COLLIERS 139 



wise legislation, done that, it has done all that 

 can be done to provide for the happiness and 

 contentment of builders, navvies, and all the 

 workmen whose lot is so cast that it would be 

 quite impossible they should become owners or 

 part owners of the business where they work, 

 except in those rare individual instances where a 

 man of peculiar energy, intelligence, and thrift 

 succeeds in raising himself and becoming an 

 employer. 



Just as the building trades depend on general 

 trade, so trade in general, and more particularly 

 the carrying trade, depends on the coal trade. 

 It is therefore important to Great Britain to keep 

 her colliers steadily at work. The description 

 of collier life in France, given by M. Zola, makes 

 no pleasant reading ; and the conclusion one 

 draws is that the labour of these men is sweated 

 labour. M. Zola does, however, allow that the 

 men love their work. Those who know British 

 colliers say that they too love their work ; it 

 is not monotonous work ; there is too much 

 fascination and danger in it for that. The son 

 of a coUier has for his chief ambition the life 

 of a collier; he longs to go down the pit. There 

 is also no doubt that colliers are sufficiently well- 

 instructed to make life interesting to them apart 

 from mining. Their homes give no idea of 

 comfort and very little of sanitation, but very 

 likely the men do not look on these matters as 

 of any consequence. Whether it is that the 

 consequence of a great coal strike being so 

 serious, great attention is paid to all disputes 



