Seeds of Pine

by Emily F. Murphy

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.