1873J Th e C° a l Famine. t^j 



estimate, made on the basis of an arithmetical increase of 

 three millions of tons per annum (the increase of the last 

 fourteen years), would make the consumption at the end of 

 a century amount to 415 millions of tons, and the estimated 

 available quantity would then be only sufficient to last for 

 276 years. Upon both of these calculations, however, the 

 writer has recently had occasion to remark " that they 

 labour under the defect of not taking into account the 

 diminishing rate at which coal must be consumed when it 

 becomes scarcer and more expensive. The abrupt exhaustion 

 of our coal-fields is an impossibility, and if it is to take 

 place at all it can only be by a slow and gradual process, 

 concomitant with a complete — let us hope a higher and 

 nobler — reorganisation of society."* 



Whatever, therefore, may be the ultimate period of ex- 

 haustion, it is clear at least that it is far removed from 

 ourselves, and we must therefore look to other causes than 

 that of failure of supply to account for the present high 

 price and scarcity of mineral fuel. 



These causes, in our view, are twofold. First and chief, 

 want of thrift and intelligence amongst the mining popula- 

 tion ; and secondly, interference with the free action of the 

 law of supply and demand. Owing to the former, the miner 

 has generally little desire to emulate the rest of the world 

 in making money, being satisfied if by working short time 

 he can earn sufficient to pay his way ; and owing to the 

 latter, the supply of coal is restricted in obedience to the 

 authority of a secret tribunal which few working men have 

 the courage to resist. It might, however, be justly said, 

 that the power of such a tribunal over the individual actions 

 of coal-miners, as of other workmen, is a consequence of 

 want of intelligence on the part of the mining population, 

 — so that the ultimate cause of the present state of things 

 is the low state of education, of thrift, and of self-dependence 

 amongst the working classes. Were the ordinary motives 

 for accumulating money, for " bettering one's self," and 

 rising in the world, prevalent amongst pitmen, and were the 

 laws of supply and demand left to have free play in regu- 

 lating quantities and prices, it might be assumed that those 

 artificial combinations amongst workmen on the one hand, 

 and employers on the other, which are bearing so disastrously 

 upon the comfort and prosperity of the community, would 

 be unknown. 



In order more fully to understand the question, let us 



* Coal-Fields of Great Britain, 3rd edit. (1873), p. 454. 



