COAL-MINING IN ALBERTA
Till dazzled by the drowsy glare,
I shut my eyes to heat and light;
And saw, in sudden night,
Crouched in the dripping dark,
With steaming shoulders stark
The man who hews the coal to feed my fire.
--WILFRED WILSON GIBSON.
Solon once told Croesus that whoever had the iron would possess all the
gold, but here Solon was taking coal for granted. Iron-mines are of
comparatively little value unless coal-mines are within easy access. I
think of this as I view the underground workings of a coal-mine,
to-day, and of how our Royal Land of Canada has both minerals in
immeasurable quantities. In this Province of Alberta alone, there is
so much coal to burn that it will take a million years. Looking at
this sheer face of coal twenty feet in height, I must perforce recall
Oliver Wendell Holmes's remark that he was not at all nervous about a
certain comet which threatened to destroy the earth, for there was so
much coal in the world he couldn't bring himself to believe it had been
made for nothing.
In time past, it was said hereabout that coal-mining did not pay; that
the profit of the industry lay in its higher mathematics, by which was
meant the formation of companies and the disposal of bonds and stocks.
The primary work of The Coal Barons, it was further declared, consisted
in laying up treasures on earth for themselves, leaving the
shareholders to find reward in heaven. The "suckers" who purchased
stock were said to have gone through the comparative degrees of mine,
miner, minus. They were "the bitten."
From the uppermost appearance of things, these remarks would seem to be
warranted, particularly as the true westerner has always something to
sell and has even been known to lie about it, but a closer and more
careful study of affairs shows that, in this grim game, the mine-owners
received neither the honours nor the tricks, that is, unless you are
disposed to count the chicane as one. Most cases, in their futile
efforts to bolster up the exchequer of the company, the barons have
sacrificed their private fortunes, so that their titles may, with
entire propriety be spelled barrens. It was one of these men who
feelingly remarked: "When a man's affairs in this province go rocky,
you may safely reckon on coal being the rock."
But now that the seven lean years of coal are over and the fat ones are
well begun, now that coal as a revenue producer is only second to
Mother Wheat, we can with calmer and more unbiassed judgment consider
the causes which have hitherto been responsible for its "outrageous
fortune."
Perhaps the commonest cause of failure has been the lack of adequate
capital. The President's chair in a coal company is no place for empty
pockets. To successfully operate his mine he requires money at any
price. The initial outlay is large, the carrying expenses heavy, the
unexpected demands many. Hitherto, this capital has not been readily
forthcoming. Investors have preferred to buy town lots rather than
industrial stocks. In older and more settled communities the opposite
condition prevails. On the other hand, coal on the cars is cash. The
mine operator takes his bill-of-lading to the bank and draws up to
two-thirds of its face value. This enables him to meet his fortnightly
pay-bill and general mining expenses, but, for two or three years,
until sufficient rooms have been made in the workings of the mine, he
cannot expect it to do more.
In the meanwhile, there is development work to be done and development
work is expensive. The entries or hallways off which the rooms open
are costly to drive and they must be beamed with great timbers held in
place by tree trunks. Initial surveys have to be made, and expert
superintendence paid for. It is for such work the President requires
ready money and free money. He cannot possibly make his working
expenses to cover those of development in that the same managing staff
is required to handle a small output as a large one. The same is
applicable to the engines and hoisting machinery.
The second cause which has hitherto hindered successful operations has
been lack of railway facilities and lack of a steady market. Emerson
has defined commerce as taking things from where they are plentiful to
where they are needed. Coal, we have shown, is plentiful; and that it
is needed in the Canadian North-West we need hardly remark, but that it
could not be carried needs explanation. For several years our railways
were lamentably short of equipment, so that the mines had frequently to
close down for days, or even weeks, their bunkers being entirely
inadequate for storage purposes. This meant a severe loss to the mines
in that their men and machinery stood idle and that lucrative contracts
had to be cancelled.
