Having regard to the events of recent years, it is
not sur- prising that at the recent meeting of shareholders of Amal- gamated Anthracite Collieries, Lord Melchett should have made a strong plea that the coal industry should not again become the centre of violent disturbances. Above all things, he said, the industry requires, as do the workpeople, a sense of. security, compared with which the question of hours of labour and kindred matters are of less importance. After referring to last year's depression in the industry, due in a measure to acute competition, Lord Melchett described the outlook as somewhat better, and said that the Company so far in the current year had secured a substantial profit. In the course of his remarks during the meeting, Sir. D. R. Llewellyn, Bt., the Deputy Chairman, rebutted the view that the coal industry was moribund, and that oil and water power had supplanted it. He gave some striking figures showing the vitality of the coal industry.
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