by Mr. Alexander McDonald, its president, and Mr. R. Mitchell, its late secretary. It mainly consists of the reports of and presented at the first " Conference " of the Association, held at Leeds from the • 9th to the 14th November of last year, and as representing the - modes of action, the views, and the wishes of nearly a quarter of a million of our working population, nothing can be more valuable.
The miner's calling, it may be observed, is a peculiar ono. He cannot rank among the artisan class. He is essentially a labourer; but the specialties of his occupation are so many and so important that they place him quite at the head of that class, and far above many of the less skilled groups of artizans. He is thus, in one point of view, admirably adapted to serve as a connecting link between the two great divisions of the labour-world, too often estranged from each other by conflicting interests. But, on the other hand, he is in .great measure separated from the whole of his kin by the nature of his calling. The surface-world generally is too apt to forget the under-world of the mine and of the pit. The under-world knows this, and makes to itself rules, customs, a language, or rather a number of varying dialects of its own, which end by rendering it almost utterly unintelligible to the surface-world,—nay, which make it often difficult for different provinces of the under-world to understand each other. Hence it happens that generally no disputes are so perplexing to us ignorant walkers on the surface as mining disputes, whether between master and master, or between master and man. Is there one Englishman in a thousand who can hear the word " goaf " with- out a dull shudder of hopelessness?
Miners, however, have their grievances, and these by no means inconsiderable. Their calling is one of the most dangerous. The number of deaths by accident in coal-mines is 8, or 10 times the general average, the accidents not fatal being to the deaths as four to one. The coal-miner's average life is 6 to 7 years shorter than the general average life of the British popula- tion, 15 or 16 years shorter than the average life of the agri- culturist. His average sickness is 67 per cent, more than the general average-97 weeks against 25, between the ages of 21 and 60. Under such circumstances it is not surprising that he should have demanded and obtained special legislative interference. His present Parliamentary code is contained, partly in an act more than a quarter of a century old (5 and 6 Viet., cap. 99), mainly in one of 1860 (23 and 24 Viet., cap. 151) repealing an intermediate one. Mining, like factory work, is placed under inspection ; women are forbidden to work in pits, or boys under 12, unless with educa- tional certificates which entitle them to commence at 10. The miners' wages are to be paid in money, and where calculated upon the "weight, measure, or gauge" of materials "gotten " by them,. they enjoy the peculiar privilege of employing one of their own number to take account of such weight, &c.
The miners find no fault with this legislation, except that, according to them, it does not go far enough ; that the dangers of their calling, instead of diminishing, are actually on the increase. They say that the inspectors of coal-mines are too few to discharge their duties satisfactorily, and they want a class of sub-inspectors, like those of factories, created. In spite of the weighing clauses in the last Act, they say they cannot ascertain the true quan- tity or value of their labour, and want all coal to be paid for by weight only, and true weighing machines to be placed on every pit-bank. They wish the age at which boys may enter mines to be raised to twelve, and that the hours of work be limited to eight for all under fourteen. They complain that the employment of females on or about the pit-banks leads to demoralization and obscenity, and wish it to be forbidden. They complain that coroners' courts, as now constituted, do not do justice in cases of mining accidents, and wish that one-half the panel should be working miners. They complain that tho Truck Act is still in- sufficient to fulfil its purpose, and ask that it should be made more stringent. They ask that all agents, overseers, or chief engineers of mines be required to take out a certificate of competency after due examination, before any mine be placed under their charge. They ask for "safety-catches," for "furnace-detectors," for "further legislation to protect the lives and limbs of ironstone- miners" (the present Acts being confined to coal-mines and iron- stone-mines of the coal measures, and worked in connection with existing or former coal-mines), and of colliers in thick beds ; and they urge the issuing of a Royal Commission to inquire into the working of the Miners' Acts. All these and other grievances and suggestions, and the facts on which they rest, are scattered about somewhat at haphazard in the volume,—many of them, indeed, inserted twice in different portions of it,—together with a large amount of miscellaneous matter, the most remarkable item of which is perhaps a report on the "Social Arrangements of Rawmarsh Col- liery," belonging to Messrs. Charlesworth, apparently the pattern coal-mine of England. Here a "dangerous and fiery mine" has been worked for eleven years without loss of life, the amount of coals raised being" fourteen and a half times the average quantity of coals per life lost for Great Britain" (what a dreadful statistical formula!)
whilst "the most perfect friendship and good feeling prevail be- tween employer and employed."
