Mr. Gore stood forward on Friday as the mouthpiece of
a party which has talked nonsense in the Press for some time. He asked, as the Standard is always asking, why the export of coal was not stopped? Does the Standard imagine that if the export of the Standard to Essex was stopped, it could be sold at a lower rate in London, or at a higher one ? Mr. Forster, of course, gave the House-of-Commons reply that any prohibition of the export of coal is forbidden by treaty ; but the true answer, as he knows, is not that, but this. The export of coal tends to the profit of the coal- owner, consequently to competition in production, consequently to the working of mines otherwise profitless, consequently to cheap- ness. The preselit coal famine has already induced the Duke of Sutherland to tap what is said to be the largest coal basin in the world, and may permanently reduce the price of coal.
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