358 Limits of our Coal Supply. [July, 



The question then resolves itself to this. Is any source 

 of supply likely to intervene that will prevent the value of 

 coal from rising sufficiently to cover the cost of working the 

 coal seams of 4000 feet and greater depth ? Without enter- 

 ing upon the question of peat and wood fuel, both of which 

 will for some uses undoubtedly come into competition with 

 British coal as it rises in value, I believe that there are 

 sound reasons for concluding that our London fire-places, 

 and those of other towns situated on the sea coast and the 

 banks of navigable rivers, will be supplied with transatlantic 

 coal long before we reach the Commissioners' limit of 4000 

 feet. The highest prices of last winter, if steadily main- 

 tained, would be sufficient to bring about this important 

 change. Temporary upward jerks of the price of coal has 

 very little immediate effect upon supply, as the surveying, 

 conveying, boring, sinking, and fully opening of a new coal 

 estate is a work of some years. 



The Royal Commissioners estimate that the North- 

 American coal-fields contain an untouched coal area equal 

 to 70 times the whole of ours. Further investigation is 

 likely to increase rather than diminish this estimate. An 

 important portion of this vast source of supply is well 

 situated for shipment, and may be easily worked at little 

 cost. Hitherto, the American coal-fields have been greatly 

 neglected, partly on account of the temptations to agri- 

 cultural occupation which is afforded by the vast area of the 

 American continent, and partly by the barbarous barriers of 

 American politics. Large quantities of capital which, under 

 the social operation of the laws of natural selection, would 

 have been devoted to the unfolding of the vast mineral 

 resources of the United States, are still wastefully invested 

 in the maintenance of protectively nursed and sickly 

 imitations of English manufactures. When the political 

 civilisation of the United States becomes sufficiently 

 advanced to establish a national free-trade policy, this per- 

 verted capital will flow into its natural channels, and the 

 citizens of the States will be supplied with the more highly 

 elaborated industrial products at a cheaper rate than at 

 present, by obtaining them in exchange for their super- 

 abundant raw material from those European countries 

 where population is overflowing the raw material supplies. 

 When this time arrives, and it may come with the 

 characteristic suddenness of American changes, the question 

 of American versus English coal in the English markets will 

 reduce itself to one of horizontal versus vertical difficulties. 

 If at some future period the average depth of the Newcastle 



