Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-09-11
King Coal.

England has temporarily lest her interest in
the Geneva arbitration, the autumn maneuvers,
the Belfast riots; indeed, everything except the
price of coal. This commonplace question has
suddenly jumped into the first rank of knotty
problems, and the political economists of the
country are vainly trying TO solve it. Politi-
clans are trying TO prove to themselves and
their constituents that the advance in coal of
eighty per cent.-irom twenty shillings per ton
TO thirty -siX-arises from STRIKES" and other
disorders in the labor market, and is al bestbut
ephemeral and transitory. Even the queen, in
her speech closing the session of parliament,
takes this rOSe-colored view of the matter.
Statesmen, however, recognize the fact that
Engands coal is e6haustlble, despite the report
to the contrary of eminent biologists a wear or
two ago; that the best mines, il not prospect
lively exhausted are so nearly so that the cost of
production must be greatly enhanced some time
or other in the near future and that veins of in
teror coal, heretofore neglected, must be worked
at once on the score of economy.
Coal underlies England in more senses than
one. Her industries, directly or indirectly, de-
pend altogether upon the price and supply of
coal. All England feels that unless something
is done, and done at once, the great manulac-
turing interests of the country will not merely
suffer, but will be hopelessly destroyed, and
England lose her proud title of the WORKSHOP of
the world. Some people are even beginning to
calculate what population the British isles will
be able to sustain in case the coal famine and
the manufacturing stagnation consequent there
on continue.
Meantime, the cost of anything and every
thing having the slightest connection with coal
is sensibly increasing. The fares by the "penny
steamers" are now two pence-a small matter,
one might say without reflection; but it is
hundred per cent increase; and if we are com
PEELED TO stand that all around, the case assumes
gigantic proportions at once. All the printed
"shillings' in the restaurants bills of fare have
had I'D" or ed" or sd" neatly added with
pen, because it takes coal to cook chops and
steaks. Railway fares and tariffs have followed
suit. Rather, they led, and the others followed
suit, and English railway fares were higher
than they were anywhere else in the world be-
fore.
Those remarkable specimens of business en-
terprise and rapid growth, which find no para-
lei outside of the United States, and which the
average Englishman is forced to pit against New
York and Chicago - Barrow-in- FuIpess and
Staleybridge-have received harder blow than
Chicago did last year, and one which will appar-
emily last longer. The admirers of Charles
Dickens, who fatten their noses against the car
windows during night ride through the "Blacll
Country, will not see so many "yawning infer
nal furnaces lighting up the heavens with a
lurid, unearthly glare" as he did. Birmingham
and Manchester are to-day selling goods at a
less price than it costs to produce them, in the
hope Of seeing their way clear soon. Many
smelling establishments have stopped, either
parity or altogether, ana any iron manufacturer
knows how serious thing it is to "cool fur
mace"
That wealthy corporation, the Lancashire and
Yorkshire railway company, whose line connects
Liverpool with Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield,
Bradford, &C., took time by the forelock weeks
ago, and began the importation OF an inferior
but cheap coal from Belgium The fiat has gone
forth. Goals are carried to Newcastle--a fact so
unexpected and startling that we may now look
for all the other old time typical impossbilities
bricks without straw, purses of sows' ears and
whistles of their tails.
Other corporations and firms have emulated
their example. The general impression is that
these ills are incurable-that we have seen the
last of cheap coal. Notwithstanding the his
tory of England affords almost an exact parallel
to this coal famine q hundred years or so ago,
far seeing men point to circumstances now thar
had no existence then. England has never been
so bethumped with strikers as she has been this
year. but every strike has failed except that of
the coal and iron men. They have had every
thing as they would have it, and what is the re-
suit? Perhaps it will not be too much 10 saw
that one result is that America will have an
immense increase in her immigration of British
operatives within year.-COr. ". Y Evening
Post