Daily Kennebec journal., 1918-01-30
FOR 4S HOURS
Continued from Page One)

were in communication with James j.
Storrow. New England fuel admins
traitor, who is in Washington, and Sc
cured his approval of the plan as nee
oSSary measure.
Some coal arrived by rail today but
the supply by water which has hither-
TO saved the city from famine has
failed. With coal carriers locked in the
ice or stormbound along the coast and
with the harbor choked with heavy
foes the fuel authorities said no imme-
date relief by water could be expected
War Contracts Included
The order applies to factories with war
contracts as well as to those without
The use Of wood is not prohibited. Most
of the department stores. it is under
stood, ha ;e fuel enough for a few more
dsys.
II conlmittee ordered that coal should
BE distributed only to the following:
The United States for strictly gov
ernmental purposes not including facto-
res or plants working on contracts fos
the United States.
The water and sewerage works serving
Boston and certain other like essential
public utilities.
Public utilities
shipping for bunker purposes
Hospitals and similar institutions tor
the sick and infirm.
plants for the production of refriger.
alton OF food. perishable or for necessary
immediate consumption.
Homes, including dwelling houses ten.
ements, apartments, lodging houses. res
taurants and hotels
The committee forbade the use Of an
thracite of domestic sizes even for es-
sential purposes where bituminous coal
can possibly answer
"Deiveries for the preferred purposes"
the announcement said, should not be
made in greater lots than Is hours sup
ply. or. in the case OF domestic con-
sumers, a weeks supply. No deliveries
should be made to domestic consumers
who have more than a weeks supply on
hand or to no other consumers who have
more than As hours supply on hand
The public should not confuse these
orders with closing orders, the an
nouncement says in conclusion. They co
no directly close anything, They simply
forbid Boston retail dealers to supply
coal for any uses except those mentioned
above They may result in the closing of
some places. hut are not closing orders
as such"
Explanation Of Order
In explanation of its order the commit
tee issued statement in part as follows.
We reached this decision reluctantly
and only after grave consideration We
have on hand only three days suppN
OF bituminous coal and five days supply
of anthracite coal, according to the most
optimistic estimates of dealers THIS is
So slight a margin OF safety that we feit
we could not assume the resporsiaiIItv
OF permitting it to grow smaller wthour
taking this action
Boston is long way from mines 1t
depends upon storage plants for distri-
button of coal If the stock on hand
wholly disappears, Boston's coal sit
uation will be hopeless. In this partic-
ular. Bostons position is radically diff
ferent from that of other large cities of
the country. New York. Philadelphia
Baltimore and Washington. for exam
pie, are nearer to the sources of the
supply. They do not have these stor-
age facilities because they do not re-
quire them. Any shortage OF coal with
them could be quickly met. In Boston .
case. however. if the supply of ceal
were exhausted it might be not onlS
days. but weeks, before it could be 're-
p,enished Meanwhfle. we would not
only encounter intense suffering in o,i''
homes. but court the possibilities of