The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-02-15 00:00:00

ECONOMY IN COALS.
(From The Toes)

Coals have risen eight shillings a ton—a pleasant
announcement to make at what appears to be the be-
ginning of Winter. Though Candlemas this year was
certainly neither "bright nor clear," we are getting
the season of frost predicted by the proverb, and there
is room enough yet for six weeks of cold. Fuel is now
one of the first necessaries of life, and yet its price is
rising to that of a luxury. A glance at our advertising
columns will suffice to show the true character of the
present emergency. Not merely is Coal quoted at
double its old price or upwards, but in many instances
no price can be quoted at all. Dealers either doubt the
receipt of supplies or fear to name a price which may
be found insufficient in a few days' time. We seem
on the eve of such a fuel famine as was occasionally ex-
perienced in former days, when the Thames was frozen
for weeks together and no vessels could get in. Rail-
ways have hitherto relieved us from that risk, but now
they can get no loads to bring us. It is the same all
over the country, even at the pit's mouth. The " ex-
haustion of Coal," so long discussed by geologists, is
becoming practically a fact in our own generation.
Coal could hardly be much dearer if the ensl of the
store were really within sight and reckoning. Dow.
ever, there is nothing for it but to set our wits to work
and help ourselves ae we best can. To begin—how has
the extremity been brdught about? We know well
enough that our Coal et.ppliee are still, for all prac-
tical purposes, as abundant and as available as ever.
The Mines have not been worked out, or nearly so ;
nor have they yet been carried to any nnworkabie
depth. Tbere in the Coal, as plentiful ant as accessible
as before, if only theme who own it and those who dig
it would choose to seed it to market. This, however,
is not done. The Miners either will not work at all or
will work only for higher pay, though they allege that
the increcne in their wages accounts for only a fraction
of the rise in the price of Coal. Toe coalowners say
that the men, besides asking for more mosey, refuse to
perfoato the dice amount of work, and that the "out
or the produce of a Mine, is thus proportionately
I reduced. An incident of the South Walt s Strike is,
so for as it goes, in favour of the coalowncre' conten-
tion. As an escape from the difficulty it was prupumed
to work the Mines in question by the system of
" double shifts "—in other words, to keep twice the
number of men employed by enabling one set to suc-
ceed another. The proposal, as we anticipated, has
been rilected by the men; but let the reader c insider
what the fact itself implies. It amounts to this —that,
II the Miners were willing, the quantity of Coal raised
from any given Mine could be doubled tremorrow—m
little prospect is there of "exhaustion," and so little
real doubt about the availability of supplies.

Here, then, we are confronted with the fact that
working Miners will not, even on terms of short hours
and satisfactory wages, provide the Coal required for
public use; and therefore the question is whether the
labour thus deliberately withheld cannot, to • greater
or less extent, be dispensed with, after the faehion fre-
quently adopted in other departments of industry.
The answer was given in a paragraph of our last im-
presation. A Coal-cutting Machine has not only been
invented, but is actually at work, and with results
which we transcribe with no slight satisfaction. This
machine can cut, in eight hours' time, 350 feet of Coil,
yielding from 70 to 75 tons in weight—which produc-
tion, we are told, represent the work of 40 men for the
same period. Three, or at most four, men are required
to tend the machine, and the calculation is that its
, general adoption would render it possible to dispense
with 300,000 of tine 360,000 men now employed in the
Coal Mines of the country. Moreover, whereas the
"waste" incidental to hand-cutting I. estimated at
ftillrlt. per cent of the whole priihict, that detriment
Is reduced by machine work to one-third of the amount,
representing an economy of no lees than ten million
tone of Coale erery year. As ail Ws is stated of ea

invention actually in operation, and Proved, Indeed,
by the experience of a twelvemonth'm use, there seem/
hardly any room for doubting the practical efficiency
of the new system. The only wonder is that it has
not been more commonly adopted; but necewity is a
strong power, and we shall now get the benefit of its
painful but most effective impulse.

