The Coal Mines Act 1930 was an Act of Parliament which introduced a system of
quotas
Quota may refer to:
Economics
* Import quota, a trade restriction on the quantity of goods imported into a country
* Market Sharing Quota, an economic system used in Canadian agriculture
* Milk quota, a quota on milk production in Europe
* Indi ...
in the
coal mining industry of Great Britain. It was a major achievement of the Labour Party, which revoked the eight hour day that had been enacted in 1926, replacing it with a 7 hour day. Mine owners were allowed to fix quotas and minimum prices. Theoretically, the new commission was to plan how to close less-efficient pits, but it was not effective. Historian
A. J. P. Taylor
Alan John Percivale Taylor (25 March 1906 – 7 September 1990) was a British historian who specialised in 19th- and 20th-century European diplomacy. Both a journalist and a broadcaster, he became well known to millions through his televis ...
says that:
: on the contrary, the act protected the inefficient. It operated restriction and stable prices at the expense of the consumer. Here was the pattern for British capitalism in the thirties.
References
{{reflist
Further reading
* Fine, Ben. "
Economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
and a featherbedding cartel?: a reconsideration of the interwar British coal industry." ''Economic History Review'' 43.3 (1990): 438-449.
* Kirby, M. W. "The Genesis of the Coal Mines Act of 1930." in Kirby, ''The British Coalmining Industry, 1870–1946'' (Macmillan Education UK, 1977) pp. 124–137.
* Lucas, Arthur F. "A British Experiment in the Control of Competition: The Coal Mines Act of 1930." ''Quarterly Journal of Economics'' (1934): 418-441.
in JSTOR* Prest, Wilfred. "The British Coal Mines Act of 1930, Another Interpretation." ''Quarterly Journal of Economics'' (1936): 313-332
in JSTOR* Supple, Barry. ''The History of the British Coal Industry: Volume 4: 1913-1946: The Political Economy of Decline'' (1988
excerpt and text search
United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1930
Coal mining in the United Kingdom
Coal mining law