However soon the coal crisis may come to an end,
enough damage has been done and enough delay caused very sensible to darken the prospect for industry and domestic comfort. It is earnestly to be hoped that good may come out of evil, as may quite well happen if the Government and the nation make up their minds to begin at once to reduce the enormous waste in the use of coal. The open fire with its flaming gaseous coal in many millions of British homes sends up the chimney daily an inoalculable aniount of wealth in the form of wasted by-products. A writer in the Times has recently described the wastefulness, which we have ourselves often mentioned, of the high-tempera- ture process by which coke is produced. It ought to be replaced, he says, by the low-temperature process. The supply of bonze' for motor traction could thus be increased almost indefinitely. Perhaps a thousand million gallons of benzol would be pro- duced annually.
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