TABLE 15.-Exports to Foreign Countries of Indian Coal and Coke during the years 1936 and 1937.

The following table gives the amounts of different grades of coal exported during 1936 and 1937 under the Indian Coal Grading Board's scheme (including sea borne coal for railways in Southern India, for which no grade shipment certificates were issued by the Coal Grading Board) and shows an increase of 145,483 tons in the present year, the difference between the total amounts so exported (1,802,778 tons in 1937) and the total exports of Indian Coal to foreign. ports given in Table 15 (873,310 tons in 1937) being the amount of coal exported to Indian ports.

TABLE 16-Exports of Coal under Grading Board Certificates during the years 1936 and 1937.

In reversal of the trend of previous years, imports of coal and coke showed increases during 1932 and 1933, namely from 47,544 tons in 1932 to 67,330 in 1933; 21,121 tons of the latter consisted of coke. 1934 showed a further slight increase to 72,161 tons, of which 14,719 tons were coke, and 1935 an increase to 77,075 tons, of which 12,791 tons were coke. In 1936 there was a further increase to 95,936 tons, of which 20,808 tons were coke but, in 1937, imports fell again to 64,850 tons, of which 3,305 tons were coke. The fall is chiefly due to the exclusion of coal imported into Burma during April to December. Imports of coal from the United Kingdom, however, rose by over 5,000 tons (see Table 17). The total imports are now about a seventh of those of the pre-war quinquennium and Table 18, comparing pre-war imports and exports with the figures from 1926 to 1937, shows that the depression in the Indian coal industry, which reached its maximum in 1933, cannot be ascribed to the competitive effect of foreign imported coal. The average surplus of exports during the years 1926 to 1935 was, in fact, slightly greater than the surplus during the pre-war quinquennium, and the increase in 1937 is great, even allowing for the figures for export to Burma, which, before separation, were not included as exports.

TABLE 17.-Imports of Coal and Coke during the years 1936 and 1937.

The average number of persons employed in the coalfields during the year showed an increase of 7.2 per cent. The average output per person employed showed a decrease from the high figure of 130-2 tons in 1934, which is practically the same as the figure for 1929, namely 130-4 tons, the highest figure recorded, to 128-59 tons in 1937. All the figures for the last eight years are higher than those previously recorded; these higher figures are due partly to an increased use of mechanical coal-cutters, and partly to concentration of work. During recent years a large number of collieries have been shut down and the labour absorbed in the remainder; this concentration permits of a proportional reduction of the supervising staff, resulting in a larger tonnage per head. There was

a decrease in the number of deaths by accident from 274 in 1935, 435 in 1936, to 213 in 1937. In 1935 there were three major accidents, at Loyabad and Bagdigi collieries in the Jharia coal

field and at Kurhurbaree colliery in the Giridih coalfield, in which 11, 19 and 62 lives, respectively, were lost; in 1936 there were two, at Poidih in the Raniganj field, and Loyabad in the Jharia field, which accounted for 209 and 35 deaths respectively. These figures may be compared with the annual average for the quinquennium 1919-1923, which was 274, the annual average for the quinquennium 1924-1928, which was 218, and the annual average for 1929-1933, which was 186. The death rate was 1-09 per thousand persons employed in 1937; the average figure for the period 19191923 was 1.36, for the period 1924-1928 was 1.16, and for the period 1929-1933 was 1·08.

TABLE 19.-Average number of persons employed daily in the Indian Coalfields during the years 1936 and 1937.

Cobalt.

The nickel speiss from the Namtu smelter of the Burma Corporation, Limited, contains 6-81 per cent. of cobalt. In 1937, 4,020 tons of the speiss were produced. (See Nickel, p. 345.)

Copper.

The progress of work at the Mosaboni Mine of the Indian Copper Corporation, Ltd., in the Singhbhum district, and on the milling and smelting plant at Maubhandar, near Ghatsila, Bengal Nagpur Railway, has been noticed in previous Reviews. Operations commenced on a revenue basis on January 1st, 1929, and the progress of the industry until 1933 is summarised in the Quinquennial Review for 1929-1933. Together, with an improvement in market price the production of both mine and smelter has continued to expand. In addition, from 1933 onwards, there has been production of ore from Dhobani, where a lode parallel to that at Mosaboni is being opened up. During 1937 operations extended to five mines. and the total output of ore increased to 371,458 long tons valued at Rs. 48,69,790 (£366,150) as compared with 357,194 long tons valued at Rs. 40,03,200 (£300,993) in 1936. The total output was obtained as follows:

A total of 374,782 short tons of ore was treated in the mill, at a valuation of Rs. 47,34,666, and the production of refined copper amounted to 6,830 long tons against 7,200 long tons in the previous year. A total of 6,422 tons of copper ingots was consumed in the rolling mill and 270 tons were sold in the Indian market at an average price of Rs. 903 per ton f.o.r. Ghatsila. Operations in the rolling mill resulted in the production of 8,696 long tons of yellow metal sheet (of which 92 tons were utilised for conversion into circles) and 1,323 long tons of yellow metal circles, the whole of which was sold in India at average prices of Rs. 765 and Rs. 821 respectively per ton.