How Our Miners Live.

A week in the South Wales Coalfield.

Having dealt with the historical aspect of the South Wales coal trade, in a cursory and perfunctory manner it is true, but at least sufficiently to clear the ground for a connected and consecutive inquiry, I will now proceed to deal more intimately with the actual subject under notice, and describe the work the miner performs, and what he is, and has been, paid for it. It is important to give these facts thus early for the vital reason that, after all else has been said, the nature of the miner's toil and the remuneration which he receives therefore are the solid bases upon which every other consideration impinges, whether political or social, individual or organic.

To rise with the miner in the morning one must be stirring early. He goes to his work about 6 a.m., for every man is obliged to be at the bottom of the pit before seven o'clock. Here, at the very outset, it is a remarkable fact that several hundreds, if not thousands, of men in the Rhondda, Aberdare, and Merthyr Valleys do what many London flaneurs would consider a fatiguing day's work before they even handle pick and shovel. Say on such a morning as that of Tuesday last, when the pleasant autumn weather of the past weeks was suddenly replaced by an almost arctic temperature, how would one of our "gilded youth" like to leave his bed at Merthyr and trudge five miles over one of the highest and bleakest mountains in the district to a colliery at Cwmpennar, after being fortified against the wintry blast by a draught of weak coffee, supplemented by a modicum of bread and, perhaps, some fried bacon? Yet there are scores of colliers who do this in all weathers, rain or shine, with wind or blinding snowstorm, and medical evidence is forthcoming that when a man is in a weak state of health the exercise and exposure caused by such long walks, apart altogether from the actual labour performed by the collier, are most injurious to the constitution.

Well, the bottom of the shaft is reached at last, but in many instances further pedestrian exercise awaits the miner, for he often has to walk half a mile or a mile before the locale of his day's work is gained. It is useless to follow his methods of work in detail. Suffice it to say that for the next eight or nine hours he delves and hews and shovels with might and main until he has worn himself out with exertion. There is not a single pleasant or invigorating feature about the occupation. Ploughing is hard work, but the man engaged thereat is inspired by the ever-varying beauties of nature, whilst the song of the thrush or the blackbird is so tuneful to the ear that the plough-boy who does not indulge in an emulative whistle is capable of crimes before which Shakespeare's unmusical man would pale. In most other avocations, no matter how wearisome or engrossing, there is some such relaxing feature, but the only diversion afforded the collier is the arrival of a fresh tram, combined with a possibility of being crushed to death or burnt to an unrecognisable cinder at any moment.

Yet in the dark recesses of the coal mine there lurk superstition and imaginative mystery. What can be more weird and gruesome than a deserted pit, and where else could a living mortal have any realistic conception of the silence of the grave? Not even the ordinary sounds of nature can be heard, whilst the black void may be readily peopled with uncanny phantasms. Did not Will Gwyn, under such conditions, whilst working a quiet hour's overtime in the Cwm Shon Pit, see his own living wraith carried past his stall on a noiseless tram, and escorted by a ghostlike troupe? And would any of his mates ever forget the look of wild horror on his face when, six months later, they carried him mortally injured past the same stall? But legendary lore is surely out of place in the midst of a diatribe on work and wages.

About four p.m. the miner concludes his day's toil, which is unbroken save for an interval of 10 minutes for dinner, and he re ascends to the surface, glad enough no doubt to see the sky above his head once more. There are occasions, however, when he does not come up the pit shaft the same healthy, animated human being that he went down in the morning. Whilst he and his mates are busily employed hundred of yards beneath the earth's surface, those who live near the colliery are suddenly electrified by a deep, sullen boom, which resounds through the air, and frightened wives and mothers who rush to the open doors of the cottages see an unwonted column of smoke, and steam, and dust rising from the pit-mouth. No need is there to tell them what has happened, for brave men are already preparing to descend into the cavernous depths only to return ere long with a ghastly load of corpses, charred and shattered out of all human semblance.

An explosion is only one out of many risks which the collier runs, but it is usually the most appalling from its magnitude and extent. If he returns to the earth's crust safe and sound, he has five miles to walk homewards (this, of course, being an extreme through plentiful case so far as distance is concerned), and a sorry-looking object he is with his black face and hands and coal dust-laden clothes, a striking antithesis to the occupants of his employer's landau as it dashes past him on the road.

