LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs ore often more read, and therefore more effective, than those which Jill treble the space.]
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'THE COAL QUESTION.
[To rue Enrroa or tux "Sezersroa.") Sts.,—Your correspondent "Employer" does well to bring before your readers the extreme seriousness of the miners' latest demands, and the disastrous effect of a continued rise in the cost of coal on the whole of British trade. Tho Miners' Federation and their astute but unpatriotic President, Mr. Robert Smillie, its not now pretend to base their claim for a 30 per cent. rise of pay and a thirty-hours working week on either the increased coat of living or on the need of employing returning soldiers. No, they base it on the wish for more leisure and less exertion, on the "fullness of bread and abund- ance of idleness" that has been the ruin of more than one ancient community.
I am also an employer, and a director of a small coal-mining company in Scotland, and can speak from first- hand knowledge of facts that the general public should be acquainted with, and of the effect that the miners' latest demands will have on the employment and trade of the country. The business with which I have to do is a very old one of over a century standing. 'Grp till 1917 it was possible to work at a moderate profit of at least 10 to 15 per cent., and most of the coal raised was exported. When the Coal Controller, Sir Guy Celthrop, appeared on the scene in 1917, one of the first things he did was to grant a rise of la 6d. per day to the miners and a second ls. 6d. later on, and to order this war bonus to ho paid for the fortnightly idle Saturday when most of them refused to
work, as well as on other days when from any other cause they might be prevented from working underground. This subsidy for idleness meant that the 9;A-wit diminished, and the whole of the company's profit disappeared and was paid over to the miners by the Controller's orders, and for the first time in the last quarter of a century the year ended wills a dead loss, not- withstanding the higher selling-price of coal that the Controller allowed. The price of coal in the home market was restricted so that any profit earned was on the small amount exported at higher prices. But even here the Controller interfered, and ordered each consignment that had with great difficulty been arranged with foreign customers to be generally more than half made up of coal from other collieries which had taken no trouble to find a foreign market for themselvei.
While tho general community is severely rationed, the miners receive practically an unlimited supply of house coal at a price of lie, to 17s. 6d. per ton—several shillings less than the bare cost of produotion—which is a direst saving to them; and as no rise in their very moderate rents has taken place, their cost of living has not increased to anything like the same extent as it has to other less favoured chooses. Coal-mining is described as a dangerous occupation, but there are few branches of industry so hedged about with all manner of pre- oautione for safety. In the collieries referred to, where five hundred people are employed, the average during the last thirty years has not exceeded about one fatal accident in every five years, and compared with, say, a sailor's, a miner's occupa- tion is nowadays a relatively safe and easy one, besides being very highly paid in proportion to the work done.
The miners have stated they never will consider themselves adequately remunerated, and thus even if their present demands are conceded they will be as far from contentment as ever. They cry for nationalization of the mines, but the mines if nationalized will not belong to them, but to the far larger community that needs coal, and wishes it to be produced economically and worked at a profit to the State. It is certain that no mine can be worked better by a costly Government Department than by economical individual management, and both the miners and the public will suffer by nationalization in the end. Many unremunerative mines will be closed and less enterprise will be shown in opening up new business and creating more employment.
There is reason to believe that the present demand is a deep- laid and dishonest scheme to ruin private enterprise first, so that the Government can step in and acquire the collieries at break-up price, and so nationalize the mines cheaply and easily on the plea that private enterprise has been a failure, and the State has a good excuse to come to the rescue in the public interest.
But what of our export trade ? If the present demands are conceded, it will be destroyed, as both Americans and Germans are eagerly waiting to rush into our foreign market with the coal they can raise and sell more cheaply than it will ever be possible for us to do. The following quotation from a letter from an old Danish customer just received shows the attitude of some of our competitors at this juncture:— " I trust I am allowed to sell [your] coal to the same pens as before, and as soon as this coal control is dissolved, 1 an: certain, that we by and by will get most of our old customers back again. I don't think they will use as large cargoes as before, as people over here now have been used to the cheap German coal and coke and Danish turf and browucoal (wood- coal] during the war, and though it does not give the eanw heat as English coals, the price is very much cheaper. Either the price on German fuel must rise or English fuel go down, otherwise it will not be easy to compete."
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