SECTION II.

OUTPUT of MINERAL.

Table No. 2 shows the output of minerals from mines under the Coal Mines Regulation Act in the Cardiff and Swansea inspection districts during the decennial period 1896-1905, and the corresponding figures for the year 1906.

The table shows a considerable increase in the output of minerals during the period it embraces. The increase last year was 2,518,690 tons, which is a much larger increase than in any other year shown in the table.

There is reason for anticipating that the increase in the number of persons employed, and in the output of minerals, will continue for some years, as there are important mining developments in progress in both the Cardiff and Swansea districts.

SECTION III.
ACCIDENTS.

The following Table shows the number of Fatal Accidents and Deaths, with the death-rate per 1,000 persons employed, in the Cardiff and Swansea districts, during the decennial period 1896-1905, and the corresponding figures for the year 1906 :

The number of deaths per annum has varied considerably during the period embraced by the table, from 128 in 1898, the year of a great strike, to 363 in 1905. The deathrate per 1,000 persons employed averaged 1.98 during the 10 years 1896-1905 as against 1:31 for the United Kingdom during the same period; and last year it was 1.70 for the Cardiff and Swansea districts as against 1.29 for the United Kingdom.

The following Tables show the Counties in which the Fatal and Non-fatal accidents occurred:

No less than 34 accidents by explosions of fire-damp or coal dust occurred in the two districts during 1906, resulting in the loss of 16 lives and injuries to 41 persons. The great majority of the accidents (28) were in the Swansea district, where there are a large number of collieries worked with naked lights. Many of these collieries produce little fire-damp, and are generally free from dangerous deposits of coal dust; but so long as they continue to be worked with naked lights ignitions or explosions of fire-damp are certain to take place in them at intervals. For years past the efforts of the inspectors have been directed to induce the owners of these mines to introduce safety lamps, and the use of safety lamps is gradually increasing, but at a very slow rate. The miners prefer to use naked lights in spite of the risk, and demand an increase of wages when safety lamps are substituted, and this is probably the principal reason for which the owners resist the change.

2:

In many parts of the Swansea district, even where safety lamps are used, the discipline is so lax that the lamps do not afford such full protection as they do in districts where better discipline is maintained. In this way explosions caused by illegally opened lamps, or by matches illegally taken into the mines, are of too frequent occurrence. These are both illegal practices which it is largely within the power of the owners and managers to prevent, and the means of doing so are well known: they are the adoption for safety lamps of locks incapable of being opened without detection, or of such a nature that they cannot be opened by the miners (magnetic or pneumatic locks); stricter supervision by officials; and occasional unexpected searches for pipes, matches, or means for unlocking lamps.

Another matter connected with explosions which is worthy of the most careful consideration, especially in the case of dusty mines, is the construction of the safety lamps used. The lamp most largely used in South Wales is of the Clanny type, with single gauze and metal shield. I believe this is admittedly one of the least secure forms of lamp used in this country, and it seems strange that in South Wales, where so many devastating explosions have occurred, its use should be so general. With our present knowledge it is not possible to say that the lamp does not comply with the 9th General Rule, but the occurrence of certain accidents, the precise causes of which could not be ascertained, where such lamps in good order were in use, throws some doubt on their security under conditions liable to arise in practice. At any rate, the question seems one worthy of experimental investigation.

The individual accidents by explosions are all described in the reports of Messrs. Gray and Lewis, so that it is unnecessary for me to go into much detail concerning them. The two most serious explosions were at Court Herbert Colliery in the Swansea district on the 1st June, resulting in the loss of 5 lives, and at Albion Colliery in the Cardiff district on the 10th November causing 6 deaths.

The Court Herbert explosion was caused by the ignition of an accumulation of firedamp by a gob fire. The proximity of the fire to the gas did not appear to have been ascertained or suspected.

The Albion Colliery explosion was, as stated in Mr. Gray's report, probably caused by the ignition of fire-damp by a spark from an electrical apparatus for re-lighting safety: lamps; the gas coming as an outburst from a large fall where repairs were being made on a main intake and haulage road, and being ignited about 80 yards further in, where other repairs were in progress.

