Page:The British Coal Trade - Jevons.djvu/18

xii statistics, and arrange the appendixes and the photographs and many of the diagrams. This work he carried out with the greatest care and judgement, and my indebtedness to him is altogether insufficiently acknowledged in the Preface, which I wrote soon after leaving England. Very regrettable, too, has been the accidental omission of an important acknowledgement. Most of the matter referring to early Trade Unions amongst coal miners, in Chapter XVII., was based on manuscript notes collected by Mr. and Mrs Sidney Webb for their works on Trade Unionism. These original notes were, with others, deposited by them in the library of the London School of Economics; and I was much indebted, not only to Mr. and Mrs. Webb for so kindly offering the use of these notes, but also to the then Director of the London School of Economics, and the Librarian, for the permission and ample facilities given for using them. This acknowledgement was purposely omitted from the Preface with a view to placing it as a footnote on the first page of Chapter XVII.; but through my absence it was unfortunately overlooked—a circumstance which I much regret.

I wish again to thank the Business Statistics Publishing Company of Cardiff, and particularly Mr. C. P. Hailey, of that firm, for very kindly assistin me in the preparation of the tables which will be found in the new Appendix of recent statistics on page 864 of this volume. The object of this Appendix has been to bring up to date the principal series of statistics of output, labor, prices, and freight rates, which are scattered through the body of the book.