The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1918-01-04
PLENTY OF COAL
AND PLENTY OF MINERS
Great Problem to Be Solved Is to Get
IL whore II In Needed When
IL Is Needed.

In a statement which the Virginia
council OF defense has just received.
some very startling facts In regard to
the coal situation In the United States
are made known.
The United States produced in 1917
something like s75,o00,000 tons Of
coal This is 10 per cent gain over
1915, and a Is per cent gain over
1918.
The coal shortage is a problem OF
transportation. There is always plen-
ty of coal-~400 times as much of it
under these United States right now
as we and our ancestors have dug out
in the last 100 years. And there are
coal miners enough, 900 mines and
100000 miners. Even in the unprece-
denied year of 1915, the productive
capacity OF the mines was 100 million
tons above the actual production. In
9l6. good year, the $500 soft coal
mines Of the country worked only 200
suli days instead Of 800, and produced
two-thirds az much coal as they
might have produced.
The difficulty is to get the coal to
the right place The solution of this
difficulty is what the consumer is prin-
cipaliy paying for when he buys his
winter coal. Half of his coal bill goes
for railroad transportation and for
hauling through city streets.
II is the moving Of coal. not the
mining OF 1t. that gives the big new
fuel administration officers most II
their work to do. Distribution is the
thing. The state administrators con-
Germ themselves, directly, with nothing
else. Production ia left for the Wash
ington Office to handle. But the
Washington once. too, Ia mainly oc-
cupied with getting coal from one
PROFESSIONALLY n siding in a railroad
yard--to anothtr point--say the fur
naces OF hospital, or the bunkers
of scout cruiser or the coal box Of
one of the hundred neediest cases. II
the i'll and the needy should be made
ITO suffer, or the scout cruiser should
make only twenty-five knots when
thirty knots would mean many lives
saved. or II anything goes wrong any
where with heating plant or engine,
a suggestion Ia likely to reach the fuel
administration that II do something
imm ediately--and preferably 10 the
railroads, There has been sufficient
congestion at railroad terminals to
lend some color to the frequent
charges that the railroads are respon-
sible for the coal shortage, But the
real cause OF the trouble goes beyond
the railroads.
'di NhOtN SeSLsIt VI NVAt pi bbdH-
ton and distribution is wsstetui, It
is wastefuI. for instance, for the Me-
braska farmer to ship coal from West
Virginia I'm place of buying the smok-
Ter and dustier that Kansas produces.
Our national use Of fuel is eXtrava
giant. II is wastefuI. not so much Of
resources as OF nire labor, and es-
pecially Of ton-miles of transporta
tion. But the coal industry IL funda-
mental. Railroads and manufacturers
have shaped themselves to the exist
ing state of the industry. To make
any radical changes in the coal trade
would be to throw the machinery out
of gear. Hence the fuel administra-
ton concerns itself not with opening
new channels for the coal trade, but
with keeping old channels stratched
wide open. In most cases when the
results II obtains fall short of perfec-
ton, it is idle to try to pin the blame
down TO the fuel administration, or
10 the railroads, or TO any other single
element In the situation. That the
fuel administration Ia coping with the
problem successfully is shown In these
facts: That the navy and the trans
ports have been getting all the coal
they need and of the best quality:
that the cantonnents and muuition
factories are kept welt supplied. and
that the railroads in this time Of the
worlds great need are carrying much
the greatest trafTic OF their history.