August 4, 1916. THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN. 215 TV'anted Self-contained Semi-portable ▼ ▼ ENGINE AND BOILER, for sinking purposes, cyls. 16 in. diam., drum about 6ft., Robey or other good makers.—Box 6485, Colliery Guardian Office, 30 & 31, Furnival-street, Holborn, London, E.C. 4 or 5 10-ton Coal Wagons, side and bottom doors, to Let, simple hire.—Apply, Box 6484, Colliery Guardiai Office, 30 & 31, Furnival-street, Holborn, London, E.C. PUNCHING AND SHEARING MACHINES AND ROLLS FOR SALE. Very fine Double-ended Punching and Shearing Machine, 30 in. gaps, weight about 15 tons ; machine new and ready for delivery. Hydraulic Lever Shearing Machine for plates lin. thick, with 24 in. gap. Hydraulic Lever Punch Press for holes 9/16 in., plates t in. thick, 18 in. gap, 2|in. rams. Hydraulic Lever Shearing Machine for plates Jin. thick, 18in. gap, 2iin. ram. The above hydraulic machines by Fielding & Platt. One J .hn’s Patent Angle, Channel, and H.I. Cropper No.G2, in first-rate order, with tools. Strong Plate Edge Planing Machine, crosshead with 5 screws, length of bed 17 ft 8 in., travel 14 ft. Set Heavy Plate Bending Rolls, by Smith Bros., 16J ft. long, top rolls 24Jin. diameter, 2 bottom rolls 19Jin. diameter; massive rolls in first class condition, approximate weight about 50 tons. JOHN F. WAKE, DARLINGTON. Deep Well Pumps Wanted, Set of treble barrel 6 in. bore, 18 in. stroke, with 200 ft. suction and delivery pipe, with rods, engine frame, and air vessel complete, capacity 6.000 gallons per hour.—Full particulars to JEI.I.ETT. 12, Henrietta-street, Strand, W.C. For Sale, Larch and. Scots Pit Timber 8 ft. by 6 7 in. tops, 9-14ft. by 7 10 in. tops; price £210s. pertonf.o r. Canterbury or equal.—TRUSCOTT & CO., Canterbury. WAGONS FOR SALE. KfA 10-ton Laminated Spring Buffer Wagons, with side doors. 50 10-ton laminated spring buffer Wagons, with doors falling full length. 200 8-ton laminated spring buffer Wagons, with side doors. 20 single bolster Wagons with spring buffers. » 10 double bolster Wagons with spring buffers. 50 dead buffer 10-ton waguns. side and end doors. 40 M.S.C. side tip Wagons, 5 yards capacity. 25 end tip wagons, 3 and 4 yards capacity. 12 Passenger Coaches. 1st and 3rd class. All the above in good condition for private siding work; photos and prices on application. JOHN F. WAKE, DARLINGTON. Wanted, Vertical Enclosed Steam Engine about 50-h.p. at 400 revs., steam pressure 80 lb.—POOLET HALL OOLLIERY OO. LTD., Polesworth, Tamworth. STEAM ENGINES FOR SALE. lL4Todern Type Horizontal Cross Com- IvJL pound Engine, by Hayward Tyler, cylinders 16 in. and 26 in. by 32in. stroke, sensitive governor. Rider’s expansion gear, flywheel lift, by 18 in turned face: in excellent condition ; £350. One Self-contained Horizontal Jet Condensing Compound Engine, by Jas. Milne, cylinders 12 in. and 21 in. by 24in. stroke, flywheel, &c., geared countershaft. Horizontal Engine, by Midland Railway Co., cylinder 18 in. by 26in., Pickering governor, heavy flywheel; £100. Horizontal Engine, by Hick Hargreaves, cylinder 18 in. by 36 in.; Corliss valves ; fine engine; £250. Horizontal Engine, by Robev, cylinder 13in. by 26 in., Pickering governor, heavy flywheel, together with Vertical Feed Heater; fine modern engine; £100. Two Vertical High Speed Engines, by Gwynne, cylinders 12 in. and 18 in. by 9in. stroke; price £120 each. JOHN F. WAKE, DARLINGTON. TZJulleys for Sale.—All sizes in Second- J- hand Pulleys; immediate despatch. Wire. “Coborn Step, London.’’—Write, GEORGE COHEN, SONS A OO., 600, Commercial- road, London. For Sale, 50/110 New 12-ton Coal WAGONS, fitted with side and end doors. 10 second-hand 12-ton COAL WAGONS, with side, end and bottom doors; built in 1909. 6 second-hand 10-ton low-sided WAGONS, 2 ft. deep, side doors falling full length; built in 1911. For price and particulars, ERNEST MAROBOFT A CO., 30, Royal Metal Exchange, Swansea. STEAM NAVVIES. Two 12-ton Wilson Crane type Navvies, steel carriages and frames, 100 lb. pressure: modern type. 10-ton Wilson Crane type Navvy, 100 lb. w.p.; £850. 10-ton Whittaker Crane type Navvy, 4 ft. 8J in. and broad gauges, 801b, w.p.; £650. 