Seeds of Pine

by Emily F. Murphy

CHAPTER XXIII

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 cafés. 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.