ON FUEL ECONOMY. 255 



In the United States of America the information asked for is the average 

 number of men employed during the year, excluding coke workers and office 

 force. In the exclusion of the latter item this return differs from the British 

 return; in the exclusion of the former item it differs from the Canadian return. 

 The number of hours per working day is also asked for, as well as the average 

 number of days lost by strikes and the number of men thereby affected. The 

 intention in America is to get the average number of men employed during the 

 year, but apparently the methods of obtaining these are about as vague as they 

 are in this country. In the rerwrt already referred to it is stated that ' without 

 instruction in regard to the way these averages (average number of employees) 

 should be computed there will be a lack of uniformity of method, and in many 

 cases the figures submitted will not be averages, and will not represent even 

 approximately the real average number of persons employed.' No one with any 

 experience of the subject will doubt the accuracy of this statement, and it is 

 certainly applicable to countries other than the United States. In the report 

 in question the definition is put forward that ' the average number of men 

 should be the actual number of man-hours for the year.' This obviously is a 

 clear and intelligible definition, and it would probably be a great advantage if it 

 were generally fidopted. 



In Belgium this principle is carried into effect; the number of employees 

 returned represents the quotient of the number of days' work done in the year 

 divided bv the number of working days. This figure is thus really the mean 

 number of workmen enga^ged during the working days. 



In France, on the other hand, the number of employees is intended to be 

 the number of names regularly on the colliery pay roll ; a column is reserved 

 ior the number of days worked in the year. It is obvious that we are dealing 

 here, under the same heading, with two entirely different conceptions ; some 

 countries return the number of men who normally get their living by the 

 industry, without any regard to the amount of absenteeism or the length of time 

 that these men may be at work, whilst others return the number of men who 

 have put in a full year's work, meaning thereby have worked on all the days 

 on which the mine was in operation. Obviously, these two figures differ widely 

 from each other, and the fact that both are returned indifferently under the 

 same heading vitiates many of the conclusions that have been drawn upon the 

 basis of these returns. 



Fatal Accirferifs. — It is a curious fact that whereas every coal-mining country 

 Tiublishes a return of fatal accidents, there appears to be in none of them any 

 legal definition of what constitutes a fatal accident. In the absence of legal 

 definition in this country the Home Office has for many years made a practice 

 of classifying all mine accidents which result in death within a year and a 

 day as fatal accidents, apparently for no better reasoti than that in so doing 

 they have followed the old Coroner's Law. 



In Canada the Mineral Resources Statistics Branch does not collect accident 

 statistics, and these appear to be left to the relative departments of different 

 Provinces. They are not asked for in the statistical returns, but are obtained 

 from the reports to the Inspector of Mines. In the Province of Alberta a fatal 

 accident is construed as an accident which causes death within a twelvemonth. 

 In the other Canadian Provinces there appears to be no definition at all, and it 

 would seem that if a man dies from the effect of a mining accident, however 

 long the death may be after the accident, it would apparently be reported as a 

 fatal accident for the year in which the death takes place. 



In the United States mine-accident statistics are gathered by the various 

 States and are by no means as reliable as statistics gathered by the Bureau of 

 Mines. Mr. G. S. Rice, the chief mining engineer of the Bureau of Mines at 

 Washington, gives me the following information : ' As to what constitutes a 

 definition of a fatal accident, this varies in the different States. In some States 

 it means immediate death, in others within a day or two, in still others, if the 

 man dies from the direct cau.se of the accident before the report is turned in, 

 which is in February for the preceding calendar year, which may mean from two 

 to thirteen months after the accident.' It will be seen that these figures are 

 obviously vague and unreliable. It is a curious fact that in the report of the Com- 

 mittee on the Standardisation of Mining Statistics already referi-ed to, the terms 

 fatal and non-fatal accidents are freely used, but thefe is no attempt at definition. 



