That is the period I am trying to cover—the date from which the National Land Bank, acting for the Government, were in charge of certain expenditure in the administration of the colliery. The reason I have for asking that question is this:—I understand—I may be wrong, but I would like the facts so that the people can have all the facts—that a certain amount of money advanced by the Government through the agency of the Land Bank, was given for the purpose of purchasing suitable machinery for the development of the colliery on an economic and business basis. If that is so, I want to know the amount of money voted for that purpose and how much of the money voted for that purpose, if it was voted for that purpose, was actually spent in the purchase of suitable machinery.
Representatives from Leix and Offaly and other Deputies from Kildare with Deputy Johnson and some Senators, approached the Ministry of Finance with the proposal that some arrangement should be come to, rather than that the colliery should be closed down, last November, and thereby save 200 men from being thrown upon the Unemployment Insurance Fund.
I think it is only right that the terms of the arrangement come to on that occasion should be put on the records of the House. This is the document signed on behalf of the Ministry of Finance by the National Land Bank and the representatives of the miners who to-day are conducting the mine on a co-operative basis:—
1. According to the instructions of the Ministry of Finance contained in their letter 880/2 of the 1st instant, I agree on behalf of the debenture holders to keep the mines pumped until the 31st December.
2. It must be distinctly understood that my liability in the matter is to be confined to the minimum required to keep the pumps working and to supply the coal necessary for steam raising for this purpose.
3. I am prepared to consent to the men working in the mine in the meantime on the following conditions:—
(a) In order to prevent dispute the amount chargeable weekly to me for maintenance of pumping shall be determined by a representative of the men in conjunction with Mr. Slater (afterwards Mr. Smith's name was substituted), Mr. Lyburn to act as referee.
(b) All financial transactions in regard to the sale of coal shall be done through Mr. Slater as my agent, and he shall pay out of the proceeds of coal sold in any week the freight and other selling charges and any necessary expenses which may be incurred in the working of the mines, and shall hand the balance of such receipts to such representatives as the men may appoint for distribution in lieu of wages. The men's representatives shall be entitled to inspect any books of records or accounts kept for the purpose of this transaction.
(c) The credit of the company shall not be pledged nor any obligations incurred except by authority.
(d) The men agree not to impede the dismantling of the machinery and salvage of the company's property if no arrangement is come to for carrying on the mine after the 31st December.
That was signed by the managing director of the National Land Bank, who was acting as receiver for the Debenture shareholders, the representatives of the miners, and the local clergyman, Father Kelly, who is nominally a member of the workers' committee. That arrangement in reality meant that instead of the loss of £250 per week, which the Minister for Finance stated to a deputation was being incurred by the Government at the time, there was a subsidy from the Government to cover pumping costs of £120 per week. That was extended, and £120 per week was the figure allowed up to the end of January. That was reduced to £100 per week up to the end of February, and was reduced to £50 per week subsequently to terminate entirely at the end of March. That meant that instead of having 200 men drawing unemployment insurance money amounting to £200 per week, we saved the Government £80 per week from the date of the agreement coming into operation until the end of January. £100 per week was saved during the month of February and £150 during the month of March, to be wiped out altogether at the end of that time. Some of the members of the House may have seen the colliery, and I want to point out that the men have worked the mine, and have increased the output from 250 tons per week to 352 tons for the week ending 18th February, in spite of the fact that they were up against the disability of defective pumping machinery which was liable to fail at any time and to flood the mine out in 24 hours. The output for the week ending the 25th February was 353 tons 11 cwt. and 2 qrs. Instead of having a deficit of £250 per week, which was the actual position in October last, they have at the present time over £300 to their credit in the bank. The balance-sheets are available for the Minister to inspect. I claim, in answer to Deputy Shaw's statement, that this is a successful record of co-operative control by workers, and that it proves to the Government that there is something in the mine which should induce them to bring about some reformation of the company that would enable it to be worked on a proper business basis.
