According to the report there were big gains in productivity and, in the last quarter of the year, output for cach manshift averaged over 30 cwt — about 53% higher than a year before. The Board's manpower was reduced by some 22,000. The operating profit was £28.7 million before chargig interest £8.5 million more than in 1960. Interest payments, mainly to the Ministry of Power, amounted to &£42.4 million — an increase of,. £0.9 million. For all men employed productivity averaged 28.9 cwt. a manshiff, 3.2% higher than in 1960 despite the reductiom of 15 minutes in the length of the working shift which came into effect at the beginning of 1961, Non-operational expenditure increased from€6.7 to £77 million.
These figures show (1) that despite slightly shortor hours more coal per manshift is being produced and productivity per man hour is considerably higher 3 (2) that if it were not for interest payments a considerable profit would have been made; (3) that there has been almost 10% increase in administrative costs. Taking all these facts together we get a very different picture from that which the capitalist press give. What's more the miner's increase in productivity is being rewarded by the closing of 'inefficient' pits which are largely inefficient because interest charges impose an impossible burden on the industry. The report talks of the advantages to be gained from ontering the Common Market. This may be so for the people who run tho industry in tho intorests of the romainder of British capitalism, but for the workers the story will bo different. Since 1957 the number of miners in France (coalface workers only) has dopped from 142,000 to 120,000, in Germany from 341,000 to 280,000 and in Belgium (hardest hit) from 111,000 to 66,000.