St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1888-09-13
A CURIOUS ANOMALY.
How the Price of Coal is Kept Up.
~ Y STIR

If ice should grow dear in the mid
die of cold winter it would not be a
more grOtesque economic fact than for
coal to advance in price in a hot sum-
mer. Yet during all the hot days of
June and July, when the city was
scorching and broiling in the sun,
when people were fleeing to the sea-
side and the mountains to get cool,
and there wasn't coal fire in the city
outside of a restaurant, coal was ad-
vancing in price. The less the de-
mand for coal, the higher it rose.
The more people did not want coal,
the harder it was to get it. Every law
of supply and demand was thrown to
the winds. Coal cost more in July
than it did January, while ice remain
ed the same.
On May 7 the wholesale price of red
ash coal was $4.90 ton. One would
naturally suppose that if coal was
$4.6O ton on May Z if there was any
change of price it would be cheaper
on July 4. Not so. 1t is now 1925 a
ton. Coal seemed to go up with the
thermometer. The higher the Their
mometer got the higher coal went.
On May 9 white ash coal was $500 a
ton at wholesale. 1t is now $4.35 a
ton. On June | stove coal was $500
ton. 1t is now $4.75 a ton. The
sweltering days of July and August,
when every stove and CRATE in the city
was enjoying a midsummer holiday,
advanced the price of stove coal IS
cents a ton.
On May %, when the thermometer
was just getting earnestly to work,
nut coal sold at wholesale for $4.15 a
ton. 1t rose with the therm ometer.
1t was higher on the 4th of July than
it was at Christmas. 1t is now $4.75 a
ton at wholesale. Coal is now 81 so a
ton higher than it was in the winter of
1885.
This is only the beginning of the
story. The anthracite coal millionaires
met on Friday and put another straw
on the camel's back. They further adj
vanced coal from Is to 25 cents ton.
They propose TO charge Is cents ton
more at the mine to the New York and
Philadelphia merchants, 20 cents ton
more to the Buffalo market, and rs
cents ton more to the Chicago mar
ket. The present production of coal
is 10000 tons week, or 4,O00,0 900
tons a month. An advance of 25 cents
ton in the price of coal is equivalent
to levying tax on the people of the
United States of l 10000 tons week,
or 4, 100000 tons month.
The coal companies have, of course,
an excuse to offer. They say that the
railways have advanced the rates for
carrying coal. Well, it happens that
the coal companies own the railways.
The anthracite coal fields, as every
body knows, are owned by the Read
ing, the Lehigh Valley, the Delaware
& Lackawanna, the Pennsylvania Gen.
trail and other railways.
The story of the conspiracy of the
coal millionaires to extort money from
the public is in the memory of every
body. One spring day little more
than two years ago dozen millionaires
met in the Field building and decided
to limit the production of coal and
raise its price-that is, they decided
to throw people out of employment and
to charge the public more for coal. By
the following winter they had advanc-
ed coal dollar a ton. The anthracite
coal industry is greatly protected by
the duty on bituminOus coal, and of
course this tariff would be expected to
show it's great beneficial effects in the
protection of the labor which gets it
out, but, as is well known, it is a fact
that more distress exists among the la
borers in Pennsylvania coal mines than
anywhere else in the world, while the
coal barons themselves are growing
enormously wealthy and are contribute
ing large sums this year to the repub-
lican campaign fund, as is their only
hope for continuance of their extor
ton.