THE LIMITS OF OUR COAL SUPPLY. 189 



kind above named. Now that the best man for making 

 these experiments is gone, somebody else should undertake 

 them. Unfortunately, they must of necessity be rather 

 expensive. 



THE LIMITS OF OUR COAL SUPPLY.* 



ESTIMATING the actual consumption of coal for home 

 use in Great Britain at" 110 millions of tons per annum, a 

 rise of eight shillings per ton to consumers is equivalent to 

 a tax of 44 millions per annum. These are the figures 

 taken by Sir William Armstrong in his address at New- 

 castle last February. As the recent abnormal rise in the 

 value of coal has amounted to more than this, consumers 

 h'ave been paying at some periods above a million per week 

 as premium on fuel, even after making fair deduction for 

 the rise of price necessarily due to the diminishing value 

 of gold. 



Are we, the consumers of coal, to write off all this as a 

 dead loss, or have we gained any immediate or prospective 

 advantage that may be deducted from the bad side of the 

 account? I suspect that we shall gain sufficient to ulti- > 

 mately balance the loss, and, even after that, to leave some- 

 thing on the profit side. 



The abundance of our fuel has engendered a shameful 

 wastefulness that is curiously blind and inconsistent. As 

 a typical example of this inconsistency, I may mention a 

 characteristic incident. A party of young people were sit- 

 ting at supper in the house of a colliery manager. Among 

 them was the vicar of the parish, a very jovial and genial 

 man, but most earnest withal in his vocation. Jokes and 

 banterings were freely flung across the table, and no one 

 enjoyed the fun more heartily than the vicar; but presently 

 one unwary youth threw a fragment of bread-crust at his 

 opposite neighbor, and thus provoked retaliation. The 

 countenance of the vicar suddenly changed, and in stern 



* Written during the coal famine of 1872-73. 



