POWEK. 215 



suming public.^ The need for advance was also not generally appre- 

 ciated, inasmuch as there was plenty of fuel, transportation diffi- 

 culties had not loomed up, coal products could be purchased from 

 Germany, nitrate could be imported from Chile, and, in general, the 

 whole matter of coal was taken for granted. 



Hence industry had no particular incentive for entering into a 

 new field which, while large, was intangible; moreover industry 

 under the old order, faced decided limitations in its recognized ina- 

 bility to construct a proportionated demand for the whole range of 

 prospective products. On the other hand, the public, which was 

 actually paying the cost of the inadequacy, but under a disguised 

 heading, did not see its concern in the matter, nor was public inter- 

 est represented by machinery charged with acting on popular behalf; 

 public utilities commissions, the nearest approach to such machinery' 

 were notoriously weak and shallow; the Federal Government, lack- 

 ing the pressure of public opinion, did not take up the issue. So 

 the course of progress was short-circuited, and the tremendous possi- 

 bilities m our unrivaled coal resources remain to-day practically 

 untouched. The industrial progress of this country has been sus- 

 tained by the mining of an ever increasing quantity of coal, until 

 the very bulk of the total has become a critical weakness in this 

 country's industrial life. 



Such is the situation. The utilization of coal is extravagantly 

 wasteful from beginning to end, the wastefulness is a matter of 

 uniform practice not subject to improvement through avenues of 

 individual enterprise, and, contrary to general notions, it is the 

 public at large, not industry itself, which stands the loss from the 

 shortcomings in the situation and which is, therefore, primarily con- 

 cerned in its betterment. 



The public is concerned because it pays the bill rendered by present 

 wastefulness and will reap the gain accruing from any progress 

 toward competency. The net advantage will not merely represent 

 the margin of value now lost, but in addition will include the border 

 of advance added by the multiplication of values over those calcul- 

 able from the standpoint of the present. The total gain can not be 

 expressed in terms of exact figures; indeed, it is in no sense a fixed 

 quantity, but entirely dependent upon the length to which the 

 future carries the matter from its present chaotic stage. But apart 



iln the realm of industry, where wastefulness is a matter of scattering individual 

 practice, the industrial offender pays the direct penalty of loss ; but where wastefulness 

 is a matter of uniform practice and is the rule, the whole burden of loss falls upon the 

 consuming public. Ordinarily, the stimulus of competition works automatically to 

 undermine inadequacy and prevent its permanent establishment in uniformity of practice. 

 But if natural obstacles in the path of industrial enterprise render individual activities 

 powerless to proceed in any other than the wasteful direction, nothing operates to 

 prevent the rule of incompetence from becoming a stabilized convention. 



