January 12, 1917.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

,77

gaining causes wide margins. Shipments have
declined. In Scotland, business remains quiet.

In the freight market complaints are still rife
regarding tonnage, and special reference is made to
boats for unrestricted ports. No outstanding features
mark the recent business.

Several private meetings have been held relative
to maximum freight rates, and an increase is ex-
pected. The increase suggested at a meeting on
Wednesday was 10s. in the case of French (Bay)
ports and 20s Mediterranean ports. A meeting of
the Central Executive Committee is to be held on
Tuesday next to consider the question.

A paper on “ The Constitution of Coal” by Dr.
Marie C. Stopes and Dr. Wheeler will be read
before the Society of Chemical Industry, Burlington
House, Piccadilly, London, on January 15, com-
mencing at 8 p.m, .

The quantity of coal, coke, and manufactured fuel
exported from the United Kingdom in December
was 2,782,017 tons, the- value of same being
£3,530,760, as compared with 3,470,236 tons, valued
at £3,158,503, in December 1915, and 3,879,393 tons,
valued at £2,608,147, in December 1914.

The aggregate quantity exported during 1916 was
41,157,746 tons, the value being £50,670,604, as
compared with45,770,344 tons, valued at £38,824,223,
and 61,830,485 tons, valued at £42,202,128, in the
corresponding periods of 1915 and 1914.

The average value of the coal, coke and manu-
factured fuel exported from the United Kingdom
during December was 25s. 4*5d. per ton, as compared
with 18s. 2-4d. per ton in December 1915, and
13s. 5-3d. in December 1914.

. The value during the completed year was 24s. 7 4d.
per ton, as compared with 16s. ll*5d. and 13s. 7‘8d.
respectively in the corresponding periods of 1915
and 1914.

Of the total exports of coal during December, the
mean value of the large coal exported was 28s. 3*4d.;
through-and-through (unscreened), 21s. lOTd. ; and
small coal, 21s. 4’4d. The average of all kinds of
coal exported was 24s. ll’9d., a decrease of 9d. as
compared with the previous month. Otherwise
divided, it realised the following :—Steam coal,
25s. 6*5d. ; gas coal, 21s. 10*7d. ; household,
29s. 6'8d. ; other sorts, 23s. 2-7d. ; anthracite,
29s. 2’9d. The average value of the coke exported
was 37s. l*03d. per ton, and of the manufactured fuel
23s. 9*4d. per ton.

The Minister of Munitions has issued an Order
forbidding the purchase, supply, or delivery of any
gas works retort carbon except under a permit.

A Bill has been introduced into the

Un Echo French Chamber which throws an
de Jaures. interesting side-light upon the
extreme views held by a section of
Socialists in that country. As somewhat similar
notions are also being advanced on this side
of the Channel, although not, perhaps, so
clearly expressed, it may be worth while to
examine some of the arguments put forward in
support of the proposed immediate nationalisation
of French mines. The Bill is evidently aimed at the
possibility of snatching a political advantage from
the existing coal crisis in that country. The situation
has been perhaps more acute than is generally
realised. A short time ago, it is stated, gas and
electricity supply companies were faced with com-
pulsory stoppage, having only a few days’ supply of
coal in hand. The resources of the Minister of
Supplies were taxed to the utmost, and although the
difficulties have been largely overcome, thanks to the
energetic measures taken by the State, the country
has experienced a shock which will not be quickly
forgotten. It was almost in the midst of this crisis
that certain Deputies laid before the Chamber a
project for the permanent State control of all the
mines in France. In the preamble to this Bill the
promoters plead urgency. But this motive is clearly
artificial, because whatever merits the proposal io
nationalise the mines may possess, such a procedure
could not possibly relieve the existing shortage in output
during the period of the war. It is pointed out that
in 1913, out of a total output of coal in France of

40,129,410 tons, no less than 27,519,734 tons were
derived from the northern coal field, now largely in
the occupation of Germany. As the yearly require-
ments are about 60,000,000 tons, there is obviously
too large a deficit to be made up from the
remaining coal fields as at present developed.
Although it may be admitted, therefore, that there
is an urgent need for increasing the production of
French coal, the mere taking over by the State of
the whole of the mines could only, at the best, bring
very gradual relief. Experience, also, has taught
that the State is not the most efficient mineral
worker. Even in Germany, where the State is
endowed with every attribute of potential efficiency, -
except, as some may say, democratisation, the Crown
mines are by no means- the most successful as
industrial concerns. The same may be said
of the State mines in New Zealand, and the
Crown reserves in the Campine coal field have not
yet been put to the test of actual production; but
whatever may be effected there in the future, there
is little doubt that the results of private ownership
will surpass anything that the State can accomplish.
We believe that it can be taken as fully demonstrated
by past experience that where the State competes
with individual effort in coal mining, the former
shows no greater efficiency and rather less commercial
success. The result may, of course, appear to be
different, in the case where the1 whole industry is
nationalised, but of such a state of things there is
not, and never has been, any practical example.

