I

areas or seams, means are provided by the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act, 1923, to lease such places compulsorily on reasonable terms. In many instances the knowledge that these statutory powers exist has rendered it unnecessary to resort to compulsion. In new countries where the minerals belong to the State, there is little difficulty. But in England if the royalties were purchased or confiscated the Commissioners charged with the duty of rearrangement would for years be varying existing leases, allotting new takes, and deciding between conflicting claims. In the meanwhile, with so much uncertainty, the industry would suffer severely by delay, and not unnaturally be shied at by capital. As to royalties, there is now no technical trouble; what one hears is entirely due to political propaganda.

Further remedies suggested are based on compulsory amalgamation, either of pit properties or through selling agencies, or both. The advantages of amalgamation in certain events are undoubted, but the inherent difficulties of compulsion must squarely be faced. Not only must geological considerations, class of coal, market, and transport be taken into account, but obviously efficiency, or otherwise, of management. There arises a vista of almost endless Courts of Inquiry with long, bitter, and expensive fights to establish who shall be the financially weakened survivors granted the Government favour. Moreover, economically, size in amalgamations is strictly conditioned by the personal capacity of the human element. Surely the hopeless failure of many large amalgamations since the war has emphasised this all-important consideration. Every factor points to a voluntary basis, at any rate for a time, and this the Government has acknowledged in its Mining Industry Act, 1926. Amalgamations are made easier, but only in certain circumstances compellable. In every amalgamation difficult questions as to the value of machinery and workings come up for consideration, but surely are better discussed in voluntary conference than by crystallising opposition in a formal fight. Moreover, the personal factor of management may be the one very real item in the way of an otherwise desirable amalgamation. Is it not better in such cases to exhaust

every voluntary avenue than to seek from the Court the solution of a personal equation? Every practical consideration points to a full trial of voluntary methods, but if after reasonable time it is clear that amalgamations desirable in the interests of the coalfields are being deliberately delayed, power to compel might then be considered. Under the Act of 1926 a report from the Ministry of Mines is due in August of this year, but it is more than doubtful, now that the lesson is being hardly learned both by banks and debenture-holders, as well as by coal-owners, whether compulsion will ever be necessary.

Another lay criticism, and one borrowed on all occasions by the Miners' Federation, is that coal-owners are stupid, unenterprising, hostile to new ideas, and generally inefficient in the conduct of their business. That some among them are far from enterprising is certainly true, but in what industry is every unit perfect? In spite of war-time legacies and the undoubted shyness of investors, a large measure of improvement and reorganisation has been carried out in the great majority of financially sound concerns, many of which have obtained new money and adopted more enlightened management. The new collieries of South Yorkshire and the Midlands admittedly cannot be beaten anywhere in the world. The real gravamen of all the charges levied against the coal industry is not inefficiency but over-production and consequent unemployment.

hop

An

Finally, say the critics, whatever else you do you must have selling agreements. Yet no sooner do the units of the different coalfields get together for discussion than up goes the cry of the consumer in danger. Pit-head prices, it is said, are out of all proportion to what the consumer is charged. But which consumer? There are as many classes of coal got as there are uses to which it can be put, and while the pit-head price quoted is the average of all, the consumer's price is usually for the best house coal delivered at his door. Railways, gas, and power companies, large shipping interests, engineering and manufacturing concerns, and institutions are out of the picture, since they can deal direct with the collieries on wholesale terms. Even the small business and the householder is able to get a truck of coal direct from the collieries, although to save him

self trouble and expense he deals with the merchant. The real cry comes from the mass of small users who cannot or will not deal in more than bags. This class of scattered distribution is more expensive; and we can only hope that it will be gradually replaced by gas for heat and cooking purposes. In country areas the problem is more difficult, but even there co-operation is possible. Since the local coal merehants have been charged with profiteering, it is suggested that municipalities should become retail distributors. Why not more co-operative coal stores? But if the municipalities gaily enter into the retail trade, care must be taken not to cast on the rates the expenses of merchanting and delivery which are not met by the prices charged to the

consumer.

