The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-10-27
COAL IN THE SOUTH
OPERATORS CONFRONTED
 SHORTAGE or LABOR.
Number of Raslroaa Cars Available for { the Mines is Reduced by the
 Opening of New - 8hafts.

Baltimore, Oct. 26.--fSpecfa1. )--Inter- dependence of the many factors in Ainerican progress Is phasized in q discussion in this weeks issue of The Manufacturers' Record by leading op- orators in the South of conditions sur rounding the mining, transportation and marketing of coal.
 Few of them report a satisfactory situation. in spite of the fact that the markets for Southern coal. especially in the South and at points beyond the Ohio, in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, Is growing more rapidly than the out put may reach the markets in some cases and in others than the actual production. Some operators are con- fronted by shortage of efficient labor. some by a shortage of transportation facilities. and some by a Shortage in both particulars.
 It is pointed out that. the coal bust ness doubles in every ten years. and that its present increase Is greater than the ability of the railroads to meet its demands Requirements for coal for consumption have gone be- yond the point where the transporta- tion companies may make deliveries. so that, even if all the operators could get the cars for filling their orders, the railroads could not handle the out put. One large corporation has avail : able a car tonnage only about 50 per cent. of what It's orders and equipment would Justify for the next four years. Others. like some railroad managers, have been caught short of facilities for meeting orders because they hardly dreamed of the rapid advancement which the country has made in the past few years.
 Tn some instances the very effort of the railroads to meet new conditions have contributed to the acuteness of the situation. and ths building of railroads Into new coal fields has tended to reduce the number of cars available for the mines as a whole. Extensive Improvements have been made in trackage and ter minal facilities and there have been additions to equipment, but still the enormous increase in general business has taken up a large proportion of the added facilities and, where there is sufficient trackage. there is either ir- regularity in the supply of cars or per- sistent shortage in the number of them. or cars full of coal or coke are congested at various centers because of q lack of motive power.
 Then. too. in spite of the efforts of the railroads to overcome the diffcul- ties in the mining field. in which some of them have been fairly successful, they are hampered by the unreasonable time occupied by dealers in unloading the cars. seventy-two hours often be- ing lost in this way wflSh twenty-feur hours should suffice. Even where the scarcity of cars. incidentally due to active fall business in many lines might have been ordinarily overcome financial conditions in the money cen- ters of the country have forced the transportation companies to curtaiI or ders for equipment and more serious inconveniences from lack of transpor- tation are likely to follow unless there should be a decline in industry gen. orally reducing the demand for fuel.
 Tn sections where the mines have to be worked by native labor, railroad construction for the development of the coal fields has temporarily reduced the workings of the mines, for the supply of labor Is not large enough both to mine coal and to help increase the fa- cilities for hauling the coal from the mines. But good miners, too, are very scarce. and there seems to be an fn- ciination on the part of many who are working to be improvident, to develop unreliability and to waste time going from mine to mine looking for snap jobs and quitting other jobs before they have been finished. Higher wages do not seem to better the sit- uation. inasmuch as the miners make so much money that they will not work full time.
 Existing embarrasshents are indi- cated by the urging on the one hand of the bringing in of Hungarian and Italian miners who want to work every day and to save money, so as to com- pei native white and colored miners to get up and hustle. one operator even suggesting a revision of the laws so as to permit the importation direct from Europe of contract labor, while in another field. where the labor is largely foreign, great deal of time is lost about payday by the men ca rousing for week or ten days and also>hy their celebration of many Mol- Idays.