OIL FROM COAL
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Your correspondent Mr. William A. Bone, in writing on the above subject, has seen fit to ignore the very important question of atmospheric pollution. A considerable proportion of the forty million tons of raw coal consumed annually in this country is burnt in the open grate and the incomplete combustion resulting from this form of heating is responsible to a large extent for the choking barrage of smoke and soot which overhangs our great cities to-day.
Science has equipped man with many ingenious devices to measure the impurities which befoul the air he breathes. These are not necessary in London. The possession of a sense of sight, smell, taste, and touch will inform even the most insensitive of what is going on around him, and little imagina- tion is required to translate this information into terms of
financial loss. The annual damage to the health and property of the citizens of London has been calculated at 26s. per head, and for some of the industrial districts in the North of England this figure has been placed as high as 23 15s. per head of the population.
The cause of all this trouble is roundly described as smoke, or in other words, that volatile content which can be removed from raw coal by the process of low-temperature carbonization. Thus, the pre-treatment of domestic coal results in the production of a solid smokeless fuel and the demon smoke is caught, caged, and finally converted into those useful commodities, oil and petrol.
The Professor, however, is even scathing in his criticism of smokeless fuels and with a fine disregard for detail condemns all that he has yet tried.
It is i structive to note, however, that these somewhat biased views have been generously repudiated by your correspondent "Consumer," who, although he lives many hundreds of miles from the nearest low-temperature plant, yet purchases a smokeless fuel 'solely from considerations of economy and efficiency."
I am in a position to state with authority that" Consumer's" opinion is shared by tens of thousands of his fellow-countrymen.
28 Grosvenor Place, London, S.117.1.
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