MECHANICAL MINERS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 190, 24 July 1940, Page 7

MECHANICAL MINERS

■ft, COAL PRODUCTION IN BRITAIN ! INDUSTRY MOBILISED FOR WAR The full power of production in the Ri'itish coalfields is now mobilised. for the first time for a genera'tion. Within the past 20 years the mining industry has spent £].")(),000,000 in bringing their pits and products up to date. The coming of war, with its enoromus calls for additional coat for export as well as for feeding the industrial war machine athome, has • swept away the restrictions which peacetime competition imposed upon the scores of magnificently equipped collieries opened since 1920. Whole-hearted "win-the-war" co-operation between colliery companies and workmen also einsures progressive output from tlvc world's oldest coal industry. The test of war lias justified t'hc huge sum spent on the industry. ■ The change since the end of the lfist war can be summed up in the wo<rts "mechanisation." The 800 mechanvcal conveyors in 1921 have risen «<S 1 (>000; steel has largely replaced timber as props, arches and supports in the roads, like underground railways; the mechanical coal-cutters are now installed wherever geological conditions permit. At the pitheads the cages are automatically unloaded by compressed air appar--1 atus, and the modern colliery possesses a power station which can, ' and in many cases does, supply th',-: domestic needs of the nearest town ■i s Final preparation of the coal to* - overseas or home customers in\ol' ves special treatment. Alter grad u ing, it is washed and broken to ex d act sizes required, and anti-break e age and other protective devices ar li employed at the loading'points s< it that the coal reaches the buyer perfect condition.