1866. | Our Coal Supply and owr Prosperity. 475 
are taking their place; so that 50 years hence the former will be the 
canal boats of the deep, and he couples this with the circumstance 
that many of our steamers carry sufficient coal on the outward 
voyage to serve them on the homeward one also; or that cheap 
English coal is sent at a low rate to foreign ports to supply our 
sea-going steamers. 
But why did the author, whilst he was looking forward 50 years, 
regard only so much of the probable future of our trade as would 
lead to the inference that our export demand might increase ? 
In America, India, Polynesia, Australia, the coal production is 
being vigorously pushed forward, and the real inquiry is as follows: 
First, is it advantageous to the British steam-owner that he 
should, for the homeward voyages of his steamers, have to send out 
his coal to distant ports, or to carry it to the exclusion of better- 
paying freight? and secondly: Will the present state of things 
long continue ? : 
The first question a child may answer. Excepting im so far as 
we have already shown, as a matter of profitable barter, it is by no 
means to the advantage of the nation nor of shipowners that they 
should have to carry coal; and as for the second inquiry, there is 
not the remotest doubt that before many years are over we shall 
have cheaper supplies of indigenous coal for our sea-going steamers 
at the foreign ports than any that we can provide, even at our present 
rates of freight. People who write and speak on such grave matters 
should not be content to heap together a mass of hypothetical 
statistics, they should descend to the investigation of actual facts 
as well, and their conclusions would be materially modified. 
One of our largest steam-ship companies, trading with several 
American and European ports, consumes annually about 200,000 
tons of coal; a large proportion of this is employed in their trans- 
atlantic steamers, and the necessity for ballast sometimes compels 
them to carry coal out to America, bring it back, and even to 
discharge a portion in England; this is, of course, done at a 
serious loss. But there are times when they are not so pressed 
for freight, and when the reverse is the case, or the English coal 
is rather higher than usual; they then purchase indigenous coal at 
New York or even Halifax, and they estimate roughly that already 
from 10 to 50 thousand tons of such coal, according to cireum- 
stances, finds its way annually into consumption with them, What 
will it be when the immense coal resources of America are developed ? 
and when, on a larger scale, that continent shall have passed 
through what was our “‘ wood age?” 
In a lesser degree the same thing already holds good in the 
east. Borneo abounds in coal; the resources of our Indian and 
Australian colonies are fast developing themselves, and it will be as 
ridiculous to talk of sending coals there, 50 years hence, as it is 
now to speak of sending them to Newcastle. 
VOL. III. 2K 
