As a miners' secretary, and as one who has been a miner for forty-two years, I rise to say a word in their favour. We have been taunted with restricting the output of coal. When I commenced as a boy in the pit, the seams were 5 feet and 6 feet high. To-day they are as low as 40 inches. The cry of the speakers to-day from the capitalist standpoint has been, "Increase your output." Geologically the theories go against that. One hon. Member said that the American miners can compete with us. Why? Englishmen are surely equal to men of any other nation under the sun. When the minimum wage was being fixed it was pointed out that our men were stripped for their work—I am speaking for Northumberland and for Durham county— our men were working in the coal face wellnigh nude on account of the heat and the closeness of the atmosphere. I wish hon. Members of this House would come and see it. Probably, if they would, we should get more sympathy. This Bill talks about restoring pre-war practices and customs, but there are some practices that I do not want to see come back. During the War we had an agreement with our coal-owners in Northumberland and Durham that there should be no reduction in wages. Now, if we go back to prewar practices and customs, there will be reductions in wages. In 1873–4 a joint committee of owners and workmen were appointed, and there was a rule laid down that if wages should rise 5 per cent. above 5s. 2d. a day the owners could claim reductions. The newspapers have been stating figures as to the wages we have been asking. which in many cases are false. We are not dependent on this Bill, We have a way of settling our own grievances, and there are many old practices and customs that have prevailed in the mines which we will not go back to. When we commence a new seam of coal the best men in the colliery go in at a bargain price, and they are allowed to produce a very large quantity of coal. If you want to fix a price of 5s. 2d. a day, you have to get 3 tons at 1s. 8½d., and the bigger the produce the less the price. I hold that the miners in the past got no encouragement: the more coal they produced, the less was the tonnage rate. I could quote prices that were fixed at 2s. a ton, and at the end of about ten years they were down to 1s. a ton. Prices that were fixed at 1s. a ton for coal filling, with a coal-cutting machine, are down to 6½. If the workmen could get 20 tons of coal to bank they would probably give him 2d. or 3d. These are historical facts. I have sat on a joint committee for twenty-six years and know perfectly well. I have heard it said that our men are restricting output. There have been demands in certain parts of the country for the restriction of output, but in order to get a livelihood, and in order to get the produce up, they work as hard as ever they can. The difference between America and this country is that the American miner has a larger percentage of machines. A machine will cut forty yards of coal in a night; five feet in. A man probably could only cut two yards, one foot in. We do not want to go back to these old customs. We have been fighting for something else, and the soldiers who have come back to the mines have come back expecting a new Britain, and, in the language of the Prime Minister, a country fit for heroes to dwell in. I only rose to contradict the statement that our men are seeking to restrict the output of coal. Treat them well and they will give you the best possible produce that in them lies.