New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-08-28

was only "a SO. We bring these prices together
in line in order that the public may COM
pare them:
Average price Aug 81, 1870. ...........A 81
Average price, Aug. 30. 1571.-.....-.---. %
Average price, Aug 9S ls72.........-... az
Average price Aug "a, 1SiJ.........-.-- ~
We confess our inability to do justice to the
facts which the above figures so el0quently
proclaim. In 1870 and 1871 the supply OF coal
was restricted by strikes of the laborers. which
for magnitude and obstinate persistency are
without a parallel in the history of Trades
Unions. Last year is the only one OF the four
when the price of coal was regulated by natural
laws with both supply and demand unlmpeded.
This year we have a conspiracy OF the coal
corporatiops, and as the result of that con-
spiracy we have prices already far above the
noint TO which strikes and suspensions carried
them in 1870 and 1871. The State of Pennsyl-
vania might have levied tax on anthra-
cite coal of the difference between this
and last years prices and paid her entire
bonded debt in one year. The annual
product of such q tax would extinguish
the whole debt of the State of New-York,
Canal bonds and all, even with the present
deficiencies in the Sinking Funds. Yet people
weathiest corporations in the world without
murmur. We are told by Mr. Mead,
the Secretary of the littlo twenty per
cent PENNSYLVANIA Coal Company, that it is
'bene6cial to us to submit to this extortiOn I;
that it is "rght and reasonable that we
should pay this tax. Here have these compa-
MES for five years been fighting each other
and their private competitors, and distributing
all the while ten, fifteen, aud twenty per cent
dividends and now they come forward and
extort coal tax of more than a dollar per
ton over and above what would give them
fair profit, and they claim to be public bene-
factors! What colossal impudence
Another man, Mr.. r. G.. Moulton, the gen.
eral agent of the Delaware and Hudson Canal
Company, gives his views: Z" If the low rates
chad continued, the result would have been
"a general stOppage of the business and
tremendous initiation of prices" AS well
talk of general stoppage of agriculture In
the opinion of these gentlemen, prices have
now reached "healthy level" To the shall
low twaddle of these tax-gatherers, TO which
four weeks ago we appropriated column of
our space, we oppose the eminenty sound
4" High prices and uncertainty of supply says
Mr.. Gowen, twill drive away buyers, force
manufacturers to turn to other fuels, and
"prevent the natural increase of demand which
would result from low prices, and which
would soon supply a certain market for any
" temporary production" (Reading Rail-
road Report, 1871, page 1877 1t is also certain
that Mr.. Gowen regarded the over-production
of last year as only temporary, for he states
his belief that the stock on hand at the close
of the season was no greater than in the year
preceding; argues that tthe market will
require three million tons more in 1873
than in 1872, and concludes that it is a
reasonable suppositiOn "that it will be
"dffcult to produce this year any quantity
$50 greatly in excess of the demand as to
"depress the market to any considerable de-
"gree." Reading Railroad Report, 1873, pages
90 and 21.) We might quote further from Mr.
Gowen, but have we not quoted enough to
show that as a dslnterested observer he would
have pronounced the work of this Anthracite
Coal Combination to be one of the most mex
cusable displays of rapacious greed that the
world has witnessed since Christianity became
the religion of civilized mani