COAL AND SAFETY

Although America produces more coal than any other nation in the world, she would do well to follow the example of Great Britain in the matter of enforcing safety laws. The American Association for labor legislation is authority for the statement that the fatality rate in mines of this country is three times that of England. Furthermore, it is the opinion of this organization that two-thirds of the fatal and serious accidents could be prevented.

Blame for accidents can be laid upon a number of shoulders. In the first place, the miner himself is often responsible for disaster. When a man with a lighted lamp in his cap fills paper cartridges with black powder, it is obviously his own fault if he does not remove his lamp to a safe distance. Even more gruesome is the sight of a miner tamping a highly explosive dynamite cap with his teeth. The foreman is to blame if he permits anyone to work in rooms with insufficient propping or to ride on trips of cars meant only to convey coal. If mines unsafe because of water trouble, poor roof, improper ventilation, and other such deficiencies, are permitted to be worked, the district inspector of mines is in this case at fault. If the owner himself does not see that his mine is decently inspected and that his men are competent, he is as much deserving of censure as his employees.

The remedies for unnecessary casualties are therefore obvious. In the first place, the miner himself must be educated by convincing him that an attempt to save too much time is certain to result in calamity. Next, competent and conscientious foremen and superintendants must be chosen. Since the government itself is responsible for the efficiency of its mine inspectors, inspectorship examinations should be made stricter. The operator ought to see that it is for his own good as well as that of his men's that his mine is a safe one. It is doubtful if the safety laws themselves need be changed except in a few cases. For the most part they are satisfactory. It is in more rigid enforcement of these laws that the solution of the coal-miner lies.