With substantially the same number of mines and miners working this year as last, the accumulative production for the first 10 months of this year is 100,000,000 tons less than that mined in the same period last year. This 25 per cent loss in output means that both plant and labor have been less productive, and, in terms of capital and labor, coal cost the Nation more this year than last. For in the long run both capital and labor require a living wage.

The public must accept responsibility for the coal industry and pay for carrying it on the year round. Mine operators and mine workers of whatever mines are necessary to meet the needs of the country must be paid for a year's work. The shorter the working year the less coal is mined per man and per dollar invested in plant, and eventually the higher priced must be the coal. It is obvious that the 264 short tons of coal mined by the average British miner last year could not be as cheap per ton as the 942 tons mined by the average American mine worker, backed up as he was with more efficient plant. (A proud contrast!)

It would clearly appear that the coal business may be stabilized, not wholly, but in a very large measure, in some of the western fields,' if the public does not regard its supply of coal as it does its supply of domestic water, which requires only that the faucet shall be opened to bring forth a gushing supply. Coal does not have pressure behind it which forces it out of the mine and into the coal yard. It rather must be drawn out by the suction of demand. And herein the public must play its part by keeping that demand as steady and uniform as possible.

HAVE WE TOO MANY MINES AND MINERS?

The problem of the miner and his industry may be stated in another way. We consume all the coal we produce. We produce it with labor that upon social and economic grounds works as a rule too few days in the year. We therefore must have a longer miners' year and fewer miners or a longer miners' year and additional markets. One or the other is inevitable unless we are to carry on the industry as a whole as an emergency industry, holding men ready for work when they are not needed in order that they may be ready for duty when the need arises. There are too many mines to keep all the miners employed all of the time or to give them a reasonable year's work. This conclusion is based on the assumption that we now produce only enough coal from all the mines to meet the country's demand, which is the fact. More coal produced would not sell more coal, but more coal demanded would result in greater

It is the western and southern fields that are most affected by the seasonal demand. As a typical example, Illinois may be cited, with 18 per cent of the year's production in 25 per cent of the time, April, May, and June, in 1915, and 15 per cent in 1916. Retail dealers received 27 per cent of the coal from Illinois in the period from August, 1918, to February, 1919, compared with 4 per cent from the Pittsburgh, Pa., field.

coal production. With the full demand met by men working twothirds or less of the time in the year there can not be a longer year given to all the miners without more demand for coal. This seems to be manifest. Therefore the miners must remain working but part time as now, or fewer miners must work more days, or market must be found for more coal and thus all the miners given a longer year. If we worked all of our miners in all of our mines a reasonable year, we would have a great overproduction. And to have all our mines work a longer period means that we must find some place in which to sell more coal, either at home or abroad.

Why have we so many mines working so many miners? There can be no one-word reply to this question. It penetrates into almost every social and economic condition of the country--the initiative of capital, the size of the country, the pride of localities, the intense competition between railroads, their inability to furnish cars when needed, the manner in which cars are apportioned between mines, the manner in which the railroads are operated so that movement is slow and equipment is short, and this runs into the need for new facilities, such as more yards, more tracks, more equipment, which brings us into the need for more capital and so on and on.

We have none too many mines or too many miners to supply our need if the mines are operated as at present. But we have too many to fill that need if they are operated on a basis nearer to 100 per cent of possible production.

THE LONG VIEW.

Passing from the labor phase of the coal situation to the larger aspect of our coal supply as related to the whole problem of the economical production of light, heat, and power, which Sir William Crookes has characterized as "first among the immediate practical problems of science," we find ourselves both rich and wasteful, following the primrose path, heedless of the morrow and not yet conscious that the morrow is to be a day of battle.

In the first place we treat coal as if it were a thing which was exclusively for home use, a nonexportable commodity which must be used "on the farm," whereas it should be treated with profound respect, because we know from Paris that sacred treaties and national boundaries turn on its presence. The world wants our coal, envies us for having it, fears us because of it. It is not only useful to us, but it has a cash value in the markets of the world. Therefore it should be saved.

In the next place we treat coal as if it were all alike, not selected by nature for specific uses; whereas we should choose our coal with as scientific a judgment as we choose our reading glasses. There is coal for coke and coal for furnaces and coal for house use and coal

adapted for one kind of boiler and a different kind of coal for a different kind of boiler. Therefore we should discriminate in coal.

And again we have shown little willingness to dignify coal by seeking to draw out by improved mechanical processes all the stored content of heat in this lump of carbon. Instead we content ourselves by giving it a mere pauper touch, driving off the greater volume of its value into the air. This is a task for the mechanical engineer.

Then, too, there is the problem of using coal in the form of steam or in the more exalted form of electric current. The lifting, bobbing lid of James Watt's teakettle did not speak the last word in power. We are only beginning to know how we may move on from one form of motive power to another. The wastefulness of steam power as contrasted with electric power is a real challenging problem in conservation by itself.

And then we naturally ask, Why this long haul over mountains and through tunnels and across bridges and along streets and into houses, by railroad, truck, and on the backs of men, when at the very pit mouth, or within the mine itself, this same coal might be transformed into electricity and by wire served into factories and homes 100, 200, 300 miles from the mine? Why burden our congested railroads with this traffic? Why strew our streets with this dirt? This may be a practicable thing, a wise thing; it deserves study if coal is worth conserving.

Are there no substitutes for coal which we can use and can not export? This question immediately raises the water-power possibilities of our land, of which only the most superficial study has been made. Sell coal and use electricity would appear a thrifty policy.