Probably no industry has suffered so keenly from car shortage as that
of coal-mining. The only people who have received windfalls from this
regretable state of affairs were the dishonest yard-masters who,
unknown to the railway officials, did a secret but withal brisk
business with the rival coal companies that bid for cars. It took a
goodly slice off the profits of each car of coal to grease the large
palm of the yard-master. And who in this pushful, practical age has
ever heard of a car spotter in the railway yards buying a ton of coal?
The plethora of his coal-bin is more to the credit of his wits than his
morals. My mind is fully established in this thing; as a grafter he is
the perfected article.
It may, however, be said in excuse for the car shortage, that the
demand for coal cars synchronized with that of wheat, the rush for both
being in the autumn and early winter. At first, the pioneer coal
dealers in the villages and towns throughout the west, had neither the
buildings wherein to store fuel nor the money to permit of their
purchasing it, so that orders were seldom given until cold weather had
actually set in.
While this condition of affairs still leaves something to be desired,
the dealers have had several salutary lessons and are, as a generality,
becoming much more forehanded. The population of the west has also
increased so vastly during these latter years, that the demand on the
dealers, and accordingly on the mines, has gradually become steadier
till, at last, the industry rests upon the well-settled foundation of a
regular demand, a regular supply, and a dependable railway service, in
other words, it fulfils the three conditions laid down in Emerson's
definition of commerce.
A third difficulty which confronted mine operators, was the securing of
experienced miners. The supply was distinctly inadequate, so that
green hands had to be engaged--homesteaders who wanted to earn money
during the winter, newly-arrived immigrants who took the first job
which came to hand; and farm labourers who came west to take off the
harvest and decided to stay in the country.
These men, while they came under the union scale of wages, were unable
to do little else for the first winter than spoil their shots of
dynamite, cave in the roofs, and blow out the timbers. The mine
operator, however, rarely became disheartened so long as the green man
didn't blow off his own head for, in this case, the operator would be
called upon by the courts to pay staggering damages to the miner's
heirs under the compulsion of an extraordinary statute known as the
Labourer's Compensation Act.
But now, in these days of grace, owing to the investment of British and
foreign capital, the unskilled man has been superseded by electric
drillers and cutters--in a word, modern methods are being used in our
mines with the result that we have fewer accidents and losses.
This application of machinery to the industry has also brought about a
maximum of output with a minimum of expenditure. The development work
can be done with more speed and less expense, so that the old
disabilities under which western operators had to labour will soon be
cancelled out of memory.
While the application of machinery to mining must indubitably minimize
the probability of strikes, the operators must be prepared to reckon
with these until the end of time, in that throwing down their tools
appears to be the chief occupation of miners. It is hard to account
for this irresponsible vagary unless it be that they receive twice as
much pay as other workmen. Or it may be that they make a fetish of the
union, in which respect they do resemble certain stupid people in the
southern seas who have a worm to their god and are wont to sacrifice
oxen to it.
Now, miners on strike are persons of no very marked refinement, neither
are they given to logic. What Tennyson says of the Light Brigade is
finely applicable here--"Theirs not to reason why."
When you meet real strikers nothing counts. You may do everything
which instinct, invention or despair can suggest, except descending to
vulgar invective, yet without the slightest tangible result. No matter
how soothly their employer may speak to them, they are suspicious of
him or her. The intervention must always come from a third party.
These men are the latter-day exponents of the old rule laid down by
Dean Swift for the better direction of servants: "Quarrel with each
other as much as you please, only always bear in mind that you have a
common enemy which is your Master and Lady."
To find yourself facing a square of irate strikers is to feel yourself
very thin, very colourless, and amazingly inexperienced. It is to
wonder at the rudeness of their speech, the largeness of their mouths,
and to speculate in a Christianly way as to just what screw is loose in
their mental make-up. I know this to be the way of it, for once we had
a strike in a mine which I, with a strutting but misguided assurance,
imagined to be the property of our family. Owing to a former
superintendent having entered into an agreement with the union, I
learned we were holding the mine co-operatively, and that I could not
dismiss the men either individually or collectively.
The trouble happened in this wise: the president being absent for
several months, it fell to me, as vice-president, to hold the reins.