About the time this arrangement was come to, in the company of a member of the Seanad I went down to the colleries. I was there on many occasions, and anyone who had any common ordinary business understanding could see what this particular member of the Seanad described as the conduct of the concern on the basis of a second-hand clothes shop. There was some machinery bought by the previous management, some coal cutters lying for months on the bank. They never had been used. When I point out the effect of the use of those machines, you will see there was something lacking in the management of this concern. Since the men took over control, they have been able to instal only one coal cutter. As a result their output was increased 100 per cent. Another coal cutter is at present below the surface, and can be started to work next week with, I hope, a similar result. I was down the mine on Monday last with two or three people, and went to the coal face, which is 60 yards beyond the point where a famous expert stated the coal seam had ceased to exist. There are other things in connection with the management of the mine which I think this House should be made aware of. The manager, who was supposed to be in charge before this new arrangement came into operation, attended the mine on an average for 14 hours per week, He was so interested in the working of the mine that he used to take the battery out of the gas engine, used for the purpose of pumping, and bring it down to his private house to use it for listening-in to Birmingham, Liverpool or Cardiff, or anywhere a concert was going on. I make this statement publicly, and I challenge contradiction, to prove to the Minister that the previous manager of the mine was not anxious that the mine should be carried on successfully. Everything he did was in opposition to the view of any practical miner. It was done for the purpose of ruining the mine instead of running it on a proper business basis. As proof of that, I show that men working against tremendous odds have brought it from a state of poverty and bankruptcy. To show the extravagance which was carried on at the expense of the Government, 50 gallons of oil used to be carried in for the purpose of keeping two lamps going. I need not tell the Minister that the oil was not used for mining purposes. As far as I can gather, it was distributed amongst the friends of the manager in the district who had motors, to reduce the running expenses, at the expense of the good management and better working of the mine.
I put this motion down on the Order Paper, because I realise, in spite of the success of the experiment for which I have only a certain share of responsibility with others, that things cannot go on indefinitely in the way in which they are to-day. The miners' committee in charge of the working for the time being, with the local clergyman whose name I have mentioned, are working a property which they have no legal right to work, and cannot work, according to the terms of the agreement, without the consent of the Minister for Finance. Several attempts have been made in the intervening period to bring about the reformation of the old company. They are supposed to go into liquidation. Up to the present the attempts have failed. The directors called a meeting last Thursday. The directors supposed to be the real owners of the mine are:—
Thomas P. Morrissey, Esq., Salthill Hotel, Monkstown, Co. Dublin (Director, National Bank, Ltd., and Director, Eagle Star and British Dominions Insurance Co., Ltd.).
Jeremiah MacVeagh. Esq., B.L., M.P., Hampden House, 84 Kingsway, London, W.C.2 (Director, Dublin and South Eastern Railway, Ltd., and Director, Alliance and Dublin Consumers' Gas Co., Ltd.).
H. Ellerslie Wallace, Esq., Greenville, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Coal Merchant (Director, Messrs. Wallace Bros., Ltd., Coal Merchants, and Director, Kells Gas Co., Ltd.).
Frederick S. Myerscough, Esq., Glandore, Temple Gardens, Dublin, Insurance Broker (Managing Director of Messrs. Coyle & Co., Ltd.).
Patrick W. Shaw, Esq., Belsize, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, Merchant.
John P. Cuffe, Esq., 252 North Circular Road, Dublin, Auctioneer and Cattle Salesman.
William F. Power, Esq., Rathcannon, Bruree, Co. Limerick, Land Owner.
James J. Parkinson, Esq., Maddenstown Lodge, Curragh Camp, Co. Kildare, Colliery Proprietor (Chairman, Tramore Race Co., Ltd.; Director, Limerick Junction Race Co., Ltd.), Managing Director and Chairman.
These are the directors, and every attempt that has been made by anybody interested in the future working of this mine has failed to bring that body of men together. The most we can get together is two, and the only man who is interested in the matter and has spent a considerable amount of time and has lost an amount of money owing to bad management is Senator James Parkinson. That is the only man we can get to discuss anything as regards the working of the mine.
I understand that there are gamblers and speculators—some of them chancers —who are endeavouring to get hold of any concern available for the purpose of making profit for themselves, and I am aware, quite definitely, that people from the other side have formed a company, with Irishmen on the Board, who are anxious to take over this Wolfhill Colliery Company. They are anxious to take over the waste that is lying there to the extent of thousands of tons, for the purpose of making briquette and carrying on the mine, if they can get it at their own price. They are waiting for the mine to close down, so that they will get it on better terms than if it were sold as a going concern. There are people looking for this place, but nothing whatever can be done until the present directors meet and pass a voluntary winding-up resolution, or until the National Land Bank compel these people to do what they should have done long ago. That can be done very easily, and, so far as I am concerned, or the men are concerned, or anybody else that I know of is concerned, nobody is anxious to do that at tremendous cost to the people who originally put their money into the concern.