After all, however, there ie another point to be con-
sidered, and it is all the more important because it
bears not only on the needs of the present but on the
prospects of the future. Of course, as things now
stand, we must economize Coal to the very utmost for
the sake of our own pockets, and it ought to be super-
doom to impress tnis duty on householders or manu-
facturers. Besides this, however, it should be remem-
bered that economy in the consumption of Coal
represents a national obligation. Coal is the basis of
our public wealth, and, whatever the conflict of scien-
tific theories, it is not to be denied that the treasured
of our Mines are exhaustible. Hitherto we have gone
GU increasing the amount of consumption year after
year, until, as we are assured on respectable authority,
the end can be foreeen atno very great distance. It is
naturally enough that, with population and industry
continually increasing, the consumption of Coal should
inereatie also, and if all due economy were practised in
its use there would be little more to be said. But this is
by no means the case. People who have studied the
subject are unanimous in affirming that at least half
the Coal now used in private houses and manufactories
might be saved by improved management. Grates,
stoves, ranges, chimneys, ovens, boilers, retorts, fur-
naces—all receptacles, in short, and appliances for
Coal consumption are constructed on wasteful princi-
ples. Our columns have contained letter after letter
explaining the extravagance at present tolerated, and
suggesting easy and obvious methods of correcting it.
It is not, indeed, to be supposed that every house
holder can reconstruct his fireplaces at a day's
notice, and so.ne time must elapse before an improved
system of burning Coal could be universally intro-
duced. All we can do at the present moment is to
curtail the ntunbir of fires kept up where such a re-
duction is practicable, and to see that no waste occurs
with the fires retained. The saving to be effected by
such means will not be found inconsiderable; but the
true remedy for the present and all future difficulties
must be sought is the eventual revision of our house-
warming arrangements and in the scientific regulation
of steam machinery. The great shipowners and Steam-
packet Companies are already effecting great econo-
mies in the consumption of fuel, but the ordinary
British householder has had up to this time no real
pressure put upon him. Coal, as it seemed, would last
our time at any rate, and so the warnings of wise men
were left unheeded. We now, however, see and feel
that we may at any conjuncture of a trade dispute be
exposed to a scarcity fondly believed to be many cen-
turies off, and we must act upon the discovery. To
reduce by one-half the quantity of Coal sent to market
is practically to bring us to the state of things which
might be experienced if our Coal Mines were half ex-
hausted. It is of no avail to cast about for the origi-
nators of the curtailment, though if the masters assent
while the men object to the introduction of the "double
shift" a heavy responsibility rests upon the men. The
great fact to be borne in mind is, that by proper ar-
rangements this diminished production, and therefore
consumption, of Coal may be rendered a public benefit.
We, the consumers of the article, really have it in our
power to reduce the demand as effectually as either
men or masters, or both conspiring against the public
together, can reduce the supply. To this resource we
must now betake ourselves, and it will be hard if we
do not find, before long, some good reason for satis-
faction in an undesigned result of the South Wales
Strike.

The following letter on the coal question has also been
published:—

In the discwision of the probable duratioa of
the coal supply of Eugland and the various methods
to be adopted to economise and so extend that period,
one point appears to be loot eight of. Cannot the coal
of England be kept for use at home to a much greater
extent than at present prevails?
We read much of the existence of coal-measures in
different parts of the world, but we are doing little to
develops them. British Columbia already sends a
great deal of coal to San Francisco ; cannot the whole
supply rerpiireel for steamer purposes for the Pacitic,
and perhaps for the Indian Ocean, be drawn from
there?

Most of the visitors to the 1362 Exhibition will re-
member the pyramid of coal in the Nova Scotian
Court, showing the great 34-feet seam of the Pictun
coal elistriet in that province.
Nova Scotia is now raising about a million tons
annually of first-rate steam, gas, and house coaL She
has hitherto looked for a market to the Atlantic cities
of the United States, but this market is virtually closed
to her by the alnioet prohibitory duties impised, and
she is now casting about for fresh markets, an i cargoes
sent to the West Ladies and to South America have
yielded handsome returns. Coal is delivered on board
ship at the various shipping places in Nova Scotia at
nine shilings sterling per ten, and ocean stammers exil•
ing at Halifax •ao at any time obtain coal at the rail-
road wharf at about 16e. 3,1 per ton.
With c, al at 245. at Newcastle, surely the attention
of English capitalists might be attracted to the further
opening of the Nova Scotian mines, in which the sup-
ply of coal is pactically anbtuiteaL —Yours, lie..
J. W. L.