Of all the miners' suggestions the one perhaps which should command the most immediate assent is the granting of a Royal Commission. Such a step appears to be but natural and befitting, where complaints are urged by so vast a number of persons within a given sphere of labour; it is, in fact, the more so the more startling may seem the particular requests put forth. It is new, for instance, to find any class of Englishmen claiming to be placed on the footing of foreigners accused of crime, in asking for coroners' juries quasi "de medietate lingua," half made up of their own class. The absolute forbiddance of female labour in coal-pits seemed already a bold stretch of legislation ; it is new to be asked to forbid the employment of women in a calling carried on in the light of day. But the true way to look at abnormal requests of this kind, preferred by large masses of people, is surely not to scout them simply as contrary to the orthodox dogmas of pluton- omic science, but to view them as indications of some very serious mischiefs, perhaps imperfectly understood by the petitioners them- selves. For side by side with these abnormal requests are others which show fully their good faith and their good sense on other points. The request for more inspection shows clearly that they have nothing to hide, and court publicity. The request that the inspection system be extended to other classes of mines shows that they value what they have of it, however insufficient they may deem it. The request that agents and overseers be subjected to a scientific examination shows that the mass of the workers by no means wish to encroach upon the management of the properties where they are employed, but simply to feel that they are not trusting ther lives to incompetent persons.
The weighing question, it may be observed, is a very intricate one, and deserves much ventilation. Suffice it to say that the coal-owner very generally claims to himself a right, unknown pro- bably in every other trade, of refusing to pay for tubs, "corves," or "hutches," of coal, when not filled up to a certain point, or with certain qualities of material. It is considered very harsh already by a journeyman tailor, when the slop-master arbitrarily fines him, or perhaps refuses altogether to pay him for alleged bad work. Still, the employer can always urge the plea that his materials have been wasted, that the ill-made garment must remain on his hands. But the coal-owner refuses to pay for a corf or tub simply on the ground that it contains too little weight, or that it contains " softs " instead of all " hards,"—a refusal technically known by its symbol as "hanging the motties," or by a bolder metaphor as "hanging the hutches,'--the " mottles, " or tokens peculiar to the collier who sends up the corf, being hung up, if satisfactory, on the proper "snotty-board peg," if not so, on the "death-board peg;" and it is asserted that "at some collieries as many as 60 or 70 each day, worth to the collier from 0d. to 8d. each, are taken from them in this manner." Now it is perfectly true that this almost wholesale confiscation takes place by virtue of agreements between employer and employed, but it is not the less true that every " motty' hung up on the wrong peg represents a certain amount of labour abso- lutely lost by the worker, whilst its fruits are just as available to the employer as they would have been otherwise. For he sells not by the corf, but by ordinary weight, and 110 cwts. of coal are worth as much to him, minus a slight extra wear and tear of machinery, if brought up in 27 corves of less than 5 cwts., every snotty of which he might perhaps claim to hang up, as if raised in 22 full-weight corves of 5 cwts. Hence the extraordinary import- ance attached by the miner to a good and accurate weighing system.
Since the date of the first conference, whose proceedings are recorded in the volume here mentioned, another conference has been held (November, 1863), the " Transactions " of which are stated to be in the press for publication in a separate form. A petition is also understood to have been prepared, embodying the views of the miners, and which has received 60,000 signatures, although owing to the time which these have required for collecting, it was determined not to present it this session. The miners appear to be more bent than ever on the issuing of a commission, and it is to be regretted that Sir George Grey has not till now thought fit
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