PART III General

18 Schemes as to drainage
(1) It shall be lawful for the Board of Trade after consultation with the district committee or committees concerned, or holding such other inquiry as they may think fit, to make schemes with respect to any group of mines as to the drainage thereof, and as to the apportionment as between the owners of the mines in question of any expenditure for a common, purpose that may be required by any such scheme, and any such scheme may amend or repeal any local Act of Parliament in connexion with such drainage.
(2) For this purpose the Board of Trade may adopt with or without modifications any scheme relating to the drainage of any group of mines proposed by all or any of the owners of such mines.
(3) The provisions of sections eighty-six and one hundred and seventeen of, and Part I. of the Second Schedule to, the Coal Mines Act, 1911, which relate to general regulations shall apply with the necessary modifications to schemes under this section :
Provided that before any scheme involving the amendment or repeal of any local Act of Parliament comes into force it shall be laid before each House of Parliament for a period of not less than fourteen days during which that House is sitting, and, if either House before the expiration of that period presents an address to His Majesty against the scheme or any part thereof, no further proceedings shall be taken thereon without prejudice to the making of any new scheme.

19 Power to make general and special regulations with respect to metalliferous mines
(1) The provisions of sections eighty-six, eighty-seven, and one hundred and seventeen of, and the Second Schedule to, the Coal Mines Act, 1911 (which relate to the making of general and special regulations), shall apply to metalliferous mines within the meaning of the Metalliferous Mines Regulation Acts, 1872 to 1875, as if they were re-enacted in those Acts and in terms made applicable to those mines but with this modification, that in the said section eighty-six for the reference to Part II. of, or the Third Schedule to, the Coal Mines Act, 1911, there shall be substituted a reference to the general rules contained in section twenty-three of the Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act, 1872.
35 & 36 Vict. c. 77.
(2) For the purposes of the Metalliferous Mines Regulation Acts, 1872 and 1875, the expression " mine " does not include any part of the premises on which any manufacturing process, other than a process ancillary to the getting, dressing, or preparation for the sale of minerals is carried on.
38 & 39 Vict. c. 39.

20 Establishment of fund for improvement of social conditions of colliery workers
(1) There shall be constituted a fund to be applied for such purposes connected with the social well-being, recreation, and conditions of living of workers in or about coal mines and with mining education and research as the Board of Trade, after consultation with any Government Department concerned, may approve.
(2) The owners of every coal mine shall, before the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and twenty-one, and before the same day in each of the subsequent five years, pay into the said fund a sum equal to one penny a ton of the output of the mine during the previous calendar year, and the sums so payable in respect of any mine shall be defrayed as part of the working expenses of the mine and shall be recoverable either as a debt due to the Crown or by the Board of Trade summarily as a civil debt:
Provided that in the case of the first payment the amount shall be calculated with reference to the output during the six calendar months ending the thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and twenty.
(3) The duty of allocating the money from time to time standing to the credit of the said fund to the several purposes aforesaid shall be vested in a committee consisting of five persons, appointed by the Board of Trade, of whom one shall be appointed by the Board of Trade after consultation with the Mining Association of Great Britain, and another after consultation with the Miners' Federation of Great Britain. The committee shall have the assistance of three assessors appointed by the Minister of Health, the Board of Education and the Secretary for Scotland respectively; the assessors shall have the right of attending meetings of the committee and of taking part in the deliberations thereof, but not of voting; and different persons may be appointed by the above-mentioned departments to act as assessors in relation to different matters :
Provided that the Committee shall take into consideration any scheme submitted by a district committee, and that before allocating any money for a local purpose they shall consult with the district committee (if any) concerned; and that the Committee shall allocate for the benefit of the several districts mentioned in Part I. of the Second Schedule to this Act sums equal to four-fifths of the contributions from the owners of coal mines in those districts respectively.
(4) The committee may invite a local authority to submit a scheme for any of the purposes to which the fund may be applied, and, if such scheme be approved by the committee, they may make such grants in aid to the said local authority out of the fund and upon such conditions as may seem to them desirable:
Provided that in no case shall any grant be made out of the fund for the building or repairing of dwelling-houses.
(5) Where money is allocated for the purpose of meeting the cost, in whole or in part, of providing accommodation and facilities at a coal mine for the workmen taking baths and drying clothes, and such accommodation and facilities are so provided, section seventy-seven of the Coal Mines Act, 1911, shall apply as if such accommodation and facilities had been provided under that section :
Provided that—
(a) cost of maintenance shall not be deemed to include any interest on capital expenditure so far as that expenditure was met out of money allocated from this fund; and
(b) the contribution of the workmen to the cost of maintenance shall be reduced by the proportion which the money so allocated from the fund bears to the total capital expenditure.
(6) Payments out of and into the fund, and all other matters relating to the fund, and moneys standing to the credit of the fund (including temporary investments thereof) shall be made and regulated in such manner as the Board of Trade, subject to the approval of the Treasury, may direct.
(7) The Board of Trade shall in each year cause an account to be prepared and transmitted to the Comptroller and Auditor-General for examination showing the receipts into and issues out of the said fund in the financial year ended the thirty-first day of March preceding, and the Comptroller and Auditor-General shall certify and report upon the same, and such account and report shall be laid before Parliament.

