Coal Supplies.

Part of Orders of the Day — Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill. – in the House of Commons at on 5 August 1941.

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Photo of Mr Herbert Wragg Mr Herbert Wragg , Belper

I shall not give way. We have, however, heard a lot of sound common sense. I have never heard the case for the mining industry put better than it was put by the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. T. Smith). We are a bit in the dark, because we have not got the quarterly statistics usually issued from the Mines Department. When the Secretary of Mines told us that 77,000men, I think he said, left the industry last year, and that since the commencement of the war over 100,000 had left, one did not know whether this 100,000 had been replaced to any extent by any who had come into the industry. There ought, in theory, with the number of men now. in the industry, to be no reduction in the amount of coal produced, because before the war there were five shifts per week and now the number is six. Of course, output for six days is not mathematically in proportion to the output for five days. It is difficult for men to work six days a week, especially when some of them have to go down and do odd jobs even on the Sunday. Especially is it difficult in areas like mine, where the men have been in the habit during the summer of working only three or four days a week. They naturally do not feel equal to working six days a week. That is only human nature. I would suggest that in those districts where the owners, the management and the men so decide, they might work five days a, week, and the law might be altered so that the working day should consist of 8 or 8½hours, and the shift work done on Saturday, instead of on Sunday. Such an act might be for the duration of the war.