Albion Colliery is a large steam coal colliery where a disastrous coal-dust explosion occurred in 1894, and where there is now an extensive system of pipes for watering the dust on the main haulage roads; the circumstances of the explosion of the 10th November last, however, afford no means of judging of the efficiency of the watering. In an outward direction the explosion was arrested by the large fall from which the fire-damp is believed to have come, which entirely blocked the road about 80 yards from the point of ignition; the men working on the outbye side of this fall were uninjured and saw no flame, and continued to work without knowing there had been an explosion, although their lamps were extinguished (possibly by fire-damp) when the fall occurred. In an inward direction from the point of ignition, towards the faces, the flame of the explosion probably did not extend more than 100 yards on each of two roads, and did not reach the face, being arrested by the shaley nature of the dust on the roads in that direction which were not watered.'

When seen about 43 hours after the explosion the road was dry and dusty for some distance outbye of the fall which blocked the road and thence to the face, so far as it could then be examined, except for some pools of water on the floor near the point of ignition, which were stated to have been caused by a water-pipe broken by the explosion.

The accident points to the necessity for caution in the use of electrical contrivances for relighting safety lamps, especially when the apparatus is of the original type of such devices, in, which sparks in the open air are readily produced in the process of using the apparatus, or may be produced by manipulation with a piece of metal. The use of these relighters is regulated by Rule 54, Section X., of the Electrical Special Rules, which reads as follows:

"In mines to any place or part of which General Rule No. 8 of the Coal Mines Regulation "Act, 1887, applies, when safety lamps are relighted underground by electricity, the manager shall "select a suitable station or stations, which are not in the return air-way, and in which there is "not likely to be any accumulation of inflammable gas; and no electric relighting apparatus shall "be used in any other place. All electrical lighting apparatus shall be securely locked so as not to be available for use except by persons authorised by the manager to relight safety lamps, and "such person shall examine all safety lamps brought for relighting before they are reissued."

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On visiting Albion Colliery on the 10th September, I found that the part of the rule requiring that "all electrical relighting apparatus shall be securely locked, so as not to be available for use except by persons authorised by the manager to relight safety lamps, and such persons shall examine all safety lamps brought for relighting before they are re-issued," was not complied with. I called the attention of the agent and manager to the matter, and the agent gave orders that the rule should be fully complied with, and this was done.

The responsibility for selecting suitable positions for electric relighters is placed on the manager. Under normal conditions, the place where the explosion of the 10th November originated, could not have been held to be a place where there was "likely to be an accumulation of inflammable gas," but the knowledge that fire-damp is liable to be given off by falls on roads far removed from the face in the South Wales Coalfield would have made it a prudent act to prevent the use of such an apparatus during operations likely to produce large falls in its vicinity. The agent, a mining engineer, and the manager, stated in evidence that they were not aware that the apparatus was capable of producing sparks. It might be said that the use of an electrical relighting apparatus liable to produce momentary sparks, is at least as safe to use as relighting a lamp by opening another lamp and so exposing a naked light. There is, however, this difference: in the latter case the closed lamp would indicate if fire-damp was present before it was opened, whereas in the former case, a lamp may be relighted in the dark, without any means of observing if fire-damp is present; and an attempt so to use the apparatus is believed to have caused this explosion.

An improved type of relighter is now available, in which the parts liable to cause sparks are enclosed in a flame-tight iron box, and so arranged that sparks cannot be produced until the box is closed.

FALLS OF ROOF OR SIDE.

The death-rate from falls of ground per 1,000 persons employed underground in 1906 was, in the Cardiff district 0.95, in the Swanea district 079, and in the United Kingdom 0.78. The number of lives lost by falls in the two districts was 100.

The great loss of life from this cause should continue to receive the close attention of all concerned, because there is no doubt that it is capable of material reduction. The failure of the Special Rules, adopted a few years ago with this object, to effect any reduction in the number of accidents, is due, in my opinion, to the general lack of determined and sustained efforts to make the rules effectual.

In many cases, both in the Cardiff and Swansea districts, the miximum distances apart for roof supports, fixed by the owners, agents or managers, is much in excess of the actual average distances at which such supports are found necessary and used; and to my mind this fact indicates that the persons fixing such distances, had no intention of trying to make the rule effectual for the purpose it was framed; indeed the fixing of such distances is more likely to increase than to decrease the number of accidents by falls, and a serious responsibility thus falls on the persons adopting such unreasonable distances.