21 Accounts, statistics, returns, &c
(1) It shall be the duty of the owners, agents, and managers of any mine, and any other persons engaged in the mining industry, to furnish to the Board of Trade, in such manner and form as the Board may direct, such accounts, statistics, returns, plans and other information as the Board may require for the purpose of their powers and duties under this Act.
(2) No information with respect to any particular undertaking shall be included in any published report, unless the owner of the undertaking so agrees, and any person who may obtain any such information under this section shall be required to make a declaration of secrecy in such form as may be prescribed by the Board of Trade and any person who acts in contravention of any declaration which he has so made shall be guilty of a misdemeanour and on conviction be liable to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a term not exceeding two years, or to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, or to both imprisonment and a fine.

22 Power to hold inquiries
(1) The Board of Trade may hold such inquiries as they consider necessary or desirable for the purposes of this Act, and the Board of Trade and, if authorised by the Board of Trade, the person appointed to hold any such inquiry, may, by order, require any person, subject to the payment or tender of the reasonable expenses of his attendance, to attend as a witness and give evidence, or to produce any documents in his possession or power which relate to any matter in question at the inquiry, and are such as would be subject to production in a court of law, and, if any person fails without reasonable excuse to comply with any of the provisions of any such order, he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding five pounds, and the person holding the inquiry shall have power to take evidence on oath and for that purpose to administer oaths.
(2) Notices of inquiries may be given and published in accordance with such general or special directions as the Board of Trade may give.
(3) The powers of the Board of Trade under this section shall be in addition to and not in derogation of any powers of holding inquiries transferred to the Board from any other Government department under this Act.

23 Inter-departmental arrangements
The Board of Trade and any other Government department may make arrangements for the exercise and performance by such other Government department or by the Board of Trade of any of the powers and duties of the Board of Trade or such other Government department relating to mines and the mining industry which appear to them to be such as could be more conveniently so exercised and performed, and in such case such other Government department and their officers, or the Board of Trade and their officers, as the case may be, shall have all the powers and duties for such purpose as are exerciseable by the Board of Trade and their officers or such other department and their officers.

24 Repeal of 5 &6 Geo.5 c.75
The Price of Coal (Limitation) Act, 1915, shall be repealed as from the first day of September, nineteen hundred and twenty.

25 Interpretation
For the purposes of this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,—
The expressions " owner " and " agent " have the same meanings as in the Coal Mines Act, 1911, or the Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act, 1872, as the case may require:
The expression " management " in relation to a coal mine includes the agent, manager, under managers, technical and administrative staff, officials, and deputies, firemen and examiners of the mine :
The expressions " mines " and " the mining industry " include, respectively, quarries and the quarrying industry ;
The expression "output " in relation to a coal mine means the tonnage in saleable coal raised and weighed at the pithead.

26 Short title
This Act may be cited as the Mining Industry Act, 1920.