Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-12-16
J.. s. NEEDS FEWER
SOFT COAL MINES.
COMMISSION HOLDS
Federal Fact Finding Body
Says There Are too Many Min
ers; Production Excessive.
(Tribune's Washington Bureau)

fInuH6 washington OuToduJ
Washington, Dec. 15.-The United
pointed by President Harding to study
coal production and consumption with
a view of bringing down coal prices,
declares that the country needs more
use for coal md less mines.
TOO many soft coal mines and too
many Miners states the commission,
sis the cause of the trouble in the coal
mines of the United States. More
capital is invested and more miners
are employed than are needed to pro-
luce the coal the country requires.
This condition, of course, involves
waste on a country wide scale
The commission refuses to state at
this time how the initiation of the
coal industry is. but they say prellm-
mary studies show it to be excessive.
Estimates of the excess mine ca
pacity range from 80 to fully 90 per
mand which for the last five years
has averaged about 51G.0O0.0O0 tons
a year. Figured on the basis OF their
actual output for the best week i'll
1893. rhe cauat:ty Of the set coal
mines vas thea .::S5. 0CotN tons.
"Since 1918, unfortunately, the min
capacity has been further enlarged
and another estimate of it can be made
from the average daily output of last
wear. Three hundred days work ut
that rate would have resulted in S40.-
DOC, 600 tons being mined. or fully 80
per cent more than the normal needs
Of the country. And furthermore the
ratings of mine capacity reported to
the railroads for he purpose of OBJ
taining ears would. indicate that the
bituminous mines of the country have
a total annual capacity of not far from
a billion tons. instead of the half
billion tons needed"
Held as WastefuI
The commission feels, therefore,
that the country needs not more coal
mines but more work for the coal
mines now operated.
One potent reason that coal is not.
cheaper to the consumer is that he is
supporting a vast surplus OF invest
ment and capacity. The large excess
capacity can not for long lower the
price of coal, however, simply because
that condition of things is wasteful,
is was said.
About half the freight loaded in the
railroads., according to an estimate
made by q well informed man expe-
rienced in both mining and transporta-
ton. is contributed by the coal mines.
This portion is coal loaded at the
mines and coke loaded at the ovens.
both consigned to consumers all over
the country, and coal loaded for the
railroads themselves. as well as arti-
cles of mine equipment and supplies
loaded at industrial centers more or
less distant from the coal mines.
Even though this figure may later
be shown, on fuller presentation of the
facts. to be somewhat high, the big
outstanding truth is that the coal
mines and the railroads are co-part-
ners on Il large scale in the business
of the country. The co-partnership,
based on mutual interest-the rail
roads being the largest purchaser of
coal and the mines being the largest
customer of the railroads,-gave spe-
cial significance TO a conference held
recently between a representative COM
mittee of the American Railway asso-
citation and the United States coal
commission .
Public Can Help
The railroad men present al that
conference showed their desire to CO.
operate in the work of fact finding
by suggesting subjects OF which they
could contrive statistical facts. The
perennial topic of car shortage is only
the introduction to the large questions
what investment in railroad equip
ment is justified to meet the demands
OF an overdeveloped mining industry:
What can the public afford to pay to
accommodate its own seasonal demand
for coal? The operating officials Of
the railroads can also point to the eff
fects of seasonal movement of coal
and other commodities on the cost Of
operation of their roads.
The coal operators are themselves
not unmindful of the peak demand for
transportation arising in part from
the seasonal demand for coal. One
large mining corporation III the middle
west has several times made its nnual
appeal to it's customers for early pur-
chase Of coal in the form Of a full
page reproduction of a photograph
of two huge locomotives snowbound
on the track with q simple legend,
Lest you forget 1917-1S."
Such a reminder is pertinent every
wear, for the greater part of the Amer
lean public either forgets or has never
learned the ~obvious connection be-
tween snow clogged freight yards and
delayed coal until the very time when
coal is most needed. How much of
this seasonal burden on the railroads
can economically be avoided is one of
the questions the American Railway
association can help President Har-
ding's coal commission to answer.
Possibly the consuming public can
itself also help in lowering the cost
both OF hauling coal and Of mining it.