DOMESTIC FUEL. 23 



of apprehension for the future.* Scattered and unorganized, most 

 of the individual companies are small and financially weak; no 

 adequate cooperation in engineering practice exists; new develop- 

 ments are slow of growth; coal is mined for the most part by obso- 

 lescent, long established practice. With no methods of storage 

 developed, the average mine can mine coal only when railroad cars 

 stand ready to receive it; a fluctuating demand, accentuated by 

 seasonal variations, leads to instability of operations; many mines 

 in normal times must close down in slack periods, with destruc- 

 tive effect upon the conditions and supply of labor. For years the 

 price of coal at the mine ranged from $1 to $1.15 a ton, a figure 

 so low that only the best and most easily obtainable coal could be 

 extracted by the cheapest methods of mining, irrespective of the 

 waste involved; the tonnage of thin-seam and high-cost areas 

 sacrificed in the process amounts to more than haK the total coal 

 produced to date. Many districts have been burdened with a 

 leasing system that obligated the company to remove a given tonnage 

 each year, irrespective of market demand or price, with the result 

 that the richest spots were drawn from seam after seam with irre- 

 trievable loss to present needs. Miners' unions in general have fixed 

 wages on the basis of thick and easily worked seams, and imposed 

 such severe penalties upon inferior conditions that the operator is 

 precluded from introducing new and improved methods. Upon 

 all this, the policy of the Government, as exemplified in its anti- 

 trust laws, has forbidden combinations and restrained cooperation, 

 with the result that large-scale, standardized operations, a paramount 

 and distinctive American achievement, is practically lacking in 

 the mining of coal. 



These conditions are particularly objectionable because they 

 concern a product of fundamental importance. As compared with 

 the iron industry or the copper industry, the coal industry appears 

 in an unfavorable light in production efficiency. The difference is 

 not to be attributed otherwise than to the competitive system of 

 small-unit mining, which has prevailed for coal in this country and 

 indeed been perpetuated, against a natural tendency otherwise, by 

 a public policy hostile to combination.^ 



1 " For several years prior to 1916 it was a matter of general knowledge that the bituminous coal industry 

 in the United States was in an unsound condition. In this basic industry, so necessary to the industrial 

 life of the country, conditions had developed so that it was demoralized financially, wasteful methods of 

 mining resulted in the permanent loss of millions of tons of coal that could have been saved otherwise, the 

 existing mines through lack of demand were kept idle from one-fourth to one-third of the working time, 

 with consequent hardship to labor." Letter from Federal Trade Commission on Anthracite and Bitumi- 

 nous Coal, S. Doc. No. 50, 65th Cong., 1st sess., Washington, 1917, p. 43. 



* The individual coal producer can not he held responsible. In any attempt to recover more coal; that is, 

 to make real progress in coal mining, he faced the opposition of the miners' unions, of governmental re- 

 strictions, and of probably financial loss. The three formed usually an unsuperable obstacle, although a 

 considerable advance was attained in many creditable instances. If European coal mining conditions 

 were impeded as the industry is in the United States, the industrial activities of Europe would come to a 

 stand-still, if the continent would not actually starve to death. 



