616 REPORT— 1808. 



boiler, economisers for using highly-heated water for boilers, increased 

 outputs from existing mines, reducing the cost of the staff and appliances, 

 improved methods of underground working, better realisation of the by- 

 products from the coke, improved ventilation and precautions for dust 

 laying, reducing the number and risks of explosions ; and in some districts, 

 such as South Wales, material reductions in railway carriage have as the 

 result of competition been achieved within that period. 



So that to summarise the position of the cost of working, whilst con- 

 siderable economy has been achie^•ed in some directions, natural, physical 

 and other difficulties have increased the cost of working coal in Great 

 Britain. 



So far, however, as the Western Hemisphere is concerned, similar 

 conditions will probably more or less apply to the German coalfield, and 

 elsewhere in Europe — i.e. the costs of production in these countries will 

 have a tendency also to increase slowly. 



In the case of Germany, our main European competitor, the railway 

 and canal rates for minerals are, per ton per mile, the writer believes, 

 already much below the rates prevailing in this country, and therefore 

 there is not the margin for future reductions in these rates which ought to 

 exist in Great Britain, where the railways are not as yet the property of 

 the State. And in regard to our competition with European coalfields, 

 taking Germany as possessing probably the largest and most accessible 

 coalfield, the conditions of greater depths and higher costs will be likely to 

 either immediately follow or precede the operation of the same causes in 

 Great Britain ; but the competition we have to fear in the Western 

 Hemisphere is that of the United States of America. 



There coalfields exist of enormous extent, twenty times the original 

 areas of our coalfields, and already the cost of producing coal in America 

 is below the cost of raising coal in Great Britain. The annual production 

 in the States is proceeding by leaps and bounds. 



In 1883 it was 102,868,000 tons ; in 1890 it was 140,883,000 tons ; 

 and in 1896 it was 171,416,000 tons. 



Mr. Courtney contends that lesser cost of production in America will 

 be permanently operative, and the difference in favour of that country is 

 likely to increase. Probably this is so, in some degree, but the immediate 

 cause of the difference in favour of the States as against Great Britain is 

 due chiefly, the writer suggests, to the enormous extent of the American 

 coalfields, making it practicable to work very large annual quantities from 

 those areas near the outcrop by free drainage levels, without pumping or 

 winding ; in fact the States as regards their facilities for raising coal 

 cheaply are much in the position Great Britain was fifty to sixty years 

 ago. 



If the coal output of the United States continues to increase in the 

 present ratio, the time will arrive, no doubt, when shafts must be sunk to 

 considerable depths and pumping and winding resorted to, thereby 

 increasing the average cost, and bringing the natural conditions in that 

 country more in line with those which prevail in this country. 



The enormous extent of outcrop coal in the American fields will, 

 however, enable that nation to maintain probably for many centuries a 

 comparatively low cost of working. 



The States coalfields moreover, although generally distant from the 

 Atlantic seaboard, by reason of the cheaper capital cost of the American 

 railways and better application of the rolling stock for mineral traffic. 



