CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 7 



HAVE WE TOO MANY MINES AND MINERS? 



The problem of the miner and his industry may be stated in an- 

 other way. We consume all the coal we produce. We produce it 

 with labor that upon social and economic grounds works as a rule 

 too few days in the year. We therefore must have a longer miners' 

 year and fewer miners or a longer miners' year and additional 

 markets. One or the other is inevitable unless we are to carry on 

 the industry as a whole as an emergency industry, holding men 

 ready for work when they are not needed in order that they may 

 be ready for duty when the need arises. There are too many mines 

 to keep all the miners employed all of the time or to give them a 

 reasonable year's work. This conclusion is based on the assumption 

 that we now produce only enough coal from all the mines to meet 

 the country's demand, which is the fact. More coal produced would 

 not sell more coal, but more coal demanded would result in greater 

 coal production. With the full demand met by men working two- 

 thirds or less of the time in the year there can not be a longer year 

 given to all the miners without more demand for coal. This seems 

 to be manifest. Therefore the miners must remain working but 

 part time as now, or fewer miners must work more days, or market 

 must be found for more coal and thus all the miners given a longer 

 year. If we worked all of our miners in all of our mines a reason- 

 able year, we would have a great overproduction. And to have 

 all our mines work a longer period means that we must find some 

 place in which to sell more coal, either at home or abroad. 



Why have we so many mines working so many miners? There 

 can be no one- word reply to this question. It penetrates into almost 

 every social and economic condition of the country the initiative 

 of capital, the size of the country, the pride of localities, the intense 

 competition between railroads, their inability to furnish cars when 

 needed, the manner in which cars are apportioned between mines, 

 the manner in which the railroads are operated so that movement is 

 slow and equipment is short, and this runs into the need for new 

 facilities, such as more yards, more tracks, more equipment, which 

 brings us into the need for more capital and so on and on. 



We have none too many mines or too many miners to supply our 

 need if the mines are operated as at present. But we have too many 

 to fill that need if they are operated on a basis nearer to 100 per cent 

 of possible production. 



THE LONG VIEW. 



\ 



Passing from the labor phase of the coal situation to the larger 

 aspect of our coal supply as related to the whole problem of the 

 economical production of light, heat, and power, which Sir William 



