MINING CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 43, 14 January 1921, Page 15

MINING CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND.

Sir Leo Chiozza Money, a member of the Sank,ey Coal Commission, quotes the evidence of a miner's wife as to the conditions of living in the mining towns of England : — • The houses are built practically within a few yards of the pit-tops. The result is that the women who live in those houses, before they can think of washing clothes, have to go out to find which way the wind is blowing, hecause if it blows -in a certain way it is no use hanging out the clothes because the dust from the pit would be cast on them."* And she went on to point out even in a new mining area she named, the rows of houses are built a few yards not from the pit, so that the women have only to contend with filth, but are in constant anxiety for the safety of their little children. In Scotland the conditions are sometime far worse than in South Wales. I well remember how one of our presidents of the Board of Trade, who spent a good deal of his life outside this country, was shocked when he first saw some Scotch miners' huts. It is really difficult to restrain one's anger in speaking of these things. No words can exaggerate the horror of some of the conditions which obtain. Nevertheless, an attempt was made to defend one-roomed houses before the Coai Commission of 1919 as can be seen by reference to the evidence. Let me quate a thing which was told the Commission of 1919 by a Mrs Agnes Brown, the wife of a Scottish miner. She was speaking of sanitary conditions and confirmed what had been stated by two other women witnesses from other parts of the country. "In the miners' rows they have no sanitation in any way. The ash bin is at the back. They have a square brick thing to which they carry out ashes and put them in. There is no sanitation in any way, and the children just run about there." Mrs Elizaheth Hart, of Wigan, described to us wliat her own street was like : ihe street in which I live is a long row of houses on both sides. . . . there is a small entrance between the houses within short distances, say oi ten or twelve houses. Tne women have to carry the whole oi' the refuse down this street, up these entrance®, and tip it into an open place, a dust hole." Of course many people survive these conditions ; Mrs Hart was herself a splendid survivor, but it is rather oreadful to think that the modern wealth of Britain is built upon work which yields no greater social satisfaction than this. The impression left upon my mind by every mining district I have seen is one of surprise that men and women rise so far superior to their dreadful environment. It is gr,eat to share in a miners' gala, and to see the fine fellows swinging along the roads with their bahds and banners to take part in a great demonstration of union and brotherhood. Pity 'tis that nine-tenths of the : nation never realise either the nature of the mining work which is done for it, or the social conditions of those who do it Indeed, so much ignorance of the subject | prevails that Dean Inge recentJy permitted himself to speak of "the lazy miner who extorts his thousand a year from the huuseholders of England." The actual average earnings are about £4 Is a week, the equivalent of less than £2 a week in 1914.