15 AUGUST 1925, Page 2

Just because all this sounds too good to be true,

one is particularly aware of the dangers of exaggeration. The Daily News correspondent adds, however, that the German Government is preparing a plan for subsidizing the process. This may be taken to mean that there is a good deal in it, as the Germans are never fools about industry. We have no doubt whatever that the days of carting about naked coal for factories and of allowing it to be used in millions of domestic fires are numbered. The collieries must be drawn not only into a closer co-operation among themselves, but into a closer co- operation with the industries which rely upon them. Energy must be developed near its source and distributed thence, and the by-products of the treated coal must become at last an asset to the nation.