THE LIMITS OF OUR COAL SUPPLY. 221 



microscopic in" the other ? Why are nearly all Englishmen and Eng- 

 lishwomen as inconsistent as the vicar in this respect ? 



There are doubtless several combining reasons for this, but I sus- 

 pect that the principal one is the profound impression which we 

 have inherited from the experience and traditions of the horrors of 

 bread-famine. A score of proverbs express the important practical 

 truth that we rarely appreciate any of our customary blessings until 

 we have tasted the misery of losing them. Englishmen have tasted 

 the consequences of approximate exhaustion of the national grain 

 store, but have never been near to the exhaustion of the national 

 supply of coal. 



I therefore maintain most seriously that we need a severe coal fam- 

 ine, and if all the colliers of the United Kingdom were to combine 

 for a simultaneous winter strike of about three or six months' dura- 

 tion, they might justly be regarded as unconscious patriotic martyi s, 

 like soldiers slain upon a battle-field. The evils of such a thorough 

 famine would be very sharp, and proportionally beneficent, but only 

 temporary , there would not be time enough for manufacturing rivals 

 to sink pits, and at once erect competing iron-works ; but the whole 

 world would partake of our calamity, and the attention of all mankind 

 would be aroTised to the sinfulness of wasting coal. Six months of 

 compulsory wood and peat fuel, with total stoppage of iron supplies, 

 would convince the people of these islands that waste of coal is even 

 more sinful than waste of bread would lead us to reflect on the fact 

 that our stock of coal is a definite and limited quantity that was 

 placed in the present storehouse long before human beings came 

 upon the earth ; that every ton of coal that is wasted is lost forever, 

 and cannot be replaced by any human effort, while bread is a pro- 

 duct of human industry, and its waste may be replaced l>y additional 

 human labor ; that the sin of bread-wasting does admit of agricultural 

 atonement, while there is no form of practical repentance that can 

 positively and directly replace a hundredweight of wasted coal. 



Nothing short of the practical and impressive lesson of bitter want 

 is likely to drive from our households that wretched fetish of British 

 adoration, the open " Englishman's fireside." Keason seems power- 

 less against the superstition of this form of fire-worship. Tell one 

 of the idolaters that his household god is wasteful and extravagant, 

 that five sixths of the heat from his coal goes up the chimney, and he 

 replies, " I don't care if it does ; I can afford to pay for it. I like to 

 see the fire, and have the right to waste what is my own." Tell him 

 that healthful ventilation is impossible while the lower part of a 

 room opens widely into a heated shaft, that forces currents of cold 

 air through doors and window leakages, which unite to form a per- 

 petual chilblain stratum on the floor, and leaves all above the mantel- 

 piece comparatively stagnant. Tell him that no such things as 

 " draughts" should exist in a properly warmed and ventilated house, 

 and that even with a thermometer at zero outside, every part of a 

 well-ordered apartment should be equally habitable, instead of merely 

 a semicircle about the hearth of the fire-worshipper ; he shuts his 

 ears, locks up his understanding, because his grandfather and grand- 

 mother believed that the open-mouthed chimney was the one and 

 only true English means of ventilation. 



But suppose we were to say, " You love a cheerful blaze, can afford 

 to pay for it, and therefore care not how much coal you waste in ob- 



