New-York tribune., 1873-07-31

| THE GRIPE or THE COAL CONBINAIION
One year ago the average price of one
hundred thousand tons of Scranton coal, sold
by auction in this city at the monthly sale,
was So 5j. The average price Of seventy-fiye
thousand tons Of the same coal sold ycster-
day was S4 96. This is an average increase
per ton of 81 Al, or just forty per cent. This
great rise in the price Of anthracite coal
is solely due to a combination or con-
spiracy of five corporations, which have
purchased nearly all of the mines and coal
lands, and obtained a close monopoly of the
transportation. The declared purpose of the
Coal Ring is to advance the wholesale price
per ton forty cents more within the next four
months. This they intend to accomplish by
limiting the supply, as they have already done,
until they have raised the average price above
where it stood in July, 1871, just after the
end of the long strike of that year.
1t is desirable that the inhabitants of the six
New-E gland States New-YOrk, New-Jersey,
and Western Pennsylvania should understand
how great an outrage has been perpetrated on
them. The total production of anthracite coal
is about two million tons month. The ad-
ditiOn Of 81 10 per ton to the natural price
amounts to a monthly tax of $2,800,0OO levied
on those who use the coal. Consumers are
now paying monthly. tribute of this
amount to the monopolies, and will
shortly be paying considerably more. There
is no doubt as to who gets the benefit of this
forced addition to the price. Except few
struggling operators in the Schuylllill region
not yet'swallowed up, and half dozen rich mine
owners in the Lehigh fields, most Of them inter-
4. IL ol,,aE
of anthracite coal, from the time it is dislodged
from the bowels Of the earth until it is sold
at tide water, is owned by these giant mo-
nopolies The three million dollars monthly
tax. levied on about ten millions of people,
goes, almost every dollar of it, into the treas
uries of the corporations. There has been no
increase in the cost of mining coal. The
miner gets no more for his work than he did
a year ago. The next great levy will proba-
bly, be on his wages, for at present he is well
paid and can stand reduction.
II has been said that the business Of coal
mining and coal transportation was not profit
able last year. Let us examine this little,
and find out, if possible, whether the state
'ment is true. The Pennsylvania Coal Com
many has only AZ miles of railroad, operated
by stationary engines anu uocu OANiuoifOiJ
for carrying coal from the mines to
Lackawaxen, on the. Erie Railroad. The Erie
Road transports the coal from that point under
long contract at fixed price. This Penn
sylvania Coal Company the smallest Of the
monopolies, and having no interest in any kind
of transportation except that of coal, would,
it might be supposed, suffer severely from
the losses in coal-mining last year, provided
there were any such losses to the monopolies.
Nevertheless, this little Company, producing
only about 100000 tons year, managed to
pay a cash dividend of twenty per cent on n
capital Of four million dollars, together with
interest on q funded and floating debt of about
a million dollars. The Delaware and Hudson
Canal Company paid a cash dividend of ten
per cent on fifteen millions of capital, and
interest on thirteen millions of debt, and re-
ported no floating debt at the end of the year.
The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Rail-
road paid ten per cent in cash on twenty
millions of capital, and interest on nine
millions of debt. The Reading Railroad paid
ten per cent in cash on thirty-four millions of
! stock, and interest on twenty-nine millions Of
debt, drawing only about six hundred thousand
dollars from its ro7erved fund, set aside from
, tno profits o. proceeding yo.". The Lch..a