As petroleum is being used as a substitute for coal-and inasmuch as the whole problem of fuel supply is one-we are ultimately compelled to an investigation of the ability of our petroleum supply to meet its present drain and to meet the expansion in its use, which is the most surprising development of our day in the study of power creation.

This spells a program of development and conservation which should challenge the ambitions of this Nation, and on a few of its features perhaps a few further words would be justified.

SAVING COAL.

The two ways by which coal in greatest volume can be saved are the discovery of the method by which more power can be taken from the ton and the discovery of what kind of coal is best fitted for any particular use.

It has been everyone's business to save coal, hence . . . . The railroads have experimented with some success. They get perhaps 10 per

cent of the heat energy from a ton shoveled beneath the locomotive boiler, 10 per cent of the total in the ton. They use one-quarter of all the coal mined. Next to labor this is the greatest expense which our railroads have. This shows how great the problem is to them. Some have adopted a system of paying a bonus for the greatest distance made on a given quantity of a given coal. But this laudable effort has not met with the cooperation that would be expected from the firemen, for reasons that go far afield. Industries, especially those which generate electric power, have made similar effort to gain from their fuel its greatest potentiality, and with varying success. We can overlook the stoking of the domestic furnace as a national concern, for the amount of coal used in this way amounts to not more than 17 per cent of the national coal bill, and this whole charge could be saved, it is estimated, by giving care to the 75 per cent of our coal which is burned under boilers to make steam. Here there is a maximum figure of 13 per cent of the energy of the coal put into harness, and the average is less than 10 per cent, even in the larger plants.

In one establishment visited by the fuel engineers of this department during the war a preventable waste of 40,000 tons a year was discovered. By changes in the admission of air to the furnaces and in the "baffling" of the boilers the engineers of the Bureau of Mines are confident that they have been able to increase the economy of coal in the ships of the Emergency Fleet Corporation by 16 per cent, making 6 pounds of coal do the work of 7. If such a percentage of economy could be generally effected it would mean the saving of as much coal as France and Italy together will need in this year of their greatest distress.

COAL AND COAL.

The Government should sample and certify coal. We do this as to wheat and meat; it is just as necessary to avoid injustice in the case of coal, and it is thoroughly practicable. The public should know the kind of coal it is buying, because it should buy the coal it needs. There need be no prohibition against the mining or selling of any coal, but coal should sell in terms of its capacity to de

In every trainload of coal hauled from the mines to our coal bins, 1 carload out of every 5 is going nowhere. In a train of 40 cars, the last 8 are dead load that might better have been left in the bowels of the earth. No less an authority than Martin A. Rooney states: "Every fifth shovel full of coal that the average fireman throws into his furnace serves no more useful purpose than to decorate the atmosphere with a long black stream of precious soot. At best one-fifth of all our coal is wasted."

The first requisite toward effecting fuel economy is to secure cooperation between owners, managers, and the men who fire the coal. Mechanical devices to increase efficiency in the use of coal can not produce satisfactory results unless the operators who handle them are impressed with the importance of their duties.

It is not essential for the plant manager to be a fuel expert, but he should be familiar with the instruments that give a check on the daily operations. It is a mistake not to provide proper instruments, for they guide the firemen and show the management what

liver heat. Some coal that is only a pint bottle is selling as a quart bottle. And the quart is hurt by the competition of the pint. A bill to effect such fuel inspection has been drafted and will be presented to Congress. It is not a bill commanding anything, but rather gives to those who are willing an opportunity to have their product inspected and attested and thus acquire merit in the eye of the world as against those who are not willing to subject their coal to the official test tube. Coal is coal in the sense of the classic traffic classification. Coal is, however, not always coal, nor is it altogether coal when put to the pragmatic test of the furnace. If such a bill were passed it would promote the interests of those who schedule their price upon the merit of their goods and make against the hauling of slate and dirt, its storage and handling under an assumed name. The plan is not to punish the malefactor who attempts to impose upon the public a slender number of thermal units as a ton of coal, but rather to give to ever man an opportunity to advertise the number of such units which his particular article contains, thus enabling the injured public to strike against an unfair mine.

Furthermore we are to become great exporters of coal, unless all signs fail, and such certification should be required as to every ton sent abroad.

EXPANSION ABROAD.

It has been said that we have too many mines in operation, as we appear to have too many miners, if we are to maintain only our present output. Rapid expansion in the development of industry in general may justify the existence of such mines and so large a corps of workers, even with an adequate car supply and more abundant local storage facilities, which are greatly needed in almost all places, and a more even demand. If, however, this should not be so, there is a foreign demand for the best of our bituminous coals, which at present we are altogether unable to meet for lack of credits on the part of those who wish the coal, and lack of ships to carry it. England's annual production has fallen 100,000,000 tons, according to

has taken place daily. Instruments provided for the boiler room manifest the interest taken by the management toward conserving fuel. It indicates cooperation and encourages the firemen to work harder to increase the efficiency.

A second factor effecting fuel economy is the selection of fuel for the particular plant. It is not expected of a plant manager that he should be thoroughly informed as to the character of all fuels; but he can enlist the services of a man who is thoroughly trained in this field. The Bureau of Mines has compiled valuable information on the character and analyses of coal from almost every field in the United States. Information concerning the character and chemical constituents of the coal, together with knowledge pertaining to the equipment of the plant, makes it possible to select a fuel adapted to the equipment, thereby insuring better combustion. Hundreds of boiler plants operate at no greater than 60 per cent efficiency, and it would be a comparatively simple matter to bring them up to 70 per cent efficiency. The saving in tonnage would be more than the combined yearly coal-carrying capacity of the Baltimore & Ohio and the Southern Railway systems. The direct saving to our industries at $5 per ton would amount to $200,000,000 worth of coal per year.