The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-11-23
To Provide Work
For Idle Miners
From the Wilkes-Barre Times.

Some time since the Times noted a
suggestion that the large mining COM
pancs whose coal deposits underlie large
areas of land, the surface of which is
not worked to any great extent, divide up
this land into small tracts and apportion
it out among their married employees at
Il nominal rental, or if the miner prefers
to buy outright, at a low sale price. This
suggestion has been adopted by a coal
company in Elk county and the plan is
to be tried. The Shawmut Coal company
is the owner Of a tract of 10000 acres of
excellent land from which much Of the
timber has been removed, and which the
company is working now for the coal.
Recognizing that the man who has a
piece of land to depend upon when his
work in the mine fails him has GER
tainty of a living, the Shawmut company
has arranged 10 cut up the enormous
tract Of land into small lots, which are
to be sold to the miners at the rate of 81
an acre, that they may make for them
selves home and farms The company
will furnish to trustworthy miners lum-
Der from its sawmlls whcrowith to build
homes and lend such other assistance as
may seem desirable.
@
The Shawmut company employs more
than Il thousand men and will attempt
the experiment on the most liberal scale
and if it succeeds it will bring about
several wholesome results and may prove
a factor in the solution of the problem
which has confronted both the coal oper-
ator and coal miner, namely, the dspo-
sition Of the Overplus Of labor in the coal
fields If the miners take advantage of
the offer it will tend to make of them
an independent and self-helpful lot of
men, for they will learn that if things do
not go right in the mines subsistence can
be had from the farm, and that il Is not
| necessary to 20 to the workings except
under such circumstances as are desir-
able. Moreover, the community will en-
ter upon a new period of prosperity. The
earnings that have gone out from the
colleries to buy food for the two or three
thousand people there will be kept in
the pockets Of the men who earn it or put
into the Improvement of their places.
Their corn and potatoes and eggs and
| butter and -four will come from their own
| acres, and their meat will be taken from
| the henyard and the meadows. Instead
OF buying butter and eggs they will sell
| butter and eggs to their neighbors who
| work in other mines.
O.
Other companies i'm this state and par
| ticularly in this region are nearly as well
| equipped as the Elk county concern TO
assist their miners and, at the same time,
| themselves Many thousands of acres in
| the Wyoming region capable of being
! farmcd i'm small way are allowed to Law
| idle and unproductivo. Nearly every large
| company has some land which 1t could
| dispose Of i'm this way. Not many COM
| paniCS can make such a low price for
! land as 81 an acre, but most of them can
| put q reasonable price on a small piece
! and enable the miner to get it. The eX-
| ample Of the Shawmut company points
| out the way to settle labor troubles, for
! 1t shows how to clear away the idle man
when there is nothing for him to do I'm
| ig pf bn
portant Industrial departures in many a
| year, and it Is to be hoped nothing will
| interfere with its full measure of sue
| cess.