A CIVIC SENSE IN ENGLAND? THE' KENT COALFIELDS [To •
the Editor of the- SPECTATOR.] Sin,, It would appear that my article on the Kent Coal. 'fields, published in your issue of -June 7th, has proved some- what provocative to Mr. Ritchie, whose work on the subject is referred- to, and - which I recognized as a most exhaustive and valuable account- of the undertaking. First, let me -apologize in having described the author as " Mrs. A: E. Richie." It was a printer's error. But why should my reference to his- work, having been extracted from the Iron and Coal Trades Review, be so distasteful to his amour yropre, when on his own acknowledgment it was so.
I cannot, of course, reply to his statement that each paragraph of my article contains " culpable inaccuracies," when these are not specifically referred to. He is amazed at what he calla- the following travesty, which- he assumes he is supposed to have said :—" We are told how company after company-, with more faith than foresight and less finance, put down boring after boring, and failed to achieve success at the last strata in the venture." This is not what he says, but it is what anyone would be led to believe from a careful. perusal of his work, and I only need refer to his account of the first company formed—the Kent Coalfields Syndicate, Limited, 'to substantiate- my statement. He says I maintain that the Syndicate was never properly financed ; but even so, it would, I believe, have won through, had the experts on whom it relied been less 'optimistic." And he proceeds to describe how the company,spent £1,000,000 with no workirig colliery established ; then, how it was reformed twice, and finally, gave up the ghost.
But' it is beside the mark to refer to what I regard as the heroic failures of the pioneers. My point is that the country ought not to allow the financial burden of so national an interest to fall on the 'shoulders of its pioneers. In this case the national' interest at stake is too great—and that is the sum and substance of my article. I admit I have not the mining knowledge of Mr. Ritchie, but. I claim to know something about mining villages, and to have made a first hand, acquaintance with those in Kent. I have visited Stonehall, Snowdown, Tilmanstone and Chislet, and as colliery villages they are no better and no worse than other colliery villages erected all over the country during, and since, the War.
_ Whilst not everyone would agree that the discovery of coal in Kent is an unmixed blessing to the human race, there are more moderate people, like myself, who realize that, important as is its extraction, the discovery does not justify the spoliation of every: other interest in Kent. Sound regional planning means preparation before the act. For the country to allow a group of enterprising pioneers to undertake the dissection, of Kent, without giving serious consideration to what are likely to be the results of such a disturbance in the next fifty years, does not,, ef course, strike the ardent industrialist as in any way astonishing ; but there are others whO are greatly concerned. They know well that a little more thought and money spent in preparation would mean millions saved later, and the amenities of the country in. a measure saved. They know that only finance and foresight .,prevents the complete electrification of the whOle scheme, that. roads and railways are being made to-day without any reference to prospective ports or the ultimate disposal of the coal, and that the fair watering places of Kent innocently await the invasion of the collier, who, if careful preparation is not made for his reception, will, in due course, drive the London visitor to other towns.
Generally a confusion, of interests is, being created such as will. in time bring about a, repetition, et the horribte.emntnceopg muddles that produced the industrial areas of the North.-
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