July 23, 1915. THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN 179 RETAIL COAL PRICES. We continue in this and following issues a digest of the evidence given by witnesses heard before the Com- mittee appointed by the Board of Trade to enquire into the causes of the present rise in the retail price of coal sold for domestic use. Rail Transport. Mr. J. M. Eddy, mineral traffic manager to the London and North-Western Bailway, said the railway companies had improved the working, and at least as much or more coal was being brought to London than in normal times, taking last year as a comparison. For three weeks of February they had brought coal to the London depots this year to the extent of 529,976 tons, as against 521,668 tons. For barging purposes, that is, brought to London depots to tip into barge for works on the river, they brought in 69,309 tons, as against 56,042 tons. In addition to that, they carried to the southern lines from the North in 1915, 331,177 tons, as compared with 270,000 tons. That showed an increase for depots in London, the bulk of which was delivered for house- hold coal. A lot of that increase to the South might be making up arrears for the back weeks, and a large quantity would be seaborne coal, which was formerly supplied in Kent from riverside depots, diverted, to rails. He estimated that about 30,000 tons of seaborne coal came to London for household purposes per week in the ordinary way. Bather less than half of that was coming by sea to-day. The wagons they brought into the depots in London were not released owing to labour diffi- culties, and so on — and if they brought more coal the depots would simply become blocked on account of the inability to take the coal away by carts. From informa- tion, the wagons were unloaded three days after the arrival at depots. There were cases where men were short of coal to deliver, but, broadly speaking, so far as their depots were concerned, the merchants had had coals in their wharves which had not been unloaded day. by day. They took particulars of the coal left on hand at their depots on Friday, March 5, and 82 per cent, of that was household coal. Works were getting coal from collieries which they could send on by rail which formerly obtained it from collieries seaborne, but it was difficult to say; a man who formerly supplied those works with seaborne coal to-day went to a man who bought coal from an inland colliery, and it came up in the factor’s name. It was not easy to say whether that factor was supplying coal which formerly was seaborne or not. The supplies would be drawn from a different source. Boughly, about 100,000 tons a month of seaborne coal was coming up from the North to London or to the South for works which formerly were supplied by sea. That was by all the systems. The total railborne coal to London was seven millions, so they had an extra million to put on, and it worked out pretty heavily. Since the war began, their figures for six months from September to February showed a decrease of 41,000 tons. There was one working day less in 1915. In the six months, September to February, for 35 depots of the North-Western they brought up in 1913-14 63,683 wagons, and in 1914-15 they brought up 62,891 wagons. That was an average per depot of 1,819 wagons for 1913-14, and 1,797 wagons for 1914-15. The average per merchant was rather interesting, because in September 1913-14 there were 490 wagons per merchant at their depots, and this year the average was 484, or only six wagons in the six months per merchant less. During February there was a vast improvement. Beferring to the coal merchants’ assertions as to delays on the railways, Mr. Eddy said he sent down to Willesden on March 2, where all their wagons for London arrived, and told them to get out the time they had occupied in transit from the collieries on the following day, from 6 a.m. on March 3 to 6 a.m. on March 4. They had 517 wagons arriving between those hours, and no less than 74 per cent, arrived within one day of the day of despatch, a further 11 per cent, within two days, accounting for 85 per cent, of the wagons. In the case of Charrington, Sells, Dale and Company, at Old Ford, for instance, they had had as many as 30 wagons on the average left over day after day. Witness referred to the abolition of the “wait order’’ sidings. That, he said, did not affect London’s coal supply. “Wait order’’ sidings grew up as the result of factors ordering coal by contract from collieries. They had not sold it, and so they wanted somewhere to send it until they had sold it. So the system grew up of sending coal to “wait order’’ sidings. That coal had to be brought up from the collieries and placed into those sidings, and wait a day or two to be advised, transferred, and shunted out after the railway received the re-labelling orders, and then sent on, and it was a very slow method of dealing with coal. Now, the factor and everybody who owned coal had no diffi- culty in selling it, and getting rid of it. He was, therefore, quite in a position to give the final consignee at the colliery, if he could get coal from the colliery. That being so, it was labelled on direct to its destination, and it got through at least two days quicker than if it went into the “ wait order ’’ sidings. There were stocks of “ wait order ’’ coal when the war broke out. If the factors had coal they could sell it very readily, and, unless they wanted to hold it for higher prices, they could give the ultimate1 destination at once. He agreed that with the abolition of reserves the coal owner might get much more the whip hand. He had had letters from a large number of firms asking them never to put the “ wait order ’’ coal into force again, because the “ wait order ’’ coal enabled a man to buy coal for a rise, although he might get caught on the fall. The colliery owners, he imagined, did not want “ wait order ’’ sidings either, and he had letters from the colliery owners, too, asking for “ wait orders ’’ not to be put on again. The interested bodies were the factors. Summarising the whole