and so long as their adoption (except in so far as made compulsory by the Mines Department) rests solely with bodies on which capital alone is represented and labour not at all, there will be fruitful cause for suspicion and discontent. The miners are apt to argue that dividends and safety precautions are mutually antipathetic, and will continue to do so as long as they have no part or lot in the reconciliation of these competing obligations. The question is not whether this argument of the miners is well-founded or not: the point is that their suspicion is natural, and any excuse for it should be removed. (v) The exceptionally large items which wages form in the total cost of coal production indicates the important contribution made by the miners to the welfare of the industry and justifies some share in the direction of that industry. Upon the basis of typical pre-war years, the value of the labour put into the coal mining industry is 70 per cent. of the capital employed, and 70 per cent. of the annual saleable value of the coal, and yet this large labour interest has no share in the management of the industry. THE MYSTERY AS TO PROFITS Thirdly, More Financial Publicity. Secrecy as to profits, which always suggests that they are as large as to make one ashamed of them, has been the bane of the coal-mining industry. For nearly half a century wages have borne some relation to _selling prices_, and there have been quarterly audits of typical selected mines in each district by joint auditors appointed by the owners and the miners. But over _profits_ a curtain was drawn, except in so far as the compulsory filing at Somerset House by public companies of a document called a Statement in the form of a balance sheet, enabled the curious to draw not very accurate conclusions. It is not easy for the plain man to read a balance sheet or estimate profits, especially when shares are being subdivided, or when bonus shares are being issued, or large sums carried to reserve. The result has been continual and natural suspicion on the part of the miners, who doubtless imagined the colliery-owners' profits to be much larger than they were. The miners knew that whenever they asked for an increase in their wages they were liable to be told that such an increase would turn a moderate profit into a substantial loss, but the amount of the profit they had to take on trust. Selling prices, yes, but profits, no. The war and coal control partly killed that, and it must not return. By the settlement of June, 1921, for the first time the miners have established the principle of the adjustment of their wages in accordance with the proceeds of the industry "as ascertained by returns to be made by the owners, checked by a joint test audit of the owners' books carried out by independent accountants appointed by each side." That is an important step, but does not go anything like far enough.