7-ton Whittaker Crane type Navvy, 100 lb. w.p,; £650 JOHN F. WAKE, DARLINGTON. J. W. BAIRD AND COMPANY, PITWOOD IMPORTERS, WEST HARTLEPOOL, YEARLY CONTRACTS ENTERED INTO WITH COLLIERIES. OSBECK & COMPANY LIMITED, PIT-TIMBER MERCHANTS, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE. SUPPLY ALL KINDS OF COLLIERY TIMBER, Telegrams—“ Osbecks, Newcastle-on-Tyne.” *** For other Miscellaneous Advertisements see Last White Page. AND Journal of the Coal and Iron Trades. Joint Editors— J. V. ELSDEN, D.Sc. (Lond.), F.G.S, HUBERT GREENWELL, F.S.S., Assoc.M.I.M.E. (At present on Active Service}. LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1916. The London coal market has been better supplied with house coals during the past week. Slacks are easier and supplies more abundant. Hard steam coal and small nuts are still difficult to obtain. Government orders and munition factories absorb practically all the manufacturing coals available. Prices have advanced materially in the Tyne and Wear trade. The shipping business is quieter, and. slacks are easier in Lancashire. Apart from the pressure for deliveries, the position in Yorkshire is uneventful. Leicestershire is experiencing a strong demand for deep and main cobbles and nuts. The market in Cardiff gained firmness in view of the lessened output next week, and sellers are reported to be holding out for high figures for the end of August. Supplies of most kinds are plentiful in East Scotland, and an easier tone characterises quotations in the west. As the result of a conference in London with Col. Weiss, the French Minister of Mines, boats for July loading, if stemmed before August 5, may be cleared without extension of licence. The annual meeting of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers will be held to-morrow (Saturday) in Newcastle. Mr. J. Ashworth will contribute a paper entitled “ Notes on the Seventh Report of the Explosions in Mines Committee,” and several other papers will be open for discussion. The South Wales miners have decided to take a holiday on Monday and Tuesday next, against the advice of their own leaders. It is stated that the Government has ordered the owners to keep the pits open. Meanwhile, the Federation executive will hold another conference regarding the matter to-morrow (Saturday). The freight market has been uneventful, and rates have scarcely moved. Coasting business is at a low ebb. Mr. Harcourt, in the House of Commons, stated that he was obliged to give his decision regarding the advance of 2s. 6d. in the selling price of South Wales coal before he could see the deputation from the Miners’ Federation. A deputation from the triple industrial alliance— the Miners’ Federation, the National Union of Rail- waymen, and the National Transport Workers’ Federation—placed before the Prime Minister, on Thursday, proposals for dealing with demobilisation problems after the war. Mr. Asquith’s reply was favourable to the restoration of trade union practices, special emergency arrangements for dealing with persons now employed as substitutes, and gradual demobilisation, in which local committees may be utilised. In his paper read before the South Economy Wales Institute of Engineers, a and Waste summary of which we gave in our Of Fuel. issue of last week, Mr. Arnold Lupton dwelt, in considerable detail, upon a subject which has been already much debated in this country, and. about which much still remains to be said. The subject of the coal resources of the United Kingdom in relation to the question of fuel economy is of the first importance to the nation, and, in handling it from the practical stand- point of the mining engineer, Mr. Lupton has arrived at conclusions which differ materially from many of the views held by certain authorities of a more academic type. With his fundamental argument that there is little occasion for legislators to trouble themselves as to our future resources of fuel, there will, we think, be general agreement; but upon some of the statements upon which this •conclusion is based there will probably be some interesting divergences of opinion. A certain wise judge once cautioned his colleagues against giving reasons for their decisions on the ground that, while the latter might be right, the former might possibly be wrong. We do not go so far as to say that Mr. Lupton’s reasons are necessarily wrong, but they certainly do offer loopholes for criticism, which ■will doubtless be seized upon. Some of these it is proposed to examine, not in any hostile spirit, but merely for the purpose of separating, so far as this is possible, the generally accepted from the more ■debatable portions of his thesis. -One of the first statements falling into- the latter •category is that which assumes that the exhaustion of the coal fields of the rest of the world will proceed at much the same rate as those of the United Kingdom. This view is of fundamental importance to the future of the British coal industry. It