The Caledonian-record. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1920-current, 1922-08-21
HARD COAL
SHORTAGE OF
Is MILLION TONS
Expert Says Situation
More Serious Than Pub
lie Dreams Possible

r, M. Bryon editor of the Black
: Diamond, has contributed the fol-
lowing timely article to the Maya
zine of Wall street on the coal
situation.
The present coal shortage is due
to the strike of the union miners,
which began April l. Up to the
moment, industries and home have
been kept going due to the opera
ton of many non-union manned
mines, and by the use of surplus
coal that had been stored prior to
the stoppage of the union mines.
Today surplus stocks are pretty
we'll dissipated and headwav that
was being made IN increasing non
union production has been serious
ly retarded by the railway strikes.
The country mines normally.
450,000,000 to 100000, 900 tons of
bituminous and 90,000,000 tons of
anthracite yearly. Shut off btu
minous production 6 per cent and
anthracite production 100 per cent
for four and half months, and
you can visualize the coal situation
today.
"Regulation" is going to begin
by having railroad cars allotted
only to mines that will consign
coal according to orders that some
government agency will give
Moreover, no cars will be allotted
to any operator who chooses to
charge more than what is termed
a fair price, this being fixed in
most of the non-union regions at
! $3.50 per net ton.
| The coal problem in this coun-
try is today much more serious
than the public dreams is possible.
There has been no production of
anthracite since April l, and this
means that about 25,000,000 to 3d.
100000 tons of anthracite coal that
is normally mined and stored in
the spring and summer months is
lost. There are no storage piles in
the producers hands; there are in
most sections only a few weeks,
supply of anthracite in dealers
/ hands. For weeks now, many whole
sale merchants in anthracite have
had nothing to sell.
Thus we enter on September l
on a fall month, when tempera-
lures lower and when homecomers
turn their thoughts TO filling their
cellars with anthracite for the win
ter's requirement.
There is no anthracite for them.
Even if anthracite mining were re-
sumed tomorrow, there is no likeli-
hood that all house holders who
have heretofore used anthracite
exclusively in their homes could be
supplied.
However the oil interests in the
United States have at the present
time, 250,000,000 barrels of oil in
storage. Figuring that it takes four
42-gallon barrels of oil to perform
the same service as a ton of coal
we find in this oil accumulation at
the moment, a substitute for g.
100000 tons of coal, or equivalent
to the estimated surplus of btu
minous in this country when the
miners laid down their tools.
The change of equipment has
Deen Ine principal QeIeffeHJ lndG
has kept many homes and indus
ties from changing over to oil.
Nobody dreamed the Germans
would invade Belgium. Coal men
never dreamed the union would in
wade non-union fields in Pennsyl-
vania and West Virginia that have
always heretofore been adamant
against union distation but they
did.
Notwithstanding all this non
union production had grown from
100000 tons per week, during the
first month of the strike to around
5,350,000 tons per week in June.
If this increase had been maintain
ed up the present time, the miners
union would have been whipped.
But the strike of the railway shop
men turned the tide in favor of the
striking miners.
Both the oal industry and thc
railroad industry lack in general
ship. What is needed, for the coal
industry particularly, is a general
issimo, an industrial Foch. Is
there such a person?