on the
company's store. In this way many lived permanently ahead of their
wages. The thriftless and drunkards were always 'advance men, but the
provident miners hated it and only dealt there on compulsion'.

The Commissioners drew a vivid picture of Turn Book morning in South
Wales at the close of the pay month.

At 1 or 2 a.m. the women and children begin to arrive with their Advance
Books. Perhaps one hundred would be there, wet or fine, sleeping on the
doorsteps or singing ballads until morning.

At 5.30 a.m. the doors opened, and the waiters made a rush for the
counter. Advance Books were produced, and goods handed over up to the
amount of wages which would shortly fall due. Women took their pick of
the articles, groceries, tobacco, occasionally a few shillings.

'It is quite usual', say the Commissioners, 'for shoemakers and
other small tradesmen in the neighbourhood of Abersychan to be
paid by the workmen in goods.... Tobacco in several districts of
South Wales has become nothing less than a circulating medium. It
is bought by the men and resold by them for drink, and finds its
way back again to some of the Company's shops. Packets of tobacco
pass unopened from hand to hand. An Ebbw Vale grocer who took the
Company's tobacco at a discount declared: "For years, when they
were selling it for 1_s._ 4_d._ a lb. I used to give 1_s._; but I
was so much over-flooded with it that I was obliged to reduce the
price to 11_d._ That would not do still, and I had to reduce it
to 10_d._ I told the men to take it to some other shop if they
could get 11_d._ or 1_s._ for it. I was obliged to do that many a
time, in order to get rid of the large stocks I held in hand.
Tobacco will not keep for many months without getting worse."'

Weekly pays, therefore, were the constant demand of the miners' unions.
In Northumberland and Durham, whence truck had disappeared long ago,
pays were fortnightly, and the only objection advanced by the owners
against weekly pays was the practical inconvenience of the pressure on
the pay staff. In the North of England Iron Trade, weekly pays, the
Commissioners found, had just been introduced. In West Scotland some of
the coal-owners were trying to recoup themselves for the loss of their
truck-shop by charging poundage on the men's wages. But this dodge, like
the bigger grievance of truck, was stoutly resisted by the local union.