The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1892-05-10
EQUALITY IN COAL PRICES.

that should be accorded TO all coal
consumers, when they complain of the
advance in the price of anthracite
coal In the various markets outside of
Pennsylvania. For years past the
people of New York City, and in all
the manufacturing centres through
out that state as far West as Buffalo,
have purchased their anthracite coal
almost uniformly at a price not Y
ceeding the cost of the same coal to
manufacturers and other consumers in
Pennsylvania; and it has not been
uncommon. because of the sharp
competition between transportation
lines, for our anthracite coal to be
delivered to consumers in Boston and
as far West as Chicago, at about the
same prices paid in Pennsylvania
Thus Pennsylvania has been the pack
horse to save our coal transportation
lines from bankruptcy, while New
England, New York and Western
consumers of anthracite coal have
rarely paid more than its actual cost,
and at times have received it at ever
less than the prime cost of mining
and transporting.
Suppose New YorL had been fortu.
nate enough to possess the only great
anthracite coal field of the world, does
any one suppose for a moment that
the people of Pennsylvania, or of New
England, or of the West, would have
been permitted to purchase this coal
as cheaply as supplied to manufactur-
ers and other of New York
state? Any other state than Penn
sylvania, with such al exclusive and
boundless treasure, would have made
the whole continent pay tribute to it;
but Pennsylvania has gone on blindly
for years and years in cut-throat COM
petition between her transportation
lines; Pennsylvania manufacturers
and have paid the only
profit that our coal producers and
t~ransporters have realized, and in
some instances distant consumers have
received our anthracite coal at less
than its actual cost.
This insane policy has been stopped
by what is commonly called the
anthracite coal combine, and it is
stopped indefinitely. Whether the
method by which the anthracite coal
lines have been united shall be
sustained as legal or declared illegal,
the supreme necessities of the case,
and the immense interests involved,
will maintain unity of action on the
part of these lines regardless of the
formality of leases. While it is not
likely that the leases will fail for want
of legal warrant, even if they were
swept away, the interests at stake are
vastly stronger than all the sanctities
of formal contract and it is only a
question of time in the near future
when every railroad in the country
will be compelled to conform to the
exact basis of the anthracite coal
combine.
What the New York papers COM
plain of is that they IAN no longer
obtain anthracite coal cheaper than
the people who live in the anthracite
region. Because the insane competi-
ton of railroads mas enabled New
York and other distant points to OBJ
tain Pennsylvania coal in fearful
discrimination against Pennsylvania
manufacturers and consumers, they
declare that this injustice must con-
tinue indefinitely. On this point
New York journals should speedily
revise their attitude and give some
reasonable consideration to the equities
which have been denied to Pennsyl-
vania for years, but which cannot be
longer denied to her people.
In short the people of Boston and
New York, of Buffalo and Chicago,
must henceforth pay for their anthra.
cite coal an increased cost that reason
ably compensate for the difference in
distance and transportation, and the