A meeting of the men was held on last Monday at the mine. I attended the meeting, and I am in a position to make this statement and this offer to the Minister, if he is in a position to give effect to the terms of the resolution. The men, to show that they have confidence in the future working of the mine and that they are prepared to have the mine carried on, in their own interests as well as in everybody else's interest, are prepared to take shares in the mine to the amount of £2 per man, as a minimum. Many of them will go beyond that figure. They put up the proposal—which is one I do not give great encouragement to—that they should have a representative or representatives on the board of directors of the re-formed company. They also make a claim, rightly, I think, that, in addition to that, there should be a consultative council composed of representatives of the miners and the board of directors, which would meet at certain periods and discuss anything wrong in the working of the mine or any proposal for the better management of the mine. Such a council is in existence in connection with the railway companies and most big business concerns everywhere. Councils of that type, so far as I can learn—I speak from experience in respect of one company—do a great deal to remove irritation and deal with many matters which can be better dealt with jointly than by the bodies acting separately. That is the proposal I put forward in the name of, and on behalf of, the men. I think it is an indication that the men who are accused of having practically destroyed the mine have some real interest in it and it is proof that they are anxious to have the concern carried on in the future. Their confidence is based upon their own working experience and the manner in which they have turned a bankrupt concern and a disgracefully-managed coal mine into a paying business concern under their own conditions.
I would like if the Minister would go down the mine and creep for two hundred yards through mud and dirt in order that he should see the intolerable conditions under which the miners have to work, compared with the conditions under which they work in the mines of South Wales, which are the only other mines I have been down. The Minister would, I think, realise, if he did that, that an offer of this kind, coming from the men, is worthy of consideration. I put it definitely to the Minister that the real meaning of the resolution, so far as Wolfhill is concerned, is that the Government, which has been financing the concern under the conditions I have pointed out, should use their influence with the National Land Bank, who are acting as their agents, to induce the directors of this company to pass the necessary resolution to enable the company to be re-formed, and that, if necessary, they should insist on the National Land Bank taking the ordinary legal procedure to compel them to do so. That is a fair proposition. Things cannot go on as they are indefinitely, because machinery has got to be purchased or got under some conditions which will enable the mine to turn out more coal than is being turned out at present. To get that machinery, it is necessary to have some kind of company formed on a business basis, with the capital known to the business world.
With regard to the reduction in the cost of the coal, the working arrangement which I have described has, in addition to increasing the output on a tonnage basis, brought to the surface of the mine more saleable coal than was brought heretofore. Under the old management, half the stuff brought to the surface and supposed to be coal was in reality waste and is lying in banks there for the last twelve or fourteen months. This was pointed out to the previous manager. It was pointed out clearly that he was bringing to the surface at the rate of 5d. per box a certain quantity of coal which was unsaleable and that this was militating against the good administration of the concern. Rather than bring that waste material to the surface, it was pointed out that in ordinary mining operations it was utilised for props instead of timber, and that timber was not half as safe as waste coal, which could be left behind as the miners worked the seam.
In addition to that I was present when it was pointed out to the previous manager that culm, which is a by-product of coal, was allowed to flow down a river close to the mine and it was picked up by local farmers about half a mile or a mile away and sold from 10/- to 15/- a ton. The new Committee, however, who are a practical body of workers, have arranged so that the culm is sold at the rate of 25 tons a week, bringing in an additional weekly income of £12 10s. These figures cannot be contradicted by anybody with access to the records. I mention the point to show that the removal of the waste material to the surface has added to the cost of the concern, and by the new arrangement by which it is kept beneath the surface there has been an increased quantity of saleable coal brought to the top of the mine. The result is that the coal-getting cost has been reduced from 21s. 9d. to 17s. 5d. per ton. I do not want to go into details or to take up the time of the House unnecessarily, but Ministers are in the habit of getting up when such questions as this are raised and saying: "In view of the lack of evidence to support the contention of the Deputy, so and so is not the case." I challenge the Minister to contradict what I am saying, because I have taken this evidence from the records and books at Wolfhill, the originals of which are in the possession of the managing director of the National Land Bank. I will give particulars as to two weeks' working. For the week ending 29th October, 1924—a full working week before the present arrangement came into operation— wages were paid to the amount of £461 3s. 1d. and the revenue from coal was £336 18s. 11d. For the week ending 18th February, 1925, the wages paid were £294 8s. 9d. and the revenue from coal was £334 4s. There was a loss for the week ending 29th October, 1924, of £125 4s. 2d., and on the other week a profit of £39 15s. 3d.