SHAFT ACCIDENTS.

In the two districts 16 shaft accidents were reported during the year, resulting in the loss of 13 lives and injuries to nine persons. None of them seem to call for further description than is given by Messrs. Gray and Lewis.

MISCELLANEOUS UNDERGROUND ACCIDENTS.

Under this class, which is divided into seven sub-heads, are included all underground accidents other than those due to explosions and falls and shaft accidents. There were reported in the two districts 274 accidents, resulting in the loss of 66 lives, and injuries to 239 persons. The corresponding figures for the preceding year were 266 accidents, 73 deaths and 266 persons injured.

By Explosives.-19 accidents, one death and 21 persons injured. Considering the amount of explosives used accidents from this cause do not appear excessive.

Suffocation by Natural Gases.-No accident.

By Underground Fires.-No accident.

Irruptions of Water.-One accident causing four deaths. This was the accident at Caradog Vale Colliery; where by holing into a comparatively small accumulation of water,

under a head of only 8 feet in workings of the same mine, four lives were lost. The accident was due to an error in the plan, coupled with neglect of the precautions required by the 13th General Rule. The agent and manager were committed for manslaughter at the inquest, and tried at the assizes; the judge held that there was no case to go to the jury against the former, and the latter was acquitted. The accident was the subject of a Special Report.*

Haulage Accidents.-There were reported in the two districts 194 haulage accidents, resulting in 58 deaths and injuries to 161 persons. The figures for the preceding year were 189 accidents, 63 deaths. and 130 persons injured. The conditions of haulage in South Wales are in some respects unusually dangerous, and this coupled in many cases with lack of precautions which might reasonably be taken by the management, and dangerous practices, not prohibited, and practised by the persons engaged in haulage operations, account for the large number of accidents. The trams used for conveying coal are large and heavy vehicles, unwieldy for handling underground, and carrying from 20 to 30 cwt. of coal each. There are many steep haulage roads, and a considerable proportion of the accidents are caused by trams running uncontrolled on such roads, owing to the failure of ropes or shackles (couplings), or to careless movement of the trams by persons in charge of them. Some of these accidents might have been prevented by the use of stop blocks or safety points at the top of inclined roads, and others by the use of barhooks or backstays behind trams being drawn up inclined roads. The general practice by hauliers of riding on the "gun" (a bent iron bar used for attaching a tram to the limbers of a horse) is bound to result in accidents. Other dangerous practices are going in front of trams to hold them back on slight inclines, and riding on the shackles connecting the trams of a journey.

By Machinery Underground.-Five accidents, two deaths and three persons injured; not calling for special remarks.

Sundries Underground.-55 accidents, one death and 54 persons injured.

SURFACE ACCIDENTS.

Eighty-nine accidents, 28 deaths and 71 persons injured; the corresponding figures for the preceding year were 77 accidents, 22 deaths and 54 persons injured.

By Machinery.-17 accidents, 6 deaths and 12 persons injured.

Boiler Explosions.-No accident.

On Railway Sidings or Tramways. ---38 accidents, 14 deaths and 31 persons injured. Miscellaneous on Surface.-34 accidents, 8 deaths and 28 persons injured.

Accidents by Electricity.

Two fatal accidents by electricity, causing 3 deaths, are described in Mr. Gray's report. The use of electricity is extending and becoming very general. In some cases high pressures (2,000 to 3,000 volts) are taken down the shafts and used direct for motors or transformed to medium pressure underground.

SECTION IV.

PROSECUTIONS.

(a) By direction of the Secretary of State.

In the Cardiff district proceedings were taken against two mine owners and an agent for failing to send in the annual returns required by Section 33 of the Coal Mines Regulation Act. They were all convicted and fined.

In the Swansea district there were no prosecutions by direction of the Secretary of State.

(b) Prosecutions by owners, &c.

Reports were received under Section 66 of the Act of the result of proceedings taken by owners, &c., against 122 workmen in the Cardiff district and against 52 workmen in the Swansea district.

Report on the circumstances attending an Inundation of Water which occurred at Caradog Vale Colliery, on 26th June, 1906. By Sir D. Brynmor Jones, K.C, M.P., and Fred. A. Gray, one of