The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1903-01-16
COAL ON THE FREE LIST

The action of the Ways and Means
Committee in reporting bill suspend.
ing the duty con all coal Of every form
and description imported into the
United States from foreign countries
for the period of one year. is one the
whole people of America will applaud,
says the Baltimore "a mcrican" Shar.
ing in this evidence of approval will
he the Committee on Rules for Sc
promptly giving the bill day, and
the Senate for agreeing in advance to
pass it without delay. Legislation
more meritorious than this, or more
directly responding to dire public
need, has seldom come before Congress
1t is meritorious because it aims to
correct the contemplate trick by
which the coal schedule was "smuggl-
ed into the Dingley Tariff Law. 1t is
public blessing because with this bill
passed one of the causes of the coal
famine which afiiicts .he country with
distress, disaster and death will be re-
moved, the government thereby doing
all in its power to relieve the situation,
which has come to realize the "literal-
ly intolerable" prophesied by Presi-
dent Roosevelt on October 8, 1902
For one year from the passage of
this bill coal will be on the free list.
That now en- route from Wales will be
admitted free Of duty, and the great
coal deposits in Nova Scotia and Brit
ish Columbia may be drawn upon to
relieve the situation and aid in break
ing the famine. The immense fleet
of sailing craft which has LAIN idle at
the Atlantic coal ports-New York,
Philadelphia, Baltimore and Newport
News-can sail away to the Nova
Scotian cost. There are no railroads
there that will refuse them cargoes,
and they can bring back and distri-
butte along the Atlantic Coast the fuel
for want of which thousands of people
are actually freezing to death. We do
not mean to say this one measure will
lift the pail which has settled upon a
well-nigh fuelless nation, but it will do
much to tighten distress and save
human lives. Most tfficacious, pro-
baby, will be the effect of the passage
ofthis bill upon the coal roads and coal
mine owners. It will teach them a
lesson Ivy demonstrating that un-
animous public sentiment can actually
wiring concessions from a reluctant
Congress, and with this demonstrated
their monopoly will never again be
secure.
The thing of first Importance With
them will, therefore, be to mcll;fy
that public sentiment, so that, the
temporary interference with their
monopoly may not be made perma-
nent. That they can only do by ceas
ing to hold back their coal in
order to stiffen the market price.
TO performance Of this nature they
are certain to be fastened by the
investigation about to be made by
General Grosvenor's Committee on
Merchant Marine and Fisheries. With
the congressional inquiry once started
the facts are certain to come to light.
1t will be shown that, instead of tacili-
tating the movement of coal to the
markets, the railroads, acting for the
operators, who have sought to rccoup
strike losses through famine prices
for coal at wholesale, have actually r.
tarded shipments. No policy more
inhuman than this was ever revealed
as governing public utility corpora
tions. We have, therefore, two mighty
levers at work to break the famine by
bringing the operators and transport
tiers to their senses.