The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-07-09
COAL TO ADVANCE
Price Likely to Be Higher Than
Last Winter.
Dealers Will Not Contract for
Fall Deliveries.
CASH TO BE DEMANDED
Fuel Companies Will Refuse
Customers Usual Credit.
No New Fields Opened to Re-
lieve the Situation.

People who burned money in their
furnaces last winter will have to burn
as much of it or more during the coming
season. Coal dealers are preparing for
a season of close business and high
prices and win in a greater measure
demand cash where credit was formerly
allowed.
There is every reason to believe, and
the dealers admit the probability, that
coal Will cost more during the coming
winter than it did last. Usage City shaft
is costing $3.50 on the local market, Bur
liagarne $4.25. while Pennsylvania coal
is about a dollar higher. The anthracite
has dropped back to something like it's
old figure while Kansas coal is where
it was last winter.
Even in the present season of sultry
weather and gasoline stoves the coal
question is a subject of absorbing in
terest to the man who pays the bills
The prospect is alarming. With the GER
t@lnty that a great many Topeka fami-
lies will be able to keep themselves in
comfort through the coming winter only
under the most faVOra Bile circumstances
the knowledge that fuel prices will go
a soaring is an uncomfortable posses
sion.
Contracts for the winter supply of coal
for large fuel consuming concerns are
10 get Oh any OASIS SATISFACTORY
to the consumer. This is the time of
year when contracts are made for win
ter coal. In the past the city and state
contracts and contracts with private
concerns have customarily been made at
a fixed price to which the coal dealer
adhered until it's expiration. This year
few if any such arrangements are being
made. Most of the. contracts contain a
clause to this effect:
This contract price, after September
l, is subject to an advance of the same
amount that the cost of production may
be advanced according to the arrange
ment with the miners"
In the coal contract recently let for
furnishing fuel for the Kansas City
postoffice building, which is a large UNI
derteking, such Il clause was inserted
and the price at beginning on the diff
ferent grades of coal furnished ranged
from ~ cents to $1.04 higher than it had
ever been before. Coal dealers in To-
peka have exhibited contracts made
with several different Topeka factories
in which the price was from 80 to 10
cents higher than previously and each
included provision for an increase at
ter September l. None of the coal deal
ers are binding themselves to fixed
price for the winter coal supply.
WILL REFUSE CREDIT.
At the meeting of the Mid-States
Wholesale ar d Retail Coal Dealers as
ISOLATION in Kansas City this. week an
the membership that cash should be de-
manded uniformly for coal sold dur
ing the coming season. There are
about 400 members in the association
in Missouri Kansas and the territories
Cash is required at the mines and the
niddIenen say they must get cash in
Davrnent in order to stay with the busl-
ness The tendency toward putting the
coal business on an, absolutely cash
basis is gaining strength and is APP
f1-a
in the membership of this particular as
ISOLATION or not. During the past rev
Years the coal business has become less
profita BILE to the middlemen and they
are compelled to figure closely In I,t
.'ca sh'' will become the motto OF lhe
coal dealer is reasonable presump-
To the public the coal business has
always been closed book Inc sus-
Dicion of monopoly and corporate lhhu-
ence has attached itself and the coal
dealers themselves have never been sue
cessful in convincing their patrons tnat
they have not been responsible Tor the
Increased price TO consumers Inc
rather farcical legislative coal famine
Investigation of last winter threw no
satisfactory light on the subject OF why
coal cost so much IL IS true lnat ~
eral reasons for high prices were pretty
well established, among them being the
Increased railroad and lnustrlal con-
sumption and the lack OF extension OF
mining operations in the Kansas helua.
Could the people be induced to beheVe
it that theory is probably nearer the
correct one than any other someone -
however nrobably responsible for the
fact that more extensions have not been
made and more mines opened. Reports
of geological surveys and of miners
show that Kansas has practically mex
bausfIhIe coal deposits. Could the coal
be mined it would be plentiful and
cheap.
elected vice president of the Mldstate
aseociation the other day but resigned
and has withdrawn from the organiza-
tion for reasons of his own, said about
the coal situation today;
1.-The trouble which has raised the price
Of coal is caused by the fact that there
are fewer mines in operation than there
ned to he The coal business became SO