Colliery Profits

Coalowners' Protest Against Limiting Bill

A meeting of the Executive Council of the Mining Association of Great Britain, representative of the coalowning interest in England, Scotland, and Wales, was held at the Midland Grand Hotel yesterday to protest against the Government's proposed Bill for the limitation of coalowners' profits. The meeting was presided over by Mr. Evan Williams (president of the South Wales Coalowners' Association), and was addressed by Lord Gainford, Sir Adam Nimmo, Sir Frank Beauchamp, Mr. Parker Rhodes, and other coalowners. The following resolution was passed :—

"This meeting of the Mining Association of Great Britain, representing the coalowners of England, Scotland, and Wales, records its emphatic protest against the proposal of the Government to promote a Bill in Parliament to limit colliery profits to an average of 1s. 2d. per ton on the coal raised, and expresses its settled conviction that any Parliamentary interference in the direction of limiting the earnings of any section of those engaged in an industry, whether owners or workmen, is not only economically unsound, but disastrous to that encouragement of initiative, energy, and enterprise essential to the success of industrial undertakings and would undoubtedly prevent the flow of the necessary capital into any industry crippled by such pernicious legislative enactments."

Mr. Wallace Thorneycroft, chairman of the Coal Association, in conversation with a representative of The Times last night, said :— "We hold that Mr. Bonar Law was no more pledged to the limitation of owners' profits to 1s. 2d. a ton than he was to nationalization. The coalowners assume that profits will be classified in proportion to pre-war profits, adjusted to the several outputs. Round about 50 per cent. of their pre-war profits will, we estimate, be taken away from the coalowners under this Bill. During the war we agreed with the Government that our profits should be limited. That agreement was confirmed by the Coal Mines Control Agreement (Confirmation) Act of 1918, and it is still in force. The agreement limited coalowners to the pre-war standard of profit, plus 5 per cent., if it were earned. Profit remaining above the 5 per cent. excess went in the proportion of 15 per cent. to the Controller and 80 per cent. to the Treasury. The standard period was taken as any two out of three pre-war years, or any four out of six.

"The point, however, is that while by other industries 20 per cent. of profits was retained and 80 per cent. handed to the Treasury, the coal industry was able to keep only 5 per cent. The position is now that the Bill will reduce the standard of gross profit to the mineowners by a half, and that will depend upon their maintaining their ‘standard' output at its maximum. In these circumstances there can be no question of any ‘excess' profits."