The Sun.
London, England, 1839-03-25 00:00:00

no Debts—no Credits.

The object of this Association is to secure to its Members of
the consumers' class, Coals of every destription, at the cheapest
rate at which they can be procured, without being subjected to
any of the monopoly regulations or exactions.
In order to effect this great object, it is necessary that the
Association should be self-dependent; that it should have its
own pits, its own vessels, its own wharfs, warehouses, wag-
gons, &c. ; or that it should have contracts, binding down
parties for any of them at the lowest stipulated cost.
Great and praiseworthy efforts have been made by the Right
Hon. the Lord Mayor, and others, to break down the Coal
Monopoly, and with considerable success; but it must be evi-
dent to all that so long as the chief sources of supply rest in a
few combined hands—so long as the Public cannot command
their own means of production, carriage, and delivery—no iso-
lated efforts, however gigantic and persevering, can entirely
succeed in placing the necessary article of fuel, at the lowest
cost, in the cellar of the consumer.

The Monnpolists have set at defiance the Legislature; they
set at defiance the Lord Mayor, and ail other individual oppo-
nents ; they would crush any single-handed rival disposed to
open trade ; they dare not set at defiance the combined Con-
sumers ; they cannot crush a Hundred Thousand Shareholders,
with the means of supply in their own possession.
Besides the enormous artificial cost laid on coals by the deten-
tention of vessels—the limiting the supply beneath the de-
mand—the agency of factors—the large per- centage of profits to
cover bad debts and long credits—there are great frauds in the
mixing of coals, by which the public are injured to a large
extent. This Association will save the cost and prevent the
fraud. Men who are their own Coal-merchants can have no
temptation to tax or cheat themselves.
The preliminary measures for this Association have been
going on for twelve months. Every inquiry has been made
necessary for the completion of the undertaking. Persons con-
nected with the monopoly in the north are desirous of breaking
from it, and have offered their pits at a valuation to be taken
in shares. Other mines of coal yet unworked are offered at a
low seignorage. Contracts are offered of the best Silkstone
and Flockton coals of Yorkshire, of the coals of Staffordshire
and Derbyshire, and of the Welch and other coals of great
value for particular purposes. Contracts for freight, for wharf-
age, for delivery are offered ; and even now, before the posses-
,ion of their own resources within themselves, excellent domestic
coal may be placed in the cellar of the consumer at from 21s.
to 225. per ton, leaving Is. per ton to pay five per cent. in-
terest to the capitalist, and all the expenses of the manage-
ment. _ .

It is not proposed that this Association should sell any
coals, but only supply its own members. It will have no
individual objects to serve. The gentlemen provisionally acting
disclaim any other interest than that which is common to the
community. They have advanced the necessary expenses of
its formation, which they expect to be repaid, but no more.
They will fill up no places or offices save provisionally, and
those without salary. The Association will be a Joint Stock
Company, but without the ordinary characteristics of Joint-
stock Companies. There will be no deposits—no responsi-
bility—no self-constituted directors or officers—no liability to
the laws of trading, partnership, or bankruptcy.
A gentleman or tradesman who takes ten or twenty consumers'
shares in this Association may, while he remains in London,
get his 501. or 1001. worth of coals at their natural cost, with
the addition of 5 per cent. to the capitalist ; and, when he
chooses to go into the country, need not have one farthing of his
money lying idle or unproductive, but, by exchanging his con-
sumer's tickets for capitalists' tickets, will get his 5 per cent.
until he return, and then exchange again for consumers' tickets,
and save probably 30 per cc .t. in the price of his coals.
A self-protecting Association against the Coal J.llonopolists
was formed in Edinburgh the year before last, which had the
effect of enabling coals to be procured during the dreadful
winter of last year (when they reached the enormous price of
455. per ton in London) at a eleaper rate than during the
preceding summer and autumn, and which enables the best
Scotch Coal to be now procured in Edinburgh at 12s. per ton,
and the Newcastle Coals at 17s. Dd. per ton.
It is proposed that there shall ultimately be twelve Director s,
each holding 100 Shares, six from the Consumer's class, and
six from the Capitalists' class, with salaries to be fixed upon at
a general meeting of the Shareholders. Two Directors of each
class, eligible for re-election, to go out annually. All appoint-
ments of permanent officers to be made by the Directors thus
chosen.

The Duke of Wellington, in a speech on the finances of the
country, during the Administration of Earl Grey, said, «He
was not opposed to the repeal of the coal tax, or any other tax,
merely because it was a reduction of taxation, but the Noble
Earl, would recollect, on a former occasion, he thought that the
best plan of reducing taxation was that which relieved the con-
sumer; and, regarding the coal trade, he had said that the
best way was to correct the abuses to which it was subject, and
he was sure the abuses in that trade operated more than taxes
in raising the price of the article."
The machinery of the system to which his Grace alluded may
be traced in the following facts. In the North the great Coal-
owners enter into a bond, with heavy penalties to each other,
not to send more than a certain quantity of coals to the London
market, and to sell coals to none who will not sign a paper
agreeing to conform to the regulations of waiting their turn.
In the South those regulations are, that, when coals are in the
Pool at 235. 61. per ton, only forty cargoes shall be sold—when
235. 9d. and 245., fifty cargoes—when 245. 3d. to 245. 6d.,
sixty cargoes—when 245. 9d., seventy cargoes—and a reduction
of ten ships for every shilling below 235. 6d. The operation of
this may be seen in the following table :
An Account of the Number of Vessels coal laden sold from the
Pool on the Coal-market each Market-day during the month
of December, 1838; the Price of the Best Coals (Lambton) ;
the Number of Ships waiting for Meters at Four o'Clock ;
and the Number detained in the different Sections of the
River, between Bugeby Hole and Gravesend :