460 Our Coal Supply and our Prosperity. [ Oct., 
convenient lever to enable him to introduce a measure haying the 
object proposed ; for whilst the less scientifically-informed members 
of the Lower House were compelled to look on with astonishment, 
and dared not open their lips in the presence of so inexorable a 
schoolmaster as Mr. Gladstone, the initiated smiled, and allowed 
the effort to be made to diminish the national indebtedness—a very 
wise course on the part of both sections of the House. 
It is right, however, that we should, en passant, remind our 
readers that not alone is the credit of having awed the House of 
Commons due to Mr. Jevons, but that they will find in the penul- 
timate chapter of his work the suggestion thrown out that the 
effect of the rapidly decreasing coal-supply should be counteracted 
by the reduction of the National Debt. 
No sooner, however, was the financial measure brought in, than 
other gentlemen in the House of Commons, practically acquainted 
with the question, called upon the late Government to appoint a 
Commission of Inquiry; and shortly after the subject was intro- 
duced by Mr. Mill, such a Commission was nominated, which ig at 
present prosecuting its labours. 
It is, of course, well known to our readers that the change of 
ministry brought also a changed financial policy. Mr. Disraeli with- 
drew the measure which was intended as the commencement of a new 
account in our national ledger, and all we have left now is the ery 
of dwindling coal resources and a Royal Commission of Inquiry. 
No doubt these gentlemen will in due time present a Report 
to Her Majesty, which will be full of valuable information and 
suggestions; but as we apprehend that all the data for arriving at 
a sound conclusion (or as we shall presently seek to show, for not 
being able to arrive at a positive conclusion,) are as ripe now as 
they will be when a Report is issued, we shall venture to lay 
before our readers the best information at our command, and such 
views as we trust will at least have the effect of calming appre- 
‘hensions that might otherwise be kept alive until the Report of the 
Commission is presented and published.’ 
And let us first state, with regard to Mr. Jevons’s book, which 
has created such a hubbub, and in which, a long year after its 
publication, our legislators and critics have discovered so much 
profound wisdom, that it presents evidence of honest care and 
perseverance ; contains a great number of valuable facts intermingled 
with conscientious but erroneous opinions; and that whilst many 
of the generalities uttered by the author are undoubted truths, 
which might have been deduced with equal if not greater justice 
from facts totally unconnected with “the Coal Question,” it un- 
fortunately attributes the decline which the author apprehends, as 
it temporarily props up the supremacy of our people, upon an 
unstable materialistic support which really has very little to do 
