Polish Coal for England The placing in Poland of an
order for 1,600 tons of Polish coal to be delivered in the Thames for use in Messrs. Bowater's Paper Mills is, happily, an isolated incident ; and the idea may be at once dismissed that it has anything to do with the price or quality of British coal. It does not follow that Messrs. Bowater have no case. They have invited investigation, and: it ought to be impartially pursued. If there is anything wrong in the regulation of coal output it must be put right. On this occasion it was not a question of a foreign consumer following the line of least resistance in placing his order, but of a British firm whose policy it is to use British coal ; and it declares that British suppliers could not guarantee the delivery required. On the other hand, the Central Council of Coal Owners, which allocates output in the coal-fields, assert that there is plenty of British coal available for all purposes. Stated generally, that is unquestionably true. With mines idle or working below capacity, and with one third of the mining population unemployed, it would be odd if it were not. But the question is whether the operation of the quota is suffi- ciently elastic to ensure that at any given time supplies of the right kind will always be available.
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