By reason of the facts that the seam of coal was pinching thin; that
the miners were receiving one-third more than any others in the
locality, and that we were producing on a falling market, we found we
were losing nearly one hundred dollars a day. The superintendent
invited the miners to discuss the matter without prejudice. They did
not disallow the correctness of his contention but refused to consider
a reduction of their wages. They were content to stand by their side
of the agreement and would see to it that the company did the same.
And here I showed a lack of discretion in allowing this matter to be
discussed, for, while failing to deduce that it was highly preposterous
to kill the goose who laid the golden egg, they still had the
penetration to see that in closing down the mine because of lack of
orders, my primary object was to nullify the agreement. Nothing could
express their unmeasured contempt of the vice-president, and they left
me under no misapprehension as to their opinion of me. They accused me
of playing them, and being guilty of the offence, I was naturally
offended at the accusation. Still, I declined to be led into further
discussion, or to recriminate in kind, so that ultimately I came to
feel strong as one does who is intentionally weak before her enemy.
There was nothing for it. The miners had to walk out, all except the
engineers who pumped the water from the sump. Now, the night engineer
had a face so wicked that he might all his life have been stoking
furnaces in the underworld, and he it was who permitted the men to
enter the shaft and put a stick in the valve of the pulsometer so that
the mine became flooded and several entries caved in.
I was quite as angry as my temperament allowed, and it would have given
me much satisfaction to have killed them, for, after all, this is a
most effective method of getting rid of your enemies. It was,
nevertheless, no small satisfaction when the superintendent, a
tight-built muscular Englishman, gave the engineer a touch or two that
reminded the onlooker of a piston-rod in action. If might and right
are not the same thing, they ought to be. Two weeks later, the works
were re-opened with other workmen on a new wage scale. On arriving at
the mine the following day, I found our former employees were picketing
it. They had a crow to pluck with me, I could see that. The very air
was portentous. Those workmen were like the horses of Phoebus Apollo
in that their breasts were full of fire and they breathed it forth from
their nostrils and mouths. But while the men were abusive and
loud-voiced, they were never insulting, for even Satan finds it hard to
forge a weapon against a smile and an unwavering courtesy. And, after
all, what can strikers do with a vice-president who is a woman? It
seemed like taking an unfair advantage of them. It was only when we
met the miner's wives that I learned my exceeding limitations; that the
power fell out of my elbow and the stiffening out of my collar-bone.
When I say "we" I mean William and myself. Now, William was my driver,
and he spent fourteen years in the British cavalry. He had served in
Egypt and South Africa; he had fought his way through a screaming death
at Omdurman and yes, I will say it--William was "a nob" and handsome as
a circus horse. His deference as he lifted me down off the high seat,
his manifest concern for my comfort, and his superb arrogance as he
bade the women "Give over there!" were too much, for even these raging
furies to reckon with. His coolness under a withering fire of
invective restored me to normal and enabled me to stand pat.
To shorten the story, we had to engage three successive gangs before we
won out. By that time the strikers had become divided, some having
accepted work in other mines, while the remainder became discouraged
and gradually gave up the picket.
I have dwelt at some length on this matter of strikes because, as yet,
no actual operator has expressed his view point or his feeling under
the ordeal, whereas the strikers have made the street corners vibrant
concerning the villainies of their employers whom they designate as
Capital. In dismissing this phase of mining, I would say a strike is
to be avoided at almost any cost, for, apart from its factor as a
somewhat strenuous builder of character, it is a victory which costs
the operator too dearly both in the expenditure of nerves and of money.
... Before being led into the discussion of finances and strikes, I had
started to tell you about an Albertan mine and its workings. The theme
is worth picking up again. Before you go down, it is well to have a
look around the machinery-room where the engines pump up the water and
pump down the air. You will also be interested in the great spool or
drum which unwinds the long steel cables by which the cage is lowered
or hoisted in the shaft. One man stands beside it and controls it with
a lever. The man behind the lever needs to be equally as steady and
effective a worker as the man behind the gun, for it is by this cage
the men enter and leave the mine, although they may, if so disposed,
ascend or descend by the escapement or ladder-shaft beside it.