situation, witness thought there was a deficit by w’ater of 16,000 tons, and a net deficit of 14,000 tons a week. Apart from that, he thought the short- ness was due to very heavy orders. So far as their collieries were concerned, the coal they carried from their collieries was 12 per cent, down as compared with last year. That was for January this year as compared with last year and part of February. Those were carryings from different areas. On the Cannock Chase there was practically no decrease. If a wragon could get a short journey, and the owner got more trips out of it, naturally he earned more for his wagon, and he would send it to the people where he would earn more in that way. The railway company sup- plied the wagons to the collieries, and had to take out the coal they sent off, but if they sent them very short trips they got less wagon hire per ton. The wagons were not running so fast as they did on the average: there had been delays which the railways could not help. The private owner had had to put up his wagon hire, or had to pay more to hire wagons. That was a small matter on the price at the con- suming point or cost at the pit. From information he had got, one colliery in the Nottinghamshire district said their cost of production was Is. a ton additional, and they had contracted for 80 to 90 per cent, of their output, leaving a very small surplus. Their output had decreased by 20 per cent., and they had decreased their contracts by 20 per cent, owing to that; they had still a small surplus. They said they had been inundated with applications from people they had never sold to before. They said : “We put up the price 5s. to get rid of these applications, but they still came in.’’ They put the price up further, and they were selling the coal to-day at 21s. 9d. which was sold at Ils. 3d. last year; nothing to do with the cost of production, and simply a question of the demand. They did not want the orders. Witness said he knew that private owners’ trucks had waited at collieries to be loaded. He put some wagons in for an important firm specially on. one day because they were running short of coal, and they were five days before they were loaded—20 wagons—for a specific contract. He would not consider Is. an unreasonable additional charge for wagons ; compared with the cost of coal to-day it was rather small, although the actual additional cost to the merchant or the wagon owner owing to the unusual delay in delivery was 100 per cent. It all depended upon what the capital outlay on the wagon was, and the delay. Witness did not see how it would be possible to pool private owners’ wagons. The pooling of railway companies’ wagons would not help >a bit, because the bulk of the coal was dealt with in private owners’ wagons. Beturning to the question of unloading at the depots, Mr. Eddy said there were wharves which the merchants in . London had free of charge, but they were not putting the coal on the^wharves, but waiting and taking it out of wagons, which was cheaper. Witness said there had been difficulty at the collieries for want of wagons—in some areas more than others. As far as he could gather, the stoppages had been intermittent. First of all one colliery, and then another, and so on; but there had been a slight falling off. In answer to questions, witness said the returns of coal brought to London by rail simply included coal brought to London to the depots or to barges—coal for London consump- tion—and not coal which passed through London to the southern counties. The Gas Companies and the Interned Steamers. Mr. D. M. Watson, recalled, gave evidence in regard to the London Coal Advisory Committee. It consisted, he said, as a committee, of six firms and interests, and there was an additional committee who represented a larger group of firms and interests. The small committee was what one might call the executive committee, and the large committee was a consultative committee. The small committee was the only one which really met. It was appointed on January 14. There was a meeting 'held at the Gas Light and Coke Com- pany’s offices, at the suggestion of the Overseas Prize Committee. It suggested that a committee of the London public utility companies should be formed. At that meeting a large number of interests was represented, and the six companies and interests -were elected as a small committee, with the consultative committee, and practically everybody present formed themselves into the consultative committee. There was the Gas Light and Coke Company, the South Metropolitan Company, and Stephenson Clarke and Com- pany, which was a firm of coal merchants. They came in as supplying the public utility companies. The Gas Light and Coke Company bought direct, and the South Metro- politan and also the Commercial, to a certain extent, bought direct; but most of the other companies, such as Brentford and others, bought from the middlemen or from these big coal contractors. Continuing, witness said in addition to the names which he had given, there were Cory’s, Gardner Locket and Hinton’s, and Hudson’s—all coal factors—so that they had got four people interested in the coal trade and two public utility companies. The idea of their appoint- ment was that they should assist in the allocation of the interned steamers. A meeting was held, and there were present a large number of various people representing gas companies, electricity companies, and others, and they elected these six, as being a representative committee of all their interests; that is to say, the electric light companies got most of their coal, he believed, through either Clarke’s or Cory’s. The Water Board probably got most of their coal through Cory’s. In any case, the net result was that the six names covered practically the gas companies, the electricity undertakings, the London County Council, the Metropolitan Water Board, the Port of London, Woolwich Arsenal, the London County Asylums, the London Hydraulic Company, and most of the barracks and military hospitals in London; in fact, practically all these bodies got their coal through these six, or, really, four firms. As being representa- tive of practically all users, they knew exactly where the shoe was pinching, and could say with pretty good accuracy as to who ought to have coal from these interned steamers. An electric light company said : “We have only got two weeks’ stock of coal, and we must have coal immediately.’’ At the next meeting of the committee this coal factor would naturally say, “ I must have a boat to bring coal to electri- city works X; we are very short of coal.’’ The committee would say, “ It is quite obvious you must have coal,’’ and he would have a boat. But, of course, this boat would bring a great deal more coal than was wanted for that works, and the coal contractor would probably know where some- body else was needing coal, and would put a part of the cargo into some other electricity works. Of course, every- body wanted as much coal as he could get, but they had not had any serious representation yet. These interned vessels had materially helped, but there were not enough of them, and the freights that had been charged for the coal brought in them had been very high. These interned vessels had helped to bring freights down, and they would help still more, in his opinion, if they were fixed at lower rates. They were bound to have a certain demand for outside tonnage, notwithstanding the presence of these interned boats, and the freight for this outside tonnage largely depended on the necessities of London. Public utility companies were not the only people who wanted coal in London. Experience showed that the outside boat could still come in profitably to this trade and do business, and it had not evidently the effect of necessarily frightening them away. Most of the coals were brought to London under regular contract. These boats had constantly traded backwards and forwards to London, but they had been supplemented from time to time by boats which had come into the Tyne, and which were glad to take up a catch freight. It was a short run from the Tyne to London. They came on to that trade for one turn, and away they went again, perhaps to France or Italy, or some place, and in ordinary times they were quite ready to take up this short voyage. Very few of these outside boats were taken up at all for the London trade. The London trade was being done practically by what contract boats were left and these interned boats, plus an occasional outside cargo. But the loss of the outside cargoes did not ■seem to matter very much, because they could always get boats. He did not think by the lowering of the freights on the interned boats they would prevent an outside boat being chartered from the Tyne to London. He believed the fear was that they would go away to the Continent, or South America, or somewhere else, and not be available. They bad wanted these boats put in at 5s. The loss naturally fell on the gas companies and electricity companies, because the freight owners simply could not stand it. An ordinary freight owner, who was having his ships taken away and getting 4s. from the Government, could not replace his ship with an 11s. ship for very long. They said, “ If you have got boats which will carry coal, why do you not give us back our own boats and use these interned boats?’’ “ No,’’ very naturally was the answer, “ your boats are more up-to- date, and are more suitable for the work of the Fleet.’’ Surely it was not right, then, to be charged for an inferior article so much more? The way a rise in the price of gas affected the dividend and th consumer was in the propor- tion of seven parts to one; that is to say, out of any reduc- tion in the price of gas,, the consumer got seven parts and the shareholder one. A rise of 10s. per ton in the price of coal was expressed by lOd. per 1,000 ft. in the price of gas. The rise so far had not been expressed by anything like that rise, because they were running on old contracts, and, there- fore, were only just feeling it occasionally, as they had to take up a ship. The company had one ship of its own already, and had taken steps to buy other ships at great sacrifice, because now it was a very unattractive proposition to buy ships. Second-hand ships were selling at a bigger price than new ships could be built for before the war. But still it did limit the amount they -would have to lose on freights, because they could still buy second-hand ships and run them at very much cheaper rates than 10s. On the other hand, the extent of the rise in the price of gas would depend very much on how the company could make its contracts. The contracts for coal would be up 3s. above last year. That meant 3d. in the price of gas. These interned boats would only bring in a small proportion of the coal required, but it would all help to form the market. Witness admitted that there would be difficulties in determining which of the public utility concerns should benefit by these cheap freights if the freights were reduced. It had been suggested that there might be a return from all the public utility companies of what coal they were receiving, and what they had got to pay for it. Of course, the profit was not all going into the shipowners’ pockets. A shipowner who had had 12 out of 13 of his ships taken by the Government was not making much of a profit. His one ship might be running at those present rates, but the rest of the ships would be running at the rate settled by the Government. Witness said he had been very keen on the coasting trade office insisting on the filling up of returns each week showing what coal had been received by these interned steamers, so that they could check automatically the deliveries from these firms of con- tractors. All the public utility companies were known, and they could check it off once a week with the returns of the Admiralty Coasting Office. Witness admitted that every reduction in freight went to save the contractors a loss, but in a matter of this kind they could not absolutely insist on a man carrying out his contract. Supposing a man had got a contract to deliver coal, and