Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-07-31
GOAL MIL Be HIGHER
Iowa People Likely to Find
Fuel More Expensive Next
Winter.
Operators Talk of Advance Of
Fifty Cents a Ton in
Car Lots.
Scarcity Of Anthracite Due to
the Strike the Reason for
Advance.

Des Moines, July 30.-Retail dealers
! in towns in Iowa that do not produce
their own coal will in all probability
be compelled next winter to pay the
coal operators n higher price for coal.
| This will mean that a very large pro-
portion of the consumers in the state
will find it more expensive to keep
warm next winter than it has been for
| a number of years. The strike OF the
hard coal miners will be responsible for
this.
lCenterville, Boone and other coal pro-
ducing towns there is little prospect
iof an increase III prices In short, an
effort was made in Des NIoines within
the past week by local operators who
We're anxious to take advantage of the
scarcity of hard coal to boost prices.
Int was proposed to charge $3.50 q ton
delivered for lump coal and to advance
the price of other Goals in proportion.
Shipping miners and some of the local
mime operators defeated the propose!
increase. They took the position that
with the same charges for mining and
teaming in vogue that We're year ago
that it would be impossible to Increase
the price in the DeS Moines field and
hold the business. They said that the
increase would be Il temptation to OUT
side miners who have long envied the
Des Moines miners the big local trade,
to ship their coal into Des Moines
where they would be able to sell II
at profit at the old price of SIS ton
delivered. The refusal of these oper
ators to sign an agreement to advance
the price locally defeated the project
Operators say, however, that coal
in car load lots at the mines, which
is the way all coal shipped to non
producing points is sold, will be higher
than in the past. The price last winter
and up to this time has averaged $1.75
a ton in car load lots or more The
price has been uniform over nearly
the entire state. This year it is al
together probable it VIII he advanced
to So ton for lump coal, and that the
increase ON other grades will be in pro-
portion.
Secretary Rosebrook of Oskaloosa, a
Mahaska county operator, was in Des
Mones yesterday. He said that he did
not think there is any prospect of an
increase in the price at local points, but
thought it very probable that the price
to the shipping trade would be boosted.
Ed Gray, of the keystone company
was of the same opinion. MIR. Gray
said that the proportion of hard coal
used in towns dependent upon the
southern Iowa field for coal is much
greater than in this city. and that the
result of the anthracite strike will be a
Iowa coal. He thought that this in
creased demand, which will come large
ly from trade that has not come to the
Iowa mines in the past will justify the
advance in the price.
An increase in the shipping price will
result in a uniform increase of about
80 cents a ton over prices charged last
winter at all points in Iowa.
The local dealers say that there is no
prospect of Il settlement of the strike in
the anthracite fields, and little prospect
of Iowa dealers getting hard coal this
year. John Bennett, of Bennett Bro
Tiers, has just concluded Il tour of the
lake board shipping points and of the
principal mining points in PennSylva-
MIA in an effort to secure coal. He has
wired to his firm that he was unable to
get more than four car loads of coal of
thirty tons each, and that this is all
range. The four car loads are little
better than no coal at all when it comes
to supplying their trade.