for the purpose. On the other hand, any person ap- (Check respect of mineral to be Regulation It is provided by sect. 12 (1), that nothing therein Deductions in contained "shall preclude the owner, agent or manager substances of the mine from agreeing with the persons employed in other than the mine that deductions shall be made in respect of gotten stones or substances other than the mineral contracted Coal Mines to be gotten," which shall be sent out of the mine there- Act, 1887, sect. with, or "in respect of any tubs, baskets or hutches 12 (1) being improperly filled in those cases where they are filled by the getter of the mineral or his drawer, or by the person immediately employed by him." Such deductions are to be determined "in such special mode as may be agreed upon" between the owner, agent or Mines employ ing not more than thirty ground manager and the miners; or by some person appointed in that behalf by the owner, agent or manager; or (if any check-weigher is stationed for this purpose) by such person and the check-weigher; or in case of difference, by a third party to be mutually agreed upon, or, in default of agreement, appointed by a chairman of a court of quarter sessions within the jurisdiction of which any shaft of the mine is situate. It has been held by the courts that neither the weight of slack coal,1 nor the weight of small coal can be deducted from the mineral gotten,2 and that the miners are entitled to be paid for the small at the same rate as the large coal. The deductions are to be from weight, not from wages; that from which such deductions may be made being the whole amount of the material sent up in the tub, and that which is to be deducted being the foreign substance sent up in the tub with the coal, or the slack, or the coal-dust with which the tubs are improperly filled.+ In the case of any mine or class of mines employing not more than thirty persons underground, where it is persons under proved to the satisfaction of a Secretary of State to be expedient that the miners should be paid by any other method than that provided by the Act, he is empowered by sect. 12 (3) of the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1887, upon the joint representation of the owner or owners of such mine or class of mines, and the miners, to allow 1 By the House of Lords in Netherseal Colliery Co. v. Bonsal, 20 Q.B.D., 606; H.L., 14 App. Cas., 228. This case, decided in 1889, turned on the construction of sect. 17 of the repealed Coal Mines Regulation Act of 1872, but this section has been held in Kearney v. Whitehaven Colliery and the other cases cited below to be identical in principle (though slightly different in wording) with sect. 12 (1) of the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1887. 2 By the Court of Appeal in Bruce v. Abercorn Colliery Co. (1891), 2 Q. B., 699; 60 L.J., Q. B., 701; 40 W.R., 3.-C. A. 3 lb. Kearney v. Whitehaven Colliery Co. (1893) 10 Q.B., 700; 62 L.J., M.C., 129; 68 L.T., 690; 57 J.P., 648. —C. A. Cf. App. I., containing extract from the Board of Trade Memorandum of 1896, in which all the above cases are compared and discussed. such payment by order, either without conditions or during the time and on the conditions specified therein. the Weights Weights and Sect. 15 of the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1887, Application of provides for the application of the Weights and Measures and Measures Act, 1878 (41 & 42 Vict., c. 49), to "all weights, balances, Acts scales, steelyards and weighing machines used at any Measures Act, mine for determining the wages payable to any person 1898 employed in the mine according to the weight of the nineral gotten by him in like manner as it applies to weights, balances, scales, steelyard, and weighing machines used for trade." An inspector of weights and measures appointed under that Act shall at least once in six months inspect and examine, in the manner therein directed, all the weights, balances, and scales, etc., and also the measures and gauges used in any mine in his district, and may, for the purposes of this section, without any authorisation from a justice of the peace, exercise at, or in any mine, all such powers as he could exercise if authorised in writing by a justice of the peace under sect. 48 of the Weights and Measures Act, 1878, but he shall not, in fulfilling the duties required of him, impede or obstruct the working of the mine. The Weights and Measures Act, 1878, provides for the creation, stamping and verification of a uniform system of imperial standards of weight, measure and length, with metrical equivalents, which are to be used in "every contract, bargain, sale or dealing made or had in the United Kingdom for any work, goods, wares or other merchandise, or other thing which has been or is to be done, sold, delivered, carried, or agreed for by weight or measure" (sects. 