Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/280

 258 upon the output of the miner. The average output for each man employed for the five years 1868–72 was as follows:—

From this table it appears that between the years 1871 and 1872 the average output decreased by 18 tons. The Select Committee comment on these figures as follows:—

'The comparison between 1872 and the former years is affected by the facts that the previous returns were not compulsory, and did not include in all cases the whole of the persons employed in the mine and about the colliery, nor do the returns admit of any account being taken of the saving of labour either in the mine or above ground iu consequence of improved arrangements for working the collieries or delivering the coal into the waggons for transport. The evidence given in some individual cases shows that the quantity raised per man has diminished in the last year, and on the whole your Committee think that the diminution in the yield per man employed in getting coal in the mine since 1871 is not much less than that shown in the table.' The evidence apparently bears out this conclusion: under shorter hours the output per man was reduced in Northumberland and Durham, Lancashire, and Yorkshire, whilst it was increased in South Wales, where no change was made in hours, and in North Staffordshire; but on the average there was a substantial reduction. The Committee omit to point out that the whole of this reduction cannot be attributed to the shortening of hours. The new men who docked into the industry were unskilled in coal mining. It was not to be expected that an agricultural labourer or a factory operative who had never handled a pick in his life could hew the same quantity of coal in a given time as a skilled miner, and some reduction per head was to be expected. But whilst the output per man was reduced, the total output was increased.