South Yorkshire Times – Saturday 05 September 1942
Wath Main Canteen Opened
Stirring Appeal to Miners by Y.M.A. President
“Old Regime” Gone.
Mr. J. A. Hall said the last 48 hours would play an important part in the future of the mines. The old regime had gone now, and they were in the arena of joint control
“As a young student of economics.” Mr. Hall continued, “there were three ambitions in my life. One was to establish the incoming into the industry of young miners. I remember starting at the age of 11 ½, and remember seeing at that time skilled workmen in the pit, men who took a joy in their work, men who knew the hardships of what real knew mining was. Men then were free, in a great sense, of the mechanical era which has been established. Many of those men are now listening to my voice, but mechanism has come to stay. It has taken away a considerable amount of the skill that was once an established fact in the coalfield and most of the skill in coal mining now you see on your roadway.
“The nation at this moment is in a state of crisis. There may have been a cry many times about the shortage of coal. Whether that cry was a false one in the past or not there is a decided shortage now. This e country is faced with the greatest coal crisis in its history. If there is no untoward advance in output at the end of this it means that munition year works then may have to stop and therefore the supply of coal is the great momentum factor which is governing the statesmen’s minds as to the future policy of either a Second Front or any front to defeat the enemy.
“Therefore the worry in the mining industry is the incoming of servants and students to the industry. It did not take a war to make me understand that there was not this incoming supply of labour. The mothers and the fathers, the fathers especially who stood the heat of the day in coal mining, have made up their minds, like true fathers should, that their experience of mining should not be the experience of their sons unless there was an improvement in the administration of the mines.
Not local accidents or individual fatalities, but explosion after explosion, disaster after disaster, put fear into the minds of the mothers. They would not allow their children to go down the mines, and the first thing I did, probably against the popularity of the men, was to find ways and means to establish some particular form whereby we could first give an encouragement, and would secondly an assurance, that there would be a business like method of entering into the coal mine and that they should have the peace of mind and comfort that they were established servants of the State. Then the first Charter for Boys was established, and I had no hesitation in penning my name to it. My first ambition was established.
“My second was to see that when men entered the mines and became servants of production, their safety, well-being and comfort should be placed on par with that of the servants on the surface. I am of the opinion that there will be no peace in the industry until you have established a wage-earning capacity below ground, where £1 can be earned as easily below as on the surface. There is an improvement on the way whereby my second ambition will be established.
Pensions For Miners.
Mr. Hall then came to his third, but not least ambition: that of establishing a policy of superannuation for miners after they had retired. He was trying to get the Government and also the coalowners to understand that they could not afford to encourage the entrance of young boys into the mines and leave them, after their entrance, with a willy nilly method of administration of production. The Government, .f it wanted to make progress, and after the men’s service had been given, could not allow them to leave the industry unarmed and without giving them the needs in keeping with the rest of their days. He thought at a time like this, when things were prosperous in the industry, with the need for coal and demand for high prices, that owners ought to be readily agreed with him that while the going was good they ought to be facing the problem of meeting the liabilities of the future when old men would be needed no more in this Industry and when men of 50 and 6 0 might not be needed, and that these rich and prosperous resources of the state should meet the demand of the future in giving a good pension to the miner when his work was completed. The owners were not now disagreed with him, and he was hoping in the course of the next few months that an agreement would be made whereby the industry would have agreed to a policy of superannuation for the miners who were duly in need of it.
“Now for the establishment of what we have met for this afternoon. Eighteen months ago, when coming out of Crigglestone Pit, the managing director told me he could not offer me a drink or a sandwich, but that he was determined after at trouble was over to feed his men. The coalowners said the men could not be fed successfully, but we had our first meal and then we readily agreed it had been a success, and we recommended that canteens should be established throughout the country.
These canteens are of such value that it is not possible for me to make you understand that the miners will come out in future and be able to sit down to meal you cannot find at any place in London. The best meat that can be procured has to be sent to this canteen, so that when the miners come for their meals they will be provided with the best food. It is no use asking for maximum production unless you provide the wherewithal or food to meet that production. We realise that you are in need of food If you are to meet the circumstances and liabilities of coal production.
“Those Who Deny Their Duty.”
At 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon Lord Greene said to me, ‘We have given you wages, food, pit-head baths. We have given you more than that. We have given you Joint control. Now you tell me why we are not getting an increase in production.’
The coal output has to be increased. Those who deny their duty whether it be for one hour, one day, or one week, are entitled to be placed in the same category as Quislings. I have been asked many times to talk about the Second Front. I am not prepared to talk about that, and I am not entitled to ask my son in the Forces to go over for the Second Front unless he has got the implements to go over with. They can only be procured by this nation by an improvement in the output of coal.
“There is no greater, more courageous man, there has been no greater servant to the industry of this country than the miner. I have made up my mind, let criticism come from the left or right, that the 95 per cent. of loyal hardworking mineworkers are not going to be blamed for the five per cent who are not prepared to pull their weight. Every mouthful you eat here this afternoon, every drink you might take, remember that you are eating and drinking at the expense of the blood and tears and life of men who have had to brave greater storms of danger than we have ever had to face.
“Wath Main has a great tradition and a reasonably good management—l am not saying it is a perfect one. You have a good local branch executive, and it is very rarely that we have to come to settle any disputes here, but there are those mixed within the rank and file who are causing a little worry. I want my words not just to convey their sense within this gathering but to go abroad. To-day may be ours, this year may be ours; but there may be the proud boaster at the public bar to-night who says: ‘The last light will be ours, the battle will be won.’ Don’t be fooled.”
Mr Hall concluded: “If this scheme fails, then I have failed, and the owners will be entitled to go back to their past form of administration of the mines. Go abroad and tell the story that the cry for increased output is no cry in the wilderness. It is a crisis. Homes in London and north of the Metropolis will be without coal. Nobody would have been more critical than I in condemning the farmers if they had not set seed to the maximum. We are not entitled to criticise any other organisation unless we place ourselves beyond the point of criticism.”