i873-J Limits of our Coal Supply. 359 



coal pits becomes 3000 feet greater than those of the pits 

 near the coast of the Atlantic or American lakes, and if the 

 horizontal difficulties of 3000 miles of distance are less 

 than the vertical difficulties of 3000 feet of depth, then coals 

 will be carried from America to Newcastle. They will 

 reach London and the towns on the South Coast be- 

 fore this, that is, when the vertical difficulties at New- 

 castle plus those of horizontal traction from Newcastle to 

 the south, exceed those of eastward traction across the 

 Atlantic. 



As the cost of carriage increases in a far smaller ratio 

 than the open ocean distance, there is good reason for con- 

 cluding that the day when London houses will be warmed 

 by American coal is not very far distant. We, in England, 

 who have outgrown the pernicious folly of "protecting 

 native industry," will heartily welcome so desirable a con- 

 summation. It will render unnecessary any further inquiry 

 into the existence of London "coal rings" or combinations 

 for restricted output among colliers or their employers. If 

 any morbid impediments to the free action of the coal trade 

 do exist, the stimulating and purgative influence of foreign 

 competition will rapidly restore the trade to a healthy 

 condition. 



The effect of such introduction of American coal will not 

 be to perpetually lock up our deep coal nor even to stop our 

 gradual progress towards it. We shall merely proceed 

 downwards at a much slower rate, for in America, as with 

 ourselves, the easily accessible coal will be first worked, 

 and as that becomes exhausted, the deeper, more remote, 

 thinner, and inferior will only remain to be worked at con- 

 tinually increasing cost. When both our own and foreign 

 coal cost more than peat, or wood, or other fuel, then and 

 therefore will coal become quite inaccessible to us, and this 

 will probably be the case long before we are stopped by the 

 physical obstacles of depth, density, or high temperature. 



As this rise of value must of necessity be gradual, and the 

 superseding of British by foreign coal, as well as the final 

 disuse of coal, will gradually converge from the circum- 

 ference towards the centres of supply, from places distant 

 from coal pits to those close around them, we shall have 

 ample warning and opportunity for preparing for the social 

 changes that the loss of the raw material will enforce. 



The above-quoted writer, in the " Edinburgh Review," 

 expresses in strong and unqualified terms an idea that is very 

 prevalent in England and abroad : he says that " The course of 

 manufacturing supremacy of wealth and of power is 



