Orders of the Day — Fuel and Power

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 29 March 1950.

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Photo of Mr James Johnson Mr James Johnson , Rugby 12:00, 29 March 1950

Like all new Members I rise on this first occasion in a mood of sober apprehension and I crave the indulgence of the House for my maiden speech. I want to begin by thanking all older hon. Members for their kindness during this past month. I only hope that I shall be as courteous if I am here after the next election, in 1955.

I have gathered that in a maiden speech one can be parochial and even personal, so may I begin by mentioning that I have the honour to represent the constituency of Rugby in which we have a famous school whose alumni adorn the benches on both sides of the House? We have also given the country, I think, a worthy game, a perversion of which has even conquered North America. Perhaps I may also mention the British Thomson Houston works, where the workers are showing very fine output figures in their production of radar equipment. Further, they lowered the rate of production of independent Members of Parliament at the last election.

I have a simple tale to tell and I enter this Debate with temerity. I am the son of a miner. The coalmining industry today is in better heart and fettle than has ever been the case and this could never have taken place but for nationalisation. When I was a schoolboy in the 20's the only careers, if I may call them that, which were open to the sons of miners were those of teaching and professional football and those who wished to leave the North-East coalfields, just as in South Wales and many other coalfields, had to choose either of those professions.

I should like to say this about the climate today, after hearing the right hon. Member for Southport (Mr. R. S. Hudson) speak earlier about victimisation. Of course, we knew victimisation in the old days before the war but today, believe me, there is a much sweeter atmosphere altogether and the joint consultative committees are functioning very happily indeed. Where they do not function in a non-controversial manner it is perhaps because we have a number of the old guard still in positions as managers and in other offices who were, perhaps, born about the time of the Boer War, who framed their mental habits then and who have not changed them very much since. For those gentlemen, the term "industrial democracy" is not included in their vocabulary. If we are to make nationalisation function in the fullest sense, we shall need many more people in the industry who believe in socialisation—I mention that word particularly as opposed to nationalisation—people who wish to make public ownership work in the coalfields.

Let me mention just a few statistics. I have been looking at the Monthly Digest, and the figure that particularly pleased me was that of the number of juveniles entering the industry. Before the war almost every mother would have her son take almost any job other than that of going down the pit. Now I should like to remind hon. Members of these figures. In 1948, 10,990 juveniles under the age of 18 entered the pits. In 1949 something like 14,186 went down the mines. In the first month of 1950 something like 2,100 went down the pits. Let us say that that is 10 per cent. It means that, with good fortune, we can expect about 20,000 young men with guts, to make mining their career this year, and to go down below to work. That is a most heartening sign, because believe me, between the wars people were leaving the pits in tens of thousands. Let me go back—without going too far back, as hon. Members do not like to go too far back—to 1913. Then, we had something like 1,250,000 men in the pits. Today, we have 700,000. Half a million men have left the mines in the last three decades. If we can get our youngsters to go back, and to go back because their mothers think it is a good thing to go back, we shall alter the course of our economic history.

For the first time in our economic history the miner is being paid a living wage. Other Members have talked about the dignity and the status of the miner. In the old days he was, perhaps, termed a "hand"—and that "hand," you know, Mr. Speaker, meant merely a living tool. We have gone a long way beyond those days; today, the miner has a changed status; he has a human dignity. Believe me, in the mining industry we look upon ourselves now, if I may say so, as Stakhanovites. Without coal mining there is no basis for the future economic life of this country. We shall never attain the standard of living that we all desire for our wives and families unless our national economic life is healthy. We cannot have a healthy national economic life unless coal mining, which is the basis of the pyramid of our economic structure, is in a sound condition and is in healthy heart. These figures, of course, mean something to me, who was born the son of a miner, and who left the coalfields, but who goes back there to see his friends.

The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) talked about opencast workings. There are opencast workings quite near me. I have been over them. The opencast pits have made it possible for us to export something like 16 million tons of coal, without which we could not have had quite so many dollars as we have at the moment. Even more important than that is this: I went over those opencast workings with a member of the national executive of the Farmers' Union, and he was as delighted as I was at the way in which the engineer, who was more than a mere technician, who believed in more than just nuts and bolts, had put the land back into first-class heart. He had put back the top soil, he had sown seed, and he had bullocks fattening on the land, in less than two years. If that can be done in Warwickshire, it can be done elsewhere. I would advise the hon. Member for Kidderminster to look at it in that way—that opencast workings are essential for our national economic health, and that given such competent—more than competent, idealistic—engineers, who will look beyond their immediate jobs, we can expect the land to be rehabilitated for agriculture.

I listened carefully to the talk about dirty coal. We always had dirty coal, even in those days when we picked, by hand, the slate off the belts by means of serf labour for a few shillings a week—in the old days, in the '20s and '30s. Connected with the question of dirty coal is the question which occurs in all walks of economic life—labour. Without being too controversial I should be much happier about our labour position in the pits if the sons of the classes of hon. Members opposite went down the mines in the same way as the sons of the miners are expected to go down them, and have gone down them, for the last 50 or more years. This is a question of national economy. It is a national question. As, in war-time, we all made sacrifices, so in peace-time, in the same way, we should all pull our weight.

We are installing expensive machinery for cleaning the coal. Let me quote from the report of the Industrial Coal Consumers' Council about the preparation of coal. It says: In this connection, the Board have reported to us that in 1948 23 coal cleaning plants with a capacity of about 5,250,000 tons per annum were brought into operation. In addition, four flotation plants with a total cleaning capacity of 112,000 tons a year were installed to deal with some of the smaller sizes that cannot be effectively dealt with by ordinary cleaning plants. These new plants contributed to the reduction in the proportion to total output of uncleaned smalls from 16.23 per cent. in 1947 to 14.6 in 1948. Some 2,000,000 more tons of dirt were removed from coal in 1948 than in 1947. So we are getting on with these improvements—and it is an improvement; and I would say, if I may, to hon. Members opposite that they should have patience and tolerance in this business of getting machinery installed in our pits to get our coal cleaner.

I should like to emphasise once more that the economic life of our country depends upon the health of our coal mining. I look forward, under nationalisation, to a much greater output. I look forward to many more of our sons entering the pits. I look forward, in the '50s, to an overall annual production of something like 240 or 250 million tons of coal. If the country can get that, plus exports of 40 million or 50 million tons, I shall have no fears when Marshall Aid is finished.