Selling agencies can, of course, relate only to large dealings since distribution is mainly a question of merchanting. It is not denied, nor need it be, that economically the object of all selling agencies is a fixation of prices through control of production. But is this necessarily bad for the community? In every trade the workers are entitled to a living wage and capital to a fair return, since if the latter condition be not observed the source of capital will dry up and wages disappear. At present certain sheltered industries-and by that we mean those living under and dependent on productive cover-are either by statutory or customary bargains cheerfully existing on a wages basis which rises or falls with the cost of living. The sudden contraction of export trades means nothing to them so long as national taxes, local rates, or the power to raise transport charges exist. Surely the productive industries are entitled to say: You have sheltered yourselves long enough under our wing; you must henceforth pay us a fair share for our labour. In our trades, so far as the home market is concerned, we shall stop over-production, and through the play of the market get such prices as will give our workers as decent a wage as you get, and our capital as fair a return. It is true that our industry will have to put, in the end, about 300,000 men out of employment. We cannot help that. Unemployment is a national burden; and when an economic revolution is in progress you cannot levy only one trade

to pay for the change. Let us give this argument practical point. Railways during recent years have been permitted to raise coal transport rates 60 to 70 per cent. in order to keep up their wage rates and pay their way. To-day they are driving the closest possible bargain with the pits by attempting, in a period of exceptional hardship, to fix abnormally long-term contracts at existing prices. The men in the pits and the capital that employs them have only one possible answer. Moreover, there can be little fear of monopolistic prices through artificially made scarcity; in such an event any Government would be bound to take legislative action.

Such selling agreements as may come into being will, in most cases, result in a control of production devised to flatten out the old curves of alternating surfeit and scarcity, and so, by regulating prices, stabilise employment. There will be no difficulty, by quota precautions, in arranging for proper expansion of output when industry needs it; and such precautions will permit of efficient units laying out their development with necessary foresight. As we write the Scottish area agreement seems to be the only one functioning. It relates mainly to export, although there is to be an attempt to obtain higher prices from sheltered industries, and out of the pool to compensate uneconomic collieries that must be closed. In the North-Eastern area little else has been done than to attempt the maintenance by agreement of a minimum export price. In South Wales collieries have been grouped, coals classified and uniform minimum prices established. There is a contributory pool out of which compensation is to be paid in respect of trade lost by refusal to sell at less than the minimum. There is, however, no restriction of output. The five-counties scheme (which includes Yorkshire, the Midlands, Lancashire, and Cheshire) is more comprehensive. It is at the time of writing delayed by conferences with the export merchants. The scheme operates through a central selling association based on county selling associations with a central shipping bureau. Each member agrees to a monthly basic tonnage, and is given a quota of it at regular periods. The pool formed by general contributions of up to 3d. a ton of output may be applied

A

1

to develop the export trade by means of subsidies, classifications, grading, etc. Main committees deal with basic tonnages, quota, and exports. With the exception of Scotland these schemes are intended mainly to encourage export sales, and thus incidentally to relieve the pressure on the home market. The opposition ahead in foreign markets has already been discussed earlier in this article; its persistence depends entirely on the extent to which Continental nations are prepared to keep artificiallyprotected coalfields on a basis generally unremunerative to the majority of their nationals. From the nationalist point of view they may continue to protect their own borders from import; but how far, like Poland, they will by preferential railway rates continue to subsidise trade in neutral markets is another matter. Nor does there seem any present hope of a change in the method of treating reparations. France regards the whole question as political; that it may have industrial repercussions on other nations is to her immaterial. The general export prospect is far from bright, and although we may hope for some measure of recovery the difficulties of lessened consumption, subsidised transport rates, lower wages, and worse conditions are bound to keep alive a gruelling competition. Recently wild suggestions of an Anglo-German pool have been made. Since we cannot reduce our standard of wages and conditions, will the Germans accept it? If they do most of their export trade must pass to us. What would the French, Italians, and Belgians say to the increased cost of such coal as reached them by way of reparations; and even if all these difficulties were got over, would the Poles retire from competition and give us back the Scandinavian market? The nearest international agreement we might ever hope to reach would be one of allotted markets, but that is a political and not a trade question.

The only remedy for those depending on coal for a living is to brace themselves to meet the changed economic conditions of the times, to forget the old days of monopoly and easy prosperity, to reorganise their units and cut their losses, to control their production, and finally to consider their product as a raw material to be manufactured scientifically into the many items now demanded by an altered market. In the change