The sun., 1918-09-15
Marshal Foch's ORA
matte Appeal to Brit
ish. Miners Applies
as Well to Men Here
BY F. CUNLIFFE-OWEN.


Britain, let not u moment he lost To hasten
the hour Of peaGc!'
THIS stirring message, so moving III It's
brief. soldierly eloqueuce, was conveyed
from Marshal Foeh by Premier Clemen-
ceau Ia the meeting Of the Miners Fed
Grafton Of Great Britain, held at South
port, Lancashire, the other day. D..
1t is a message from the wonderful
commander in chief of all the Entente
forces, directed not alone la the miners
of Great Britain, but also To those of the
United States. He appeals To them as
brothers, with a cry from his very heart,
to help him on, to lose not moment IN
fastening the hour Of peace, since coal is
the key of victory.
1t is because coal is the key of victory
that We are called upon 10 have recourse
to every method which American ingenuity
and patriotism can devise to save coal-as
for instance by the suspension Of all brew
ing of beer, and consequently Of its con
sumption; by the abaudonment of railroad
travel for mere pleasure and Of steam
yachting and by the shutting down Of
every industry that is not Indispensable
to our daily existence On the simplest
scale, or to the conduct OF the war.
Our Own Output Much Reduced.
OF course our own production of coal
in the United States, though far below
the normal amount III the piping times
of peace, owing Ia our loss OF alien labor,
is about just enough TO 80 round here,
with the very strictest economy. But by
the beginning of the winter we shall have
ali army of close upon 2,0O0,OO0 Ameri-
can soldier boys IN France and Flanders,
whose bases require TO he kept supplied
with fuel.
All the necessary fuel for the purpose
must he sent from here; or, if furnished
by England, must he replaced at once by
the United States. For the shortage in
Great Britain, according to the latest fig
ures of Sir Guy Calthorp, the Govern
ment Controller of Coal, amounts to no
less than $4,000 900 tons, which, by strict
est rationing of fuel and light, he hopes
to reduce To - 100000.
To the voluntary enlistment of hun
dreds of thousands of experienced miners
in the cumbatant ranks of the British
armies at the front and 10 the insidious
intrigues of professional labor agltators,
working in the interests III Germany,
among the miners who remained at home,
4 a .l,.,l.,., NJ ha
normal yield of the coal fields i'll the
United kingdom.
Very Susceptible to Agitation.
Miners have always been more slscep-
tible than almost any other branch of
labor TO the sophistries of agitators, pos
sibly because of the risky and arduoui
nature of their calling; and although their
wages have attained phenomenal proper
tons, compared with ante-bellum days,
agitators believed to be paid in some in
direct fashion by Germany, and assuredly
playing her game, have never found II
difficult To persuade the. British miners
that the alleged huge profits derived by
the owners of the coal fields from their
toll entitled them to still further increases
of pay, and that they are in position
to enforce their rights" since the war
cannot be carried on without coal.
They saw in the newspapers that coal
was fetching enormous prices in England,
that it was commanding $50 u ton i'll
France, 800 ton and even more III
Spain, and actually $3.50 a ton at eer-
tain moments in Scandinavia, and they.
could not understand why they should not
have their share in the colossal profits
which they foelishly assumed must be de
rived therefrom.
On several occasions the Government
was urged TO deal with their impossible
demands, and with their strike, by means
Of armed force and martial law. But it
always shrank from having recourse to
any such radical measure, approaching
the extent to which the entire Entente