Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-06-14
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TUESDAY EVENING. JUNE IA. 1881

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TUESDAY EVENING. JUNE IA. 1881.
The Trouble Is the Water.
The coal combination is considering
what to do to keep up the price of coal.
All agree that more coal is being mined
than is sold, that being patent fact
which cannot be disputed !; and all are
equally agreed that everyone else is pro-
ducing more than his share. The differ
ence of agreement seems to be about the
number of days that suspension of min
ing should take place at time, whether
three days a week, or a week or two
weeks in a month. The precise value of
this difference we don't quite under
stand, or care to, being pretty sure that
there is a chance hidden in it somewhere
by which the greediest of the COM
bined corporations expect to cheat the
others since it seems clear enough that
if all worked fairly together it would not
matter when the suspension of mining
took place or for how many days at a
time, SO that it was for the stipulated
time. All corporations will cheat one
another when they get the chance, and
no form of agreement has yet been
found to bind these soulless spirits.
And most excellent thing it is for the
people that they are SO selfish, and that
their combinations are thus but ropes of
sand. We the people seem to like to be
victimized, and if the corporations, that
SO much enjoy the profits of the fleeing
that We also appear to greatly relish,
could only manage to stick closely to
their work it would not be very long
before they would have all the meat off
our bones. And they are just like lot
of jackals around a carrion they will
interrupt their feast to indulge in a
fight amongst themselves in the effort
to keep the carcass to themselves ;
and when they get their belly full of
lighting and need another belly full of
meat to sustain their strength, they
cease their quarreling and amicably
fall to work upon the common prey.
They are now very peaceably en-
deavoring to fatten their frames
that have been much emaciated in late
years, and we the people are suffering
and enjoying accordingly. 1t seems
odd to speak of enjoying suffering, but
if that is not just the situation very
often between us and the railroad, coal,
telegraph and other corporations, then
we wholly fail to realize it. For GER
tainly they fleece us. They water their
stock and make us pay them a big profit
on it. They charge what they please
and We are patient. We know that we
could stop the abuses any time we
should try, but we don't try. Therefore
we must enjoy experiencing them. If
that is not demonstration of the fact,
what could be?
The very coolest thing just now, and
very agreeable to contemplate at this
season when the sun is hot and we don It
want coal, is the calmness with which
the coal companies are discussing how
they can keep up the price of coal be-
yOnd its market value. OF course it is
not our interest that this should be done,
for we want cheap coal even in summer
time for our manufacturing industries.
And there is no doubt that we could
prevent it. The law prohibits such CON-
binations to keep up prices, and if they
didn't We could easily pass such as
would.
But we don't. We don't want to. We
would rather see our furnaces blow out
because they have to pay nearly twice as
much for coal as they did a year or two
ago, than choke the coal producers and
carriers into selling their product at a
price that enables us to produce pig iron
i'm competition with the English iron
master. The miners and carriers say
they are not charging too much. But
that depends. If they must earn div.
idend on the immense tracts of coal
land bought ut a great price by working
only small part of it :; and if they must
have dividends too on heavily watered
and heavily mOrtgaged railroad stock
then perhaps they are not paying toe
much. But ought We to be asked to pay
aprotit on unproductive coal lands and
extravagant railroad cost Ought oul
industrial fires to be put out by all this
water
of hn fn,