The Select Committee on the rise in the price of
Coal have pretty well established that the rise in wages has not had much to do with the recent rise of price. A rise of half-a-crown a ton seems to be about the most which has been due to that cause; pos- eibly another fraction of the rise has been due to the dislike of the miners for regular work,—it appears that in some districts they are underground only ten days and a half, and in others only eight days, in the fortnight, working, perhaps, about nine hours a day ; but the great rise has been due to panic affecting the demand, and has gone chiefly into the pockets of the lessees of the mines for the time being,—affecting the real owners only so far as they work their own mines, or as leases have fallen in during the period of high prices.
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