Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1919-12-15

many thousands of tons "a IN danger
from srs,nts ncous combustion. That IL, il.
may take fire from the brat which il
generated by oxidation And again, stor-
ing coal at the mines means handling IL
twice instead OF once, as Is done II the
coal IL put dir,rtly into the cars. This
means an extra cost TO be parsed on to the
consumer. And he il bearing enough extra
costs nowt
II aIso means that the coal will be
broken riu. and will thus decrease in value.
Conl loses value from thiy ca1sc etery
time it is handled.
t, The logical piace TO store the coal,
therefore. IL in the bin OF the consumer,
and not at the mine. The small supply
used by the domestic consumer Cncsnlng
you and Il is in no danger from spoutan-
eous combustion, and the amounts needed
hy the average factory arc not m stGn
danger either Il properly stored Therefore,
the consumer shouid buy his coal IN the
spring and GUNNER as much aS possible
and store it,
During the war we were all urged To do
this on the grounds Of patriotism But We
had already done 10 much on grounds OF
patriotism that We did not heed the appeal
to any great extern: Now Director Man
ward with more practicable suggestion.
He suggests that the coal be made cheaper
10 the consumer ia the summer than IN
the winter. Here Is method we can all
appreciate.
Owing to the laws passed by Congress
against price-hxing Agreements, tho OPP
orators of coal mines cannot egrec to set q
lower price in the warm weather But
Director Manning makes the interesting
suggestion that the same result would bc
attained Il the government would work
out a sliding scale Of transportation Charg-
es for the carrying Of coal by the rail
roads and boats, which would make coal
cheaper i'm the summer. 1t Is easy 20 see
how this would work without going into
details Coal perhaps would be hauled
most cheaply in July, because there is
then less demand for it. BY buying your
cos4 in July you might save dollar ton.
In January il would be most expensive.
The January price would be enough above
the July price to make up for the loss BY
VARYING the scale Of transportation ch8rg-
es, the production of coal could, theorpti-
cally and, it would seeu, practically, r.
controlled almost At Will.
There ara several other way IN which
the production of coal could he regulated
Ono Of the best ways would bc to have
power plants az the mines, and 70 70 con-
vert the coal Immediately into heat and
power, which are much cheaper 70 carry
than coal This would be the logical way
but il is of course not way that ran be
put into effect on short notice.
Another gay, also pointed out BY Direct
or Manning. and Of immediate value, Is
the expectation Of more coal. Europe
needs our coal. In Italy they are burning
olive trees for lark of coal. Formerly
Great Britain dominated the coal *
port market, but she has nov lost this
dominance and is producing little more
coal than she needs herself.
We are not exporting nearly As much
coal as we could export Here again,
organized intelligent effort IS al that is
lacking. Mr.. Manning suggests that the
coal operators should form an export
association under the Webb-Pomerene
law They could easily find an export
market which would kcap mines and MN
ers busy during the dull season, when
the domestic market viii not take up the
product.
Investigation shows that we have really
only made clumsy beginning m the pro
duntion Of power and the use Of our fuel
resources Water power can and viii take
the pIare Of much coal Drect conversion
Of sun heat into energy could take the
place Of the rest. Coal would then be used
chiefly for its chemical content, and this
would be highly manufactured IN this
country and sold in foreign markets.
Industry, IN this as in almost aIl other
respects, lags sharneiully behind science.
Industry is like clumsy and ignorant
child playing with the wonderful toys
that science has put IN us hands.