LOW TEMPERATURE CARBONIZATION
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I have read with interest your article on unemployment and coal, and I think possibly it will interest you to see the way in which the 110,000,000 referred to to start the car- bonizing industry would affect the country. A statement was sent to some of the leading coalowners and Mr. Hodges some little time ago.
I have also addressed a letter to the Ministry of Mines on this subject and I have informed them that the simplest way to restart the coal trade is by purchasing smokeless fuel for Government offices, hospitals, &c., up to, say, half a million tons a year, and to purchase the residual oils at the Fuel Research Board price of 5d. a gallon. Half a million tons of smokeless fuel may sound a small amount, but it would be sufficient to prove that low temperature distillation could be made a profitable enterprise. If only the public would realize that, due to the wasteful way in which we use our coal, out of every pound paid to the miner for his labour at the coal face, ten shillings of his labour is lost.—! am,
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