The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-01-14
THE EASTERN COAL FAMINE.

Life in the American tropics VIII
have added charms to Eastern people
after this experience with the coal fam
inc. A severe winter occurring at the
same time as a scarcity of fuel means
an amount of suffering which people
who live in kindly climates wholly es-
cape and cannot appreciate. In the
Eastern States the worst winter weather.
is go bad that even a full coal bin does
not always enable people to keep warm
with furnace and CRATES doing their
hest a chill invades ones house. Every
tiny crack admits it; the momentary
onening of a door invites a blast; the
alcoves near broad windows are several
degrees lower in temperature than the
body of the room; a cold cellar anects
the floors of the parlors above Wheh
all this happens where fuel is plentiful
and there is no lack of appliances to use
n what must be the effect where it is !
scarce or absent altogether? Not only
comfort. but health suffers. 1t needs no 1
nrophet to foresee the influence OF these
untoward conditions on the death rate,
conditions which seem certain to last
until the warmth of spring returns.
It isn't that no coal is beng mined.
Those who have coal to sell are only
too anxious to get it on the market
But the great strike used up all the
reserve which the coal dealers keep on
bana for winter emergencies. What ]
tho summer mining had piled up TO
meet any excess demand of the coal
season was dissipated in the five months
while the strike held on. In the mean
time the population was growing new !
homes were being built, new manutac-
tories were starting. steam commerce {
was expanding. The demand for coal T
while the supply of fuel was {
ant off. Work as hard as they may, the
miners cannot meet the demand ana
the people must stand it, as best they i
IAN for three months more. {
The renewed use of wood fuel while Of r
but slight relief to cities. where house. s
furnaces burn it up like paper, ana OF ]
70 ,lse at all to manufactures and ,
steamers. is likely to have bad effect II
,non the forest areas New York and
he New England States are rapidly de- i
,uding woodlands which not only give q
hem picturesqueness, but conserve their +
water supply. This. however, is one OF
he minor incidents in the great mass Oh
circumstances. a
If is evident that something very rad :,
cal must be done to prevent the occur q
renee of coal strikes in future. This \
Toes not mean that laws should be
,assed lettering labor, or depriving
apital in the aggregate of privileges it /,
.nioys in the unit Labor has most I,
persuasive side in this controversy; but G
Without cooperation with capital there
you'd be no work for anybody. View
ne. the whole case, there is not little N
O commend the idea of DaYid b. Hill t,
hat the National government should
ubstitute it's own capital for that OF
,rivate greed and control and develop
oaI mines as state property. The idea
s denounced as sociaIistic, but it is no
more so than the operation by the
federal government of a large part OF
he carrying trade, such as letters ana Y
,apers; and by the ownership OF ran r
Dad systems by a government so
strongly anti-socialistic that of Ger
many or Russia. Today the State gov
rnrnent of New York reserves all mines
hat NAV be found on public lands sold :
or private use. and other States have
similar laws. The United States re-
serves water supplies needed for irri-
CATION, and it would be to carry the
principle but a little further to take the 9
.oal supplies in hand and see that, at
10 interruption in the steady employ
nent of labor at fair price. the con-
sumner span have abundant supplies OF :
,oal. also at fair price.
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