Assuredly this man has done a genuine hard day's work. What is he paid for it? - From 3s 7d to 4s 6d as a general average, so that if he is lucky enough to obtain six shifts in a week he earns between 21s 6d and 27s per week. An employer told me yesterday that the hard-working men in his colliery could make from 30s to 35s per week. This may be so in individual cases, and when full time is worked, but as a matter of fact at the present day, owing to reductions, stoppages, restriction of shifts, and other causes, the number of miners in South Wales who receive less than a guinea per week greatly exceeds those who earn a larger sum. But festina ente - this crucial question of the wage-rate requires some little scrutiny and amplification. In a work entitled "The Colliers' Strike in South Wales," written by Mr Alexander Dalziel, there is a tabulated statement which shows the fluctuations in wages for day labour at the Aberdare pits from 1848 to 1872. The figures are probably reliable, though the general tone of the work is one of ill-concealed hostility to the men and open animosity to the Miners' Union. From this, then, it appears that between 1848 and 1871 the daily wage rate averaged 3s 4d. In February, 1872, it was raised to 3s 7d, and in June of the same year a further advance was effected to 3s 11d.

Then came the halcyon period of 1873-4, when a collier thought he had done a poor day's work if he had not earned more than 12s, and it was no infrequent thing for a man's monthly receipts to be £20, "which I've had paid down solid into my hand," as one informant told me. Unfortunatley the same story of neglected opportunity, of riotous living, and absurdly extravagant expenditure has to be repeated in the case of South Wales as in every other instance where fabulous sums were realised unexpectedly by persons previously unaccustomed to such earnings. During those same years, the Northumbrian pitman used to leave Seghill on a Saturday afternoon, and go into Newcastle in gorgeous array. there he would drink champagne because it was expensive, though he really preferred beer. As a compromise, he would quaff the vintage of the sunny south from a pint pewter pot. He was given to even more laughable heights, or depths, of foolishness, for there is a well-accredited tale of how a couple of miners from Upgang, whilst dining in a restaurant, swallowed the entired contents of a bottle of Chutnee sauce because they had seen a gentleman at another table helping himself to some. So it was in South Wales, though it would appear that here exesses were chiefly directed to matters of personal adornment and bedizening the wife and daughters. However, no tangible good, save a warning for the future, can be achieved by recrimination over past wastefulness.

All too soon came the certain retribution, for in 1875 occurred the great strike and lock-out, which brought thousands to the verge of starvation. But an even worse period was in store for South Wales. the opening days of 1878 were darkened by stories of distress, which was described in the London newspapers in a highly sensational manner. According to a correspondent of the Times - an ill-fated journal which now, as then, seems to be destined to be misinformed as to Welsh matters - people were feeding in some places on potato-peelings, raw cabbage leaves, and brewers' grains; whilst in Merthyr hundreds in a state of semi-starvation could be seen turning over the refuse in the search for food.

Though the statements were highly exaggerated, the distress in South Wales and Monmouthshire was exceptionally severe. Many of the collieries were idle, and at the utmost only two or three days' work per week could be given. Lord Aberdare, with his usual philanthropy, laboured hard at this juncture to relieve the afflicted. He distributed soup in hundreds of quarts per day, and Lady Aberdare started a clothing estaablishment at Duffryn where necessary garments were made for free distribution. Mr Simons, of Merthyr, and also many others, did much in this way. At the same time Lord Aberdare denied in the columns of the Times that the colliers were in the condition of the Madrasees and Mysoreans, with whom they had been compared. The bulk of the colliery population was able to maintain the struggle, although with difficulty and many privations, without receiving aid from the rates or even private charity. There have been periods of distress in the interim, but not of such an exceptional character. Last winter, for instance, steps were taken to form a relief fund at Merthyr, where, in addition to many other districts, privation made itself keenly felt. In fact, let the miner be thrown out of work for a week, and he is immediately on the verge of starvation.

It is possible for a man earning 21s per week to adequately maintain a wife and family and at the same time to save money? Most people would return a negative answer to this question, but the position is rendered worse by the fact that perhaps in one week, owing to a slackness in demand, the collier can only work one or two days. He must live, if only on bread and tea, and to do this he gets into debt which it takes weeks to wipe out. the picture is not a pleasant one.

A sympathetic write-up in the South Wales Echo, 14th October 1887.