BLACK BLOOD FOR INDUSTRY IN BRITAIN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 8, 15 October 1948, Page 5

BLACK BLOOD FOR INDUSTRY IN BRITAIN

Coal Miners 9 Work Of Reconstruction (By Reece Smith, New Zealand Kemsley Empire Journalist) Nottingham, Sept. 20. Dirt, gloom, cramp and danger are the pleasures of the coal face from which hard, begrimed men pump black blood into the heart of Britain’s industry. I went today to watch some of these men at work. It was a good mine. The four foot seam was being mechanically cut and transported. The roaring machine was flinging black dust thick on to sweating torsos and faces. Strong workmen were stooped all day to the four foot ceiling. They laughed at my wonderment, advised a visit to some mines nearby where 20 inch seams were being haridcut. Men squirming in a 20 inch crevice in the rock, thousands of feet below ground, to get coal for their country’s furnaces, locomotives, and household hearths. This year there will be enough left over from their efforts, and the efforts of their colleagues, for 15,000,000 tons to be exported iri exchange for food and raw materials.

These men at the face, personal producers of Britain’s prime fuel, are working. It may be that the miner today is not getting as much coal per man as his predecessors. It may also be that former standards of production, and the working conditions attendant on them, are not the best models to aspire to. All in all, few groups in Britain are in a better position than the miners to urge their detractors to “come and do better yourself.” Specially to the gentleman who recently wheezed to the Times from the Riviera, inveighing against miners for taking it easy. Recruiting publicity gives the impression that most of a miner’s time is spent in smooth canteens, o.r , pit head baths. Occasionally, perhaps, a clean face and clean hands hold a drill against a coal face while the photographer does 'his stuff. Which puts it about as far from facts as most recruiting dope, and is about as successful. It can be said for private enterprise that many of the canteens, baths and a solarium were in action before nationalisation. But miners remember more clearly the mines that bestowed little on them except short time and decaying techniques. In some sort of a modification of Gresham’s law, the bad memories drive out the good. It is possible to grow bitter about neglect, real or imagined, while grovelling at a coal face. More. so than while sitting at a desk. And the fear of falling dividends is conceivably less haunting, considered from all angles, than the fear of d crushing fall of rock. After the day’s work these respective perils can be considered more calmly in a suburban home and garden than somewhere in a blotch of miners’ cottages. The British miner, according to several I asked, now feels safe and free. In a first fine careless rapture he expected nationalisation to bring him the sky! There was disillusionment when he did not find himself and his mates ousting the manager. Some of the lads, misconstruing the finer idealogical points involved, thought nationalisation was the transfer of the shareholders’ dividends to their own pockets. The heritage of hatred, and the deep rooted suspicion of management, is dimming. Acts of Nationalisation. and smooth words on public occasions, will not do away with them in a week or so. Trust must be taught through understanding management and wise union leadership. As I saw the British coal industry at Nottingham, it is coming.