1-19, 28-32), and imposes penalties on the use or possession of unjust measures, weights, balances, or weighing machines (sect. 25). It constitutes the Board of Trade the central authority for the administration of the Act (sects. 33-39), the local administration. of which it vests in the justices in quarter sessions (sects. 40-55), whose functions have now been transferred to county and borough councils by sect. 13 of the Local Weights and Government Act, 1888.1 By the Weights and Measures Measures Act, Act, 1889, which amends certain of the provisions of the 1889 Application of Act of 1878,2 the Board of Trade is empowered to establish new denominations of standards for the measurement of electricity, temperature, pressure or gravities (sect. 6) to take fees on the comparison and verification of weights and measures (sect. 8); to appoint officers to hold local inquiries with respect to the administration of the law (sect. 10); and to provide for holding examinations to test the qualifications of inspectors (sect. 11). Part II. of this Act, from the operation of sects. 21-30 of which Scotland is excluded (sect. 31), also provides for the regulation of the sale of coal by weight. The Weights and Measures (Purchase) Act, 1892, empowers county and borough councils to purchase franchises of weights and measures with the approval of the Board of Trade (sect. 1); and such councils are also authorised by the Weights and Measures Act, 1893 (sect. 1), to pay to the mayor, aldermen and burgesses of boroughs, not being county boroughs, and not having a separate court of quarter sessions, which have since 1893 been constituted local authorities for the purposes of the Weights and Measures Acts, the proportionate amount contributed towards the expenses of the county councils incurred in the execution of such Acts by the several parishes in the borough. It is provided by the Weights and Measures (Metric) System) Act, 1897, that weights and measures of the metric system may be lawfully used in trade, notwithstanding anything in the Weights and Measures Act, 1878; and nothing in sect. 19 of that Act is to make void any contract, by reason only of its being made according to such weights and measures, or to make any person using or having them in his possession liable to a fine. (sect. 1). By sect. 2 of the Truck Amendment Act, 1887, coal 1 51 & 52 Vict., c. 41. 2 Further amended by the Weights and Measures (Metric System) Act, 1897, sect. 2. 1831 "workmen " miners mines are brought within the operation of the Truck Acts, 1831 to 1896, which are primarily designed to Truck Act, ensure the payment of wages in coin only. This section enacts that the provisions of the principal Act— the Truck Act, 1831-"shall extend to, apply to, and include any workman as defined in the Employers Definition of and Workmen Act, 1875, sect. 10," which defines the includes expression "workman" as meaning, inter alia, "any person who, being a labourer, miner, or otherwise engaged in manual labour, whether under the age of twenty-one years or above that age, has entered into or works under a contract with an employer, whether the contract be made before or after the passing of this Act, be expressed or implied, oral or in writing, and be a contract of service or a contract personally to execute any work or labour." It is also provided by sect. 2 that "the expression artificer in the principal Act shall be construed to include every workman to whom the principal Act is extended and applied by this Act, and all provisions and enactments in the principal Act inconsistent herewith are hereby repealed." in coin only By the Truck Act, 1831, the wages in all contracts Wages payable for hiring are to be made payable and the entire wages are to be actually paid in coin only (sects. 1 and 3), and by sect. 25 "wages" are defined to be "any money or other thing had or contracted to be paid, declared or given as a recompense, reward or remuneration for any labour done or to be done." No contract is to be made as to how a workman shall lay out or expend his wages. (sect. 2), and every artificer is entitled to recover wages if not paid in current coin (sect. 4), penalties being imposed on employers making illegal payments (sect, 9). 1 It may be noted that sect. 19 of the Truck Act, 1831, which is repealed by sect. 17 and schedule of the Act of 1887, includes the "working or getting of any mines of coal" among the trades to which the Act is to apply. * This provision is extended by sect. 6 of the Truck Amendment Act, 1887, which prohibits employers or their agents from dismissing workmen on account of the place at which or manner in which wages are expended. |