The French Deputies supporting this Bill base
their case not so much upon the efficiency of the
State as upon the inefficiency of the capitalist. They
claim that the system of granting concessions to
private persons has retarded the development of the
French coal^ fields. They state that the methods
adopted by the mining companies have been actuated
by the principle of restricted output and the main-
tenance of high pripes. They say, in effect, that
they have established a monopoly of production,
aided by the protection afforded by duties and high
transport charges against foreign competition, and
the coal owners are charged with holding consumers
to ransom by forcing up prices at will. In proof of
this contention a comparison is drawn between pit
prices in France and adjoining countries. The
figures given are for the year 1912, and refer to
through-and-through industrial coal with 25 per
cent, large. The following prices are quoted:—

Per ton.

Belgium and Germany....   12 fr. 62 c.
England ...................... 14 fr. 35 c.

France........................ 18 fr. 50 c.

It is impossible to say exactly what these figures
mean in the absence of any indication as to the
quality of the coal in question, and they obviously
possess no argumentative value. They only serve to
weaken the case by imparting an element of false
logic into the discussion.

But the charge against the French coal owners
does not end here. They are blamed for want of
enterprise in not opening up fresh pits and for their
neglect of minor coal fields and lignite deposits.
They are accused, in fact, of abusing their
privileges, and ignoring the responsibilities of the
trust which they hold in the interest of the nation.

This is the attitude taken by these politicians
towards those who have made the French coal
mining industry what it is. They even go to the
length of quoting verbatim the views of the late
extremist Jaures, who held that the privileges of
capitalists had replaced the rights of the State, and
that the French Mining Laws, conceding these
privileges, were but treaties ..of spoliation and dis-
memberment of the nation. Jaures, as we know,
was an advocate of absolute confiscation of the rights
of capital. He held the view that the capitalists had
already reimbursed themselves many times over for
every outlay, and that to pay out of State funds for
the value of the mines would only be to continue the
tax upon labour under another form. This Bill does
not go quite so far as this. It proposes to buy out
the mine owners, but only at the valuation of the
buildings and plant.

The strange and perverted view which is here
taken of the claims of the individual is nowhere
more clearly illustrated than in the curious repudia-

tion of the rights even of the prospector who proves
the existence of a coal seam. The argument advanced
is somewhat as follows :—Geology has made such
sure progress that borings and costly researches in an
unknown field are no longer necessary. The mineral
wealth of the soil is already known, thanks to the
advance of national education at the expense of the
State. The State, being the author of this progress
of knowledge, is heir to all the benefits arising from
it. Therefore the mining prospector, has no claim
to further consideration. Unfortunately for the
soundness of these arguments, the French Mining
Law has legalised the rights both of the prospector
and the capitalist. The mining companies have
grown up under the highest sanction of the State,
the' statutory laws of the land. To repudiate this
fact would be equivalent to transforming national
pledges into scraps of paper. This Bill, therefore,
will meet in the Chamber with the fate it deserves,
and its supporters will achieve nothing further than
the exhibition of an ethical standard comparable
only to that of the enemy within their country’s
boundaries. It may be true that more can be made
of the mineral wealth in which France abounds, and
the State can do much to assist in achieving such a
desirable end. But it is not by repudiation of its
obligations, nor by maligning those who have built
up its industries, that such an object can be attained.
France is to-day living up to a far higher ideal than
that, and will seek other and more practical ways of
overcoming its present difficulties. A step in this
direction has already been taken by the recent
increase in the tax on unworked concessions.

Amongst the mass of literature
Eclipse OF relating to the industrial position

Empire? of the British Empire, as it is and
as it may be after the war, one of
the most prominent is the book, entitled “ Eclipse or
Empire?” written by Dr. H. B. Gray and Mr.
Samuel Turner. This book also contains sections
written by acknowledged authorities and a large
amount of statistical and other information com-
piled from various official sources. The authors, on
the whole, arrive at an undoubtedly pessimistic
conclusion respecting our national efficiency; and,
if their arguments are sound, the view which is
taken of our position amongst the great producing
nations of the world is not a little alarming. It is
true that evidences of a great awakening are visible,
but there is given a plain warning that if, after the
war, there should be a relapse into its pre-war
apathy, then Great Britain, and the Empire, will be
doomed to pass irretrievably into the position of a
second-class Power. > The authors rely for the
Support of their thesis upon facts and figures, or
rather, let us say, upon their interpretation of them.
It will be useful, therefore, to examine more closely
the nature of the evidence which they adduce, and
we can, perhaps, do so by commenting at some length
upon what they say about the coal mining industry,
which we will venture to take as a test of the
validity of their deductions.

The authors maintain that the Americans are
superior to the British in coal mining efficiency, and
they arrive at this conclusion almost entirely from a
comparison of the production per worker in each
country. The annual coal production per worker in
the United Kingdom has declined from 312 tons in
the period 1886-1890 to 260 tons in 1911; while in
America it has increased from 400 to 613 in the same
period. The question is to what extent we can infer
from these figures a deterioration of British efficiency.
The authors of this book maintain that the falling off
in production in Great Britain is due to two causes,
viz., (1) the superior machinery used in the United
States, and (2) the restriction in output on the part
of British miners. Let us examine each of these
statements. As to the superiority of .mining
machinery used in America there is not the smallest
evidence. It is true that coal-cutting machinery is
more extensively used in that country than it is with
us; but that is largely, we may say almost wholly,
due to the conditions under which the coal seams
occur. As our readers are aware, some years ago
we sent a special commissioner to the United States
to examine this very point, and we believe that it is