is naturally difficult to examine without defining -exactly what is meant by rate of exhaustion. Are we to -conclude that Mr. Lupton means that the •epoch of dear coal will be reached everywhere at approximately the same time, and that Great Britain will thus continue to hold her present quasi- monopoly in the world’s coal trade ? That is a conclusion with which many will not agree; for there is a genuine apprehension that from various causes, legislative, economic and technical. Great Britain is hastening, at a rate which will soon become alarming, towards the time when British coal will become almost a prohibitive luxury. Nearly all our newer developments, large as these will probably be, will be deep mining propositions, and there is, we believe, a very reasonable doubt whether in the course of fifty or a hundred years we shall still be in a position to compete, in regard to cheap fuel, with foreign coal fields of younger development. Again Mr. Lupton appears to accept Prof. Stanley Jevons’ view that the more economy is practised in the use of co.al the more will its consumption increase, because economy in use makes that use more profit- able. We do not propose to debate that argument; but, if true, it seems to contradict both the conclusions of Mr. Richard Price Williams, who drew a curve for the Royal Commission of 1871 showing the probable increase of consumption at a diminishing ratio, and likewise the conclusion of the last Royal Commission on Coal Supplies to the effect that our coal consumption is already approaching a maximum. Possibly there may be some subtle explanation of these apparent contradictions. We should like to accept Prof. Jevons’ view, because we are certainly tending towards the more economical use of coal, and we believe that the maintenance of a big output is essential to the prosperity of the British coal industry. The only way in which collieries can meet successfully the present high cost of working, and the still higher costs threatening in the near future, is by bringing more coal to the surface. Mr. Lupton admits that coal mines have already had great financial difficulties to contend with, and he thinks that probably one-third of them have worked on the average at a loss, and another one-third at a very moderate profit; and, moreover, he looks forward to the time when the average price of coal at the pit top will be £2 or even £3 a ton. How shall we reconcile these facts with the maintenance of our competing power in foreign markets ? It is also necessary to bear in mind the fact that we can only derive an advantage from a more Economical use of coal by utilising the energy now wasted. Mr. Lupton thinks it probable that in the course of 100 years we shall get from coal, on an average, three times the useful effect we get from it now, so that our population might be more than doubled without it being necessary to consume more coal than we are doing at the present time. It is therefore impos- sible to resist the conclusion that if by a sudden revolution of our present method of utilising fuel we could render at once available all the latent energy that can be/obtained from it, one of two things must result, viz., either we must produce less coal, or we must waste this surplus energy pending the time when we can double or treble our existing industries. Mr. Ljtpton proceeds to show with admirable clearness that the whole tendency of modern methods, both in engineering and in domestic economy, is towards increased economy of fuel. It is a natural process depending upon self interest and proceeding upon natural economic laws. Nothing, says he, can stop the efforts of a practical people to make further economies of fuel unless it is Government inter- ference. This statement will, of course, be traversed by many who, ia the name of economy, are now loudly demanding legislative action to hasten the process of fuel saving. Mr. Lupton says that these people forget that economy is a very complicated matter. Enforced economy of this kind may, indeed, defeat its own object. For example, much coal is now left underground because it does not pay to bring it up. There would not, indeed, be any economy in bringing it up when it is not wanted. Without endorsing the whole of Mr. Lupton’s arguments concerning what is, and what is not, true economy, we believe that his point of view has not hitherto been so fully considered as it deserves. The demand for legislation to hasten the operation of natural laws—that is to say, to make every industrial process perfect by Act of Parliament—has this