The New York herald., 1871-02-24
The Coal Combination-The Facts in the
Case.

Il Case.
The excitement about the price of coal is
naturally very great in the city The ques-
tion as to whether we shall have coal famine
in midwnter in this vast metropolis is very
serious one AT no previous time within our
memory did coal command such an exorbitant
price as it has reached now. Once, We
believe, it touched the alarming maximum OF
seventeen dollars ton, and held that price
for few days only. On two or three sea-
sons later the price went up to fourteen dol
lars, and stood firm for considerable time at
that figure. OF course it was then regarded
as an extortion to which people had, Of neces-
sty, to submit To-day, without any apparent
honest cause, the price Of coal has gone
up to nearly twenty dollars ton. We pre-
sumo that every one understands where this
infamous extortion comes from. 1t is the
creation of wicked combination between the
railroads and the wholesale coal dealers,
which should be crushed at once by Congress
sonal legislation. We suggested the remedies
in our columns yesterday, and we reiterate
them now. The immediate removal of the
duty on foreign coal, as a present remedy,
and, for permanent cure of this grievous
evil, the enactment of such laws by Congress
as will place the management of the rail
roads under the control of the gov
ernment. We perceive that our sug
geston with regard to the abolition Of
duties on coal imported from the British
provinces received immediate attention in
Congress yesterday by the Introduction of
resolution to that effect. We hope it will not
be disregarded. The speedest way to crush
these Pennsylvania monopolies is to indulge
in little free trade practice on this question
Of foreign COAL They will get SO frightened
lest the free trade notion may spread that they
may be coerced into relinquishing their pre-
sent despotic courses.
The trouble in the coal regions is very SIM
| pie. When the war broke out the coal mine
owners had not been prosperous. The bust
ness of coal mining had been constantly over
done. With the war came general advance
in prices, an enormous Increase in the con-
sumption of coal, both for shipping, iron
smelling and general manufacturing purposes,
and naturally a corresponding advance in the
price of coal. The mine owners thought their
harvest time had come, and rapidly put up
prices, but resisted all advance in the wages
of the men until compelled by repeated strikes.
Although each strike was made an excuse for
fresh increase in the price, and thus in
reality benefited the mine owners, they yet
cannot pardon the men for having, as they
say, dictated terms to them. They claim
that the men should be satisfied with such
wages as they, the employers, think fair, and
they have for years past been trying to break
the spirit of the men, and have sworn to
break up the association by the aid of
which the men have been enabled to work in
unison
In 1869, when many of the mine owners had
so much coal on hand, and the price had gone
so low that many Of the smaller operators
and some of the railroad companies were
trembling on the verge of bankruptcy, they
were glad enough to get the Miners
Association to consent to peaceable sus-
pension, in order to relieve the market of the
excessive stocks. But when they had sue
ceeded in putting up the price and had palmed
off their accumulated surplus on the public at
high figures they wanted the men to 60 to
work at the old rates of wages, which the men
naturally refused. They said :-''You asked us
to stand idle, in order to enable you to get
more money out of yolS stocks and save you
from bankruptcy. We think we are entitled
to participate in the profits, which you derived
partly at our expense" Out of this grew
what is called the ''basis system" by which
the wages of the men are regulated in accord
ance with the selling price of coal at the prin-
cipal points of shipment near the mines.
Almost all the mine owners &C.
cepted the basis system. But for the
overgrown railroad companies, who are
the largest coal mine owners, and who are ac-
customed to dictate despotically alike to their
employees, whom they pay, and to the public,
the idea that the men should participate in
their profits, is utterly unbearable.
When at the close of 1870 it was evident
that the mine owners had again produced more
coal than the market was able to take, they
again got the Miners Association to consent to
peaceable suspension, by means of which
they were enabled to again advance the price
on the pubic-work off their stock at high
figures, and make the public believe that the
sole cause of the advance was the unfairness
of the working miners This idea ap-
pears to exist to-day. AT meeting Of
the coal operators, carrying companies
and iron manufacturers held in Phil
adelphia yesterday, series of resolutions
were adopted, which were directed almost
entirely to the terms by which the working
miners could be controlled. It is evident
enough, we think, that the advance in the
| price Of coal does not originate 10 the coal
mining districts, but comes exclusively from
an infamous combination between the Penn