It is the strict duty of the foreman to examine this drum, these
cables, and the cage every day, and to record his findings in a book
which he is required to keep in compliance with the laws regulating
coal-mines. This man must also carefully test for gas. The
maintenance of the air-circuit is a matter of much concernment to the
operators, for on it depends not only the health and security of the
men but the safety of the mine itself. Carbon monoxide, which is white
damp, is more dreaded by the miners than any other gas because it is
difficult to detect, having no odour, taste or colour.
The Bureau of Mines in the United States have recently discovered that
canary birds are extremely susceptible to it and, after being exposed
for three minutes to air containing one-sixth of the one per cent, of
the gas, show marked distress. In eight minutes, they fall off their
perches. As a result, many American miners are now using canaries to
watch out for gas while they are at work.
Black damp, or carbon dioxide, may be detected by its peculiar odour.
It is heavier than air and tends to suffocate fire. After an explosion
has taken place these two gases become mixed and form what is known as
after damp, a mixture which surely destroys all life remaining in the
mine.
From familiarity with danger, miners become disdainful of it and
careless to a degree that is well-nigh incredible. They will hold
dynamite caps in their mouths for convenience, a risk which pales into
nothingness the ancient simile of the weaned child who plays on the den
of the cockatrice. He is a poor man of low-funk spirit who does not
believe himself quick enough to cross a cage after the signal to ascend
has been given. To run this venture is, to them, a matter of no
moment. I have seen more than one miner caught and crushed through a
slight miscalculation in this respect, but these accidents are so
quickly forgotten that they do not act as deterrents to any noticeable
extent. In truth, there seems little reason to doubt that most of the
sudden catastrophes which result in the loss of many valuable lives,
are the result of some insane risk taken by one man. If these risks
were not among those things which the Deity is said to "wink at," all
miners would have been killed long ago.
If you feel inclined, you might stop awhile and look at the
skeleton-like tipple of the mine, by which I mean the wooden framework
above it; at the automatic self-dumping skips and at the rocking
screens which sort the coal into the kinds known as lump, egg, and nut;
but the tempestuous torrent of coal from the hopper bottoms of the cars
would drown our talk and assault our eardrums, so, on the whole, it is
just as well to take these things for granted.
One's first descent into a mine is an experience rather than a
pleasure. To leave the sharp intensity of the sunlight and to be
suddenly dropped into a horrible pit, is to feel oneself rolled into a
tight little ball, with every nerve as hard as a nail. You hope, you
pray, that the long, lithe cables which hold the cage are stronger than
they look. You wonder if you will come out feet foremost in Australia,
and if it will hurt very much. After a second or third experience, the
sensation is one of swift adventuring, but few people care to inure
themselves to this frame of spirit. Arrived at the shaft bottom, you
are made aware with the aid of your cap lamp, of huge square timbers
around you and of a "sump" or well, underneath. It is into this sump
that all the entries of the mine are drained.
Without realizing it, you will have lowered your voice, for the
darkness and stillness oppress you as though you were bearing a weight
on your shoulders. The air is lifeless and leaden. This is assuredly
The City of Dreadful Night. You feel as if you were the last survivor
in a dead world. But presently, a strong hand will take yours in his
and lead you through the Stygian darkness till your eyes become
habituated to the gloom, when you will become aware of two tracks
stretching away in the channel which has been hollowed out of the coal.
Then you will be warned to step aside and keep close to the wall while
a stocky-car holding probably three tons is, with a vast grinding of
wheels, whirled by you to the cage, there to be hoisted to the tipple.
Your guide will explain that you are in the main entry or tunnel of the
mine, and that there are other entries at right angles. These with the
rooms which open off them, are surveyed by engineers with great
exactness and according to certain regulations laid down in the mining
statutes.
