1174 REPORT—1885. 
Bedworth Collieries hewers receive a coal allowance if they are married. In 
Cumberland no allowances are made. 
The hours of labour, or ‘ shift,’ as the working day is technically called, vary 
under the different scales. 
The Somerset, Ocean, and Bedworth scales provide for a minimum wages, and 
the Somerset scale has also a maximum wages. 
The average price of coal is ascertained by accountants pledged to secrecy as to 
details. In Durham, Cumberland, and Northumberland, the price is the average 
price at the pit’s mouth. In South Wales the price is the price delivered free on 
board at the port of shipment. This latter price, therefore, evidently includes cost of 
carriage from the pit to the port—a fact that will explain why the standard price 
under the South Wales scales is so much higher than the standard prices under the 
Northern scales, The Somerset scale takes as the price the price delivered at the 
nearest railway station or wharf. 
The advantages of sliding-scales may be reduced to two heads. They give (1) 
a steadiness to trade, and (2) a steadiness to wages, in so far as disputes between 
employers and employed tend to render trade and wages unsteady. 
The sliding-scale is one more proof that wages are to be regarded as the part of 
the produce obtained by the labourer, inasmuch as the miner is paid in proportion 
to the value of the coal raised by him. 
Historically, the sliding-scales are connected with supply and demand. The 
standard wages in most instances are the wages payable at the time the scales were 
introduced, and the supply of labour as compared with the demand for it was one 
factor in forming those rates. The scarcity or abundance of labour might lead to a 
modification of a scale, but this is less likely owing to the spirit of combination that 
exists in the coal trade. 
Legally, the sliding-seale is to be regarded as a part of the contract of service 
entered into between the mine owner and the miner, prescribing what wages are to 
be payable during the time such contract continues. Only those persons are bound 
by a scale who give an express or implied assent to it, and whether such assent has 
been given in a particular instance would be a question of fact for a jury. 
4, Anomalies in the condition of Scotch Miners in contrast with other 
unskilled Labourers. By Witu1aAM SMALL. 
1. All tools requisite for the prosecution of their labour they are compelled to 
supply, z.e., picks, hammers, shovels, stemmers, drivers, wedges, &c., to the value of 
from 30s. to 40s. Other labourers—ploughmen, quarrymen, gardeners, furnacemen, 
roadsmen, surfacemen, &c.—have all these supplied from capital as part of work- 
ing plant. Why should miners be compelled to furnish their appliances from the 
result of labour? ‘The average income of miners is under that earned by any of the 
foregoing. As a true economic principle, capital should supply all appliances of 
labour, whatever conventional authority may say to the contrary. 
2. When manual power is deficient in intensity to secure success in mining, 
artificial force isa necessity. Hence powder, dynamite, lime, &c., are in demand. But 
why should the wage fund of the labourer be compelled to bear the burden? And 
here the anomalous condition of miners is again shown in bold relief. Are seamen, 
if unable with oar and sail to propel a vessel, compelled from their wage fund to 
supply steam; to shape a heavy bar, is a blacksmith called upon to bear the cost of a 
steam hammer; a quay labourer a steam crane; a quarryman blasting-powder ; or 
a husbandman, unable to thrash all the season’s crop with a flail, a steam thrasher ? 
The miners ate now beginning to think that capital should supply artificial where 
manual power is deficient. 
3. The miner is compelled to supply himself with light to pursue his oceupation 
because his factory is situated many fathoms underground ; but in no other case 
(generally known) are workmen compelled to illuminate their workshops. The 
development of electricity as a mine illuminant may ultimately remedy the anomaly, 
but from conyentional precedent employers may charge their workmen for its use. 
6 ERR 
