8 



to the existence of Coal in this country, and to the present 

 position and future prospects of the supply. 



It has been truly said that the existence in these islands 

 of coal, coupled with iron, has been the mainspring of the 

 prosperity of Great Britain, but we have scarcely realised 

 how necessary the supply of coal is to us individually, until 

 our attention has been sharply called to the fact by the 

 sudden and relatively enormous rise in the price of coal some 

 few months since. It makes a sensible difference to the 

 householder whether he has to stock his coal cellar at 23s. 

 or at 82s. a ton, or whether he has to pay, as in this neigh- 

 bourhood, 2s. Id. or 2s. 8d. per 1,000 feet for his gas. But 

 these difficulties sink into insignificance when we come to 

 consider the increase of cost to the great consumers of coal 

 — e.g., the railway companies— to them the cost of coal at 

 the pit's mouth has, within the last few months, almost 

 doubled, and in the recent half-yearly reports of twenty of 

 .the principal railway companies of the kingdom it is stated 

 that the increase of cost for coal during the past half-year 

 has aggregated £1,003,000. 



Hence the individual consumer of coal has not only to 

 face the considerable rise in the price of the coal he uses, 

 but if he has invested his money in railway, gas, steamship, 

 or other companies dependent largely upon the use of coal, 

 he will find his dividends sensibly reduced. 



It would not fall within the province of this Society to 

 enter into the field of the political economist and discuss the 

 economical reasons for the sudden and relatively enormous 

 increase in the price of coal — whether due to the necessary 

 laws of supply and demand, accentuated by the transport 

 requirements caused by the war, to the strikes and require- 

 ments of the miners, to the appreciation of gold and the like, 

 or to speculate on the prospects of a fall in price — we may, 

 however, take comfort in the opinion of an expert in the 

 matter who is known to, and appreciated by all the gas 

 consumers in the south of London. I refer to the able 

 Chairman of the South Metropolitan Gas Company, who 

 holds that the present high price of coal will not continue 

 indefinitely, and who has backed his opinion by making only 

 temporary contracts for the purchase of coal at present 

 prices with the view of renewing them later on at more 

 favourable figures. 



