The Crisis, in Coal
The debate on coal in the House of Commons on Wednesday was profoundly disturbing. Major Lloyd George, the last Minister of Fuel, told the House that his advisers warned him that a reserve stock of to,000,000 tons was below the safety level. Mr. Shinwell's figures showed that we should end the coming winter with less than 5,000,000 tons in hand. While consumption, mainly by gas and electricity undertakings, is increasing heavily (partly because house- holders short of coal turn to these available substitutes) production shows no increase worth considering. The Minister believes that with luck we shall just scrape through the winter, but the alarming fact is that scraping through means just satisfying the needs of home consumers, the export trade being brought to a virtual standstill because there is nothing to export. The effect of that on our power to purchase abroad is immerse. Nor is the prospect of any im- provement in the situation very hopeful. There may be some sub- stitution of fuels—the G.W.R.--is converting more locomotives to oil—better machinery (which we are not importing in adequate volume) may improve opencast production, a few Poles may be en- listed for the mines, the industry may in various ways be made more attractive and the drain of labour away from it checked thereby. What emerges before all things from Wednesday's debate is the extent to which the welfare of the country depends on the department over which Mr. Shinwell presides. Its operations pro- vide little ground for confidence yet.
