The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-16
THE COAL MINERS.
Fron the N. Y. Tribune.

-@.
THE COAL MINERS
From the NJ Y. Tribune.
While we insist on the right of all workers
to fix price for their labor and refuse to sell
it for less, we do not encourage strikes A
strike is a declaration of industrial war; and
war of any kind should ever ssbe avoided it
possible, and accepted with profound reluc-
ance. Still, war is sometimes inevitable; and
we cannot deny to laborers right accorded to
every other class. Let the farmer understand
that he will not be able to sell certain crop
for so much as it must cost him, and he will
decline to produce it, so the merchant, under
like conditions, will refuse to buy the me-
chanic to construct and on We do
not see why coal miners should not as
blamelessly refuse to disembowel the earth
when they deem their recompense in
adequate. True, they may misjudge, or be
too rapacious, and so may injure themselves
as well as others by striking; but even then
they are no more culpable than the farmer who
refused to sell his wheat for So per bushel,
and must now take @1'25 for it, or keep it
over, or the coal dealer who conspired to put
up the price of his commodity last fall, and
now has most of his winter stock left over to
be sold at summer prices. Let all men keep
the peace and obey the laws; those who do so
are not to be severely reproved for holding
their commodity at their own price rather than
at rates fixed by those who want to buy it.
We do not fully understand the coal miners
case, and do not presume them more unselhsh
than other men. If they would like TO get
more pay for less work, that is a very human
procliviiy; if they miscalculate their power,
and impoverish by step designed to enrich
themselves, they only repeat the blunder of
men wiser and better informed than they are
presumed to be. But if they have-as we
hear-proposed readjustment of their wages
on the basis of proportion-the price to be
paid them for each ton of coal mined to be
such per cent of the price at which said
coal sells simultaneously in Philadelphia or
New York-then they have proposed the true
basis of settlement, and we shall deeply re-
gret a failure of the mine owners to close with
| their offer.
We believe this city has, for the last ten or
fifteen years, obtained its fuel as cheaply all
things considered, as any other emporium of
| equal magnitude on earth Considering the
| distance of our sources of supply, and the
rugged character of the intervening country
we hold that New York has been we'll served
in the matter of coal. Yet one imposition
has been pretty uniformly practised, for
| which the delivers in the PENNSYLVANIA mines
| are nowise accountable We allude to the
very general advance of prices from 25 to 80
per cent on the approach of winter, under
the pretense of short supply That pretense
| is often false; it need not in any case have
been true Coal is not fancy article; it
never gets out of fashion; and he who has
it on hand is certain that he can sell it,
though not always at profit. IT, then,
| the dealers have an inadequate stock at
the closing in of winter, the fault is often
| their own, and should not rebound to their
profit. 1t is not now as in the infancy of the
traffic, when hard frost in December QS3D
sent up the price to $16per ton (gold). Then
we had no railroad to the mines, and but two
! canals at most: now we have half dozen
| lines of transportation which winter does not
close; and, while it is fair to charge to 10 per
| cent. more i'll winter than in summer, because
of the cost of storage and the higher freights
which then prevail the frequent if not usual
| enhancement is eXorbitant and, falling mainly
| on the needy or improvident, is very odious
aud this is the work. not of the miners, but of
the dealers alone. Yet, if the price is to be en-
| hanced, it seems to us naked equity that the
miners should share in the GAIN and we still
hope for an arrangement by which this viii be
| secured.
OF course, we shall be told that this will be
found difficult to realze-that it will lead to
endless disputes and complications. We do
not doubt it, Despotism is the simplest form
Of government; slavery the least puzzling Z
system of labor. Il command-you obey;
no bother about constitutional limitations no
Liggling as to reserved rights. $50 to work
dead! What can be simpler or more con-
elusive than that And yet the civilized
world is discarding it, as the snake sheds its
old skin and feels better when fairly rid of it.
1t would be easy to stipulate that the miner
should be paid for his coal, delivered at the
pits mouth OF elsewhere, such per cent. OF
the price at which just such coal sells that
week in New York or Philadelphia (Which
ever might be its natural markeD, and have
am arbiter or judge agreed on who should
report by telegraph exactly what that price
was. This plan would obviate future strikes
it would establish a community of interest
between employer and employed; and would
be some consolation to us consumers when
gouged by a combination of dealers to ad
vance prices, that the Woodworking fellows
up in the hills must pocket share of the
plunder. We hope to hear that the miners
who seem to be well organized and not devoid
of brains, will keep this idea in mind, and il
obliged to forego its instant realization, study
and plan to secure its ultimate triumph. Il
ought to succeed, and in time we Judge that
1T must
SPAIN AND THE VOLCANIC ELEMENTS
IN EUROPE AND AMERICA.
From the NJ Y. Herald