Here and there in the blackness, thin tongues of flame move about like
fireflies. These are the lamps in the miners' caps. You have also a
fire-fly in your bonnet, but, of course, it is only visible to the
onlookers. These lamps are like little coffee-pots and are filled
either with carbide or seal oil. In the more modern mines which are
lighted by electricity, lamps are not required so much, although no man
ventures into the mine without one. Faith is not nearly so estimable a
virtue as sight, no matter what the theologians may say. It was a
miner poet (you must not spell it a minor poet) who wrote the lines--
"God, if you had but the moon
Stuck in your cap for a lamp,
Even you'd tire of it soon
Down in the dark and the damp.
Nothing but blackness above
And nothing moves but the cars--
God, in return for our love,
Fling us a handful of stars."
These lamps are the footlights the miners hold up to Old King Coal as
they pierce his sides with their electric drills, and wrench open his
wounds with their ripping charges of dynamite. They call this shooting
the coal, so it is just as well to keep your peculiar fantasies to
yourself.
In a coal-mine one loses his sense of direction, for there is no heaven
above, no earth beneath--nothing but silence and black impenetrableness.
And yet, when you are alone in a mine, you may hear a sound like the
sighing of great trees. This is probably the utterance of your own
blood to which you are giving audience as when you put your ear to a
conch-shell; or it may be the surging sigh of the enormous primitive
ferns, sigillarias and lepidodendrons who lay down in these strata as
though for an eternal rest. In the counting-house of the years, vast
cycles have come and gone till, now in these impertinent days of
dynamite and electricity, uncouth, ungentle men have broken their rest
forever. The complaint of the trees is not without judgment. The
thing seems ill-done and almost, of myself, I can hear their tragical
murmurings.
The temperature in the coal-mine does not vary with the seasons, and
the men believe it healthier to work in this underworld than to be
subject to the changes of climate above. They have also told me that
there is no echo in a coal stratum. I do not know if this be true,
but, of a surety, one's voice does not carry far in the dead air, and
even the shots of dynamite seem to be muffled and indistinct.
Nevertheless, it is my opinion--an irrational one, no doubt--that men
who dig in mines should have music rather than men who eat in cafes.
We need to recast our ideas about these things.
It makes no difference how you have quarrelled with these miners in a
strike; it makes no difference that once you felt like murdering them
in bulk, it is impossible to follow them day after day through the
working of a coal-mine without seeing something heroic in their crude
bent figures. You may not be able to understand the language they
speak, for many of them are foreign born, but in time you come to talk
to them through the smile, the touch on the arm, or the clap of the
hands, which signals are, after all, the universal language of the
world. Most of these men are kindly disposed and, when left free from
the machinations of the lawyer, are capable of self-sacrifice for their
employer, and even of affection. In every gang of men, whether in
railway construction, lumber camp, or coal-mine, there is always an
unamiable workman of ferocious egoism who is known as the camp lawyer.
The legal fraternity will probably resent this misuse of their name,
and properly so, for this fellow is froward in manner and has the same
loving heart as a tiger. He it is who stirs up all the internal
strifes and keeps them at boiling point. It is an art in which he
greatly excels. In olden days, they called a man of his ilk a gallows
knave, and the epithet was selected with care. Foremen are, nowadays,
beginning to pay less attention to the communion of saints in their
camps and vastly more to the communion of sinners. It is a foreman's
particular business to spot the lawyers early in the game and to deal
with them as the occasion warrants.
There are many things to be observed down in these black entrails of
the earth, but, before we leave, we will look at the stables. They are
lighted by electricity. It is the work of the horses to haul the cars
to the main entry where they are switched on to the electric cable. It
is commonly believed that horses who live in mines become blind. This
is not true. What they lose is their sense of colour, for in the dark
all things are hueless. These horses are fat-fleshed and healthy, and
are so tame they can almost be mesmerized into talking to you. They
seem highly interested in the story I tell them of how once the
Frenchmen put twelve thousand dead men and their horses down three
coal-pits at Jemappes, and things like that. They appreciate carrots,
sugar-lumps and apples, which have been steadily purloined from the
cook's pantry at the bunk-house, in a way that is positively human. It
would be unkind to enter the mine without carrying a treat for the
horses, but now, having done so, let me bid all of you on the day-shift
a very good fortune, and a safe return to God's blessed sunshine.