STATISTICS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. 455 



tions, the relative importance of the English coal mines has become less, and the 

 political economists of England were justified in busying themselves with this coal 

 question after Professor Jevons had raised his cry of alarm.* There is no fear, 

 of course, of the stores of coal becoming altogether exhausted, for down to a depth 

 of 4,000 feet they are estimated to amount to no less than 146 milliards of tons. 

 That which causes apprehension is the proximate exhaustion of those coal seams 

 which lie nearest to the surface, for the cost of raising the coal increases with the 

 depth to which the miner has to descend in search of it, and the working of the 

 mines may in the end prove unremunerative. Several of the coal basins — as, for 

 instance, that of Coalbrookdale — have already been partially abandoned ; others, 

 including that of South Staffordshire, will probably be worked out by the end of 

 the nineteenth century. In the meantime other countries whose coal basins are 

 superior in extent to those of the British Islands might come to the front, and 

 deprive England of her pre-eminence as a coal-producing countr3'.t The coal- 

 mine owners are very largely dependent upon manufacturers for their prosperity, 

 for the crises which disturb the industrial world always exercise an influence 

 upon the cost of the fuel consumed in the factories. Hence, notwithstanding 

 the quantity of coal raised or exported exhibits an increase, the money 

 paid for it may have been less, and such has virtually been the case of late. 

 France for many years to come will no doubt remain England's best customer for 

 coal, owing to the irregular distribution of her stores of fuel ; but other markets 

 may be shut through a slight displacement of the balance of trade. The coal 

 trade is, moreover, one of those which suifers most from strikes, and is attended 

 with the greatest risk to human life. The precautions now taken to prevent 

 accidents are no doubt greater than formerly, but nevertheless of the thousand 

 miners who are annually killed in the underground galleries of England and 

 Scotland, the vast majority perish in coal mines. 



Of the coal raised about one-sixth is used for domestic purposes ; a third is 

 employed to feed the engines of factories, steamboats, and railways ; and over one- 

 fourth is consumed in the manufacture of iron. Most of the iron ore occurs in the 

 neighbourhood of the coal beds, and this is a capital advantage. The iron industry 

 of England is of paramount importance, for it supplies about one-half of the cast 

 iron employed throughout the civilised world. + It has often been said that the 

 consumption of iron affords a true gauge by which to measure the prosperity of a 

 country, and there is a great deal of truth in this. Up to 1740 the iron manu- 

 facturers of England only made use of charcoal in their smelting works ; but after the 

 first successful experiments had been made with mineral coal, charcoal gradually 

 became disused, and by 1796 had been almost completely abandoned. Since then 



* Jevons, "The Coal Question," 1866. 



t Principal coal basins of the world, according to Neumann-Spallart : — 



