The Washington herald., 1922-01-05
Seeking Basic Cost Causes.

IN CASTING about for causes for high prices
i of many commodities, all prone to hur
the blame at the biggest thing If meats
are high, we cry out against the packer; if paper
still scars, attack the decreasing pulp magnate
But the thing is generally involved than
that witness the finding of the New York
Herald regarding the cost of coal per ton to the
consumer. Wage increases and sustained wages
finds the Herald have lot to do with is Labor
leaders in the anthracite industry, this paper re-
minds US, declare that pay increase of 20 per
cent will be demanded for the new wage scale
year beginning with April They say that while
some contract miners make $3.50 and more a
day the general workers range from a minimum
of S4.2o day to $3.50 day, and that they cannot
live on their earnings.
THE operators say that it is not unusual for
contract miners to $500 month or more.
The average earnings of 43o contract miners at
twenty-five operations show a monthly average of
sos. Common unskilled labor in and around
the mines, the operators further say, gets 52X
cents an hour, as against IS TO IS cents an hour
for similar labor in other industries in the same
locality.
"The labor leaders say that the price of coal
in the anthracite fields advanced 76 per cent from
1912 to 1921 while the wage rate of anthracite
contract miners, the largest group of the various
occupations in the industry, advanced $3.50 per
cent.
"The operators, the other hand say that
the increase in the hourly wage rate from 1916
to 1921 was II4.5 per cent, and the increase over
1912 was much than that.
But however the mine wage and the mine
coal price increases compare, what concerns the
consumer IS the price of coal that has landed OH
him. He knows that in this community coal for
VIII he g. md deI;1 IN the
cellar not so many years ago, now costs him
$I4 and SIS ton. He demands that the price
of his coal come downtown not by cents, but
by dollars a ton. And it must come down.
"If. however, the reports of the Federal Trade
Commission accurate, and there is no reason
to doubt they arc, the margin on which the an
thracitc operators had to depend for their profit,
interest selling expense, Federal taxes, ETC.. from
1913 to 1913, was only AZ and $40 of cent ton.
If the operating figures of the mine owners are
correct their average margin in the anthracite
region does not now exceed 90 cents ton. Many
of them do not have nearly as much as that left
over after paying the cost of getting out the coal
when the price to the New York consumer
ought to come down by dollars rather than cents
ton it is perfectly obvious that reduction which
ought to be expressed in dollars cannot come out
of the operators margin of 20 cents or less a
ton? Out OF what must it come then? Clearly
out of the cost items which have forced the cor
sumers price up the dollars, the many dollars, a
ton This partly the actual railroad Transports
ton cost, which has nearly doubled and this cost
is chiefly labor. 1t is partly the actual local de-
livery cost, which has more than doubled and this
is chiefly labor. 1t is partly the actual mining
cost, which has more than doubled and this cost
is chiefly labor.
THE prices of coal to the consumer can come
down to any worth while extent only by getting
down the actual cost of mining, shipping and
handling the coal
Get the coal prices DOWN.