What Shall We Do About Coal?

THE controversy between the senators sponsoring legislation affecting the coal-industry and the National Coal Association again calls attention to the imperious nature of this question. If every voter in the United States had at one time or another visited a coal-mine, we should be in a better position to visualize some of the problems in the coal-industry. Such intimate acquaintance with the conditions of the industry would make it easier to obtain a comprehensive treatment of the problem before Congress. However, a knowledge of the technical process of production will not be sufficient. An understanding of the inter-relationships of all the important factors affecting the industry is necessary. Not until we see concretely the technical elements of the problem and the importance of the inter-relationship between mining, transportation, and the consumption of coal, shall we have a sufficient general appreciation of the complications of the coalindustry to formulate an intelligent public policy.

A strike of the miners demanding a 30-hour week and earnings that will enable them to live during the year seems arbitrary and absurd to most people. But they dismiss the matter without inquiring into the conditions that have occasioned such demands. Those who take the trouble to analyze the problem will find that the miners are attempting to control, in a very inadequate way, circumstances that properly belong to the public. In fact, the miners seek to do the same thing we all do, that is, use collective effort to control forces and conditions too strong and adverse for the individual. In this case these forces and conditions are beyond the control of either the miners or the operators, or both combined.

The industry has been idle on the average ninety-three working-days during the year for the last thirty years. This means that owners, miners, and consumers have been paying a heavy bill for waste and inefficiency. We are just beginning to catch a glimpse of the waste through idleness of capital and labor in all industries. The World War demonstrated to modern nations some of their latent possibilities when they attempted to attain full productive power. And this proved important solely in connection with the use of existing equipment. A consideration of full productive power does not stop with existing equipment. It takes into account the fruits of new invention and better organization.

Coal-mining was one of the first of the basic industries to find out what it meant to run to full capacity. It meant glutted markets for coal. This was because the industry was not properly organized, and coördinated with other industries. Since competitive gain was the dominant motive, anybody who owned coal-lands could open a mine and produce coal for the market. The result has been over-investment in periods of prosperity, and a full productive capacity far beyond the needs of the country. This factor, along with seasonal demand and inadequate storage facilities, has made it impossible to maintain continuity of production. No element in the problem is more important than this. But no move (except in the anthracite field) has ever been made to cope with the over-expansion of mining capacity. Various estimates place this at from 19 to 33 per cent during the last five years. A proper balancing of mining capacity with our country’s needs is necessary to the conservation of our resources, to any attempt to maintain steady production, to efforts to relieve the railroads of unreasonable demands upon their facilities, and to the encouragement of improvements in technical processes.

The stage of efficiency in technical process in the industry is said by production engineers to be on a par with an attempt to raise wheat by digging the soil with a spade. This is needless, because adequate mechanical equipment can easily be had. But the owners who seek to provide such equipment and operate under different mining methods are immediately faced by the conditions established by the most wasteful competitive exploitation. Such equipment used in conjunction with the ‘long-wall’ system would force conservatism in opening mines, would involve longer waiting for returns on investment, and would necessitate a coördination between the coal-industry, transportation facilities, factory fuel-needs, and household consumers’ demands, which, as yet, is little appreciated.

Much criticism has been directed toward the railroads in recent years, for their failure to furnish sufficient cars to the mines. It may be readily granted that there has been failure to make the best use of car-equipment under all circumstances, both during the government administration and during private control of the railroads. But a more significant matter in relation to the transportation of coal is the legal requirements on the railroads for service. Another factor of equal importance is the physical impossibility of making railroads keep pace with all the vagaries of investment, arbitrary operation of mines, and the whims of the consuming public.

The railroads are compelled by law to furnish cars to any concern opening a coal-mine which can easily be connected by a switch. The more mines there are to be served, the more difficult the problem of allotting the existing cars and meeting the demands of transportation. Consumers complicate the situation still further by their seasonal demand, and by promiscuous purchasing, which involves much cross-hauling. The Fuel Administration saved 160,000,000 car-miles a year by a zoning system, and enabled the existing car-equipment to make 300,000 additional trips. To force railroad investment in car-equipment to keep pace with the opening of an increasing number of unnecessary mines, is a decidedly wasteful process. It is quite as wasteful for consumers to insist upon a car-equipment to meet unreasonable demands.

If the high prices for coal in the last few years shall make consumers more responsive to measures of relief over which they have control, a very useful purpose will have been served. It is now known that coals most subject to deterioration and spontaneous combustion can be stored successfully on a large scale. Moreover, production engineers say that 10 to 15 cents per ton is a liberal estimate of the cost of putting coal in and taking it out of stock, if the process is well organized and the best equipment is used.

Storage at the point of consumption would immediately affect the continuity of production, relieve railroad congestion, and permit more efficient use of railway equipment. This practice, supplemented by a policy of ‘buying early,’ would enable the whole process of distribution of local supply to be organized in a way to reduce the expense to the minimum.

To direct the expansion of mining capacity, to change technical processes in production, to distribute and use railway facilities properly, to encourage local storage and better distribution of the supply, will require a form and degree of control over the industry as a whole which, as yet, has not been considered seriously. Mere publicity through investigation, record-keeping, and reports may be designated as the loosest form of control. In so far as it would give an adequate factual foundation for considering conditions in the coal-industry, it would serve a useful purpose. It will undoubtedly be followed by an attempt to deal with waste and inefficiency. The greatest degree of control is put forth by advocates of ‘nationalization.’ They rest their case on the assumption of the priority of the public welfare over all other interests. Furthermore, they found their programme upon what the best production engineers in many countries say we should do in dealing with the industry according to the best-known science at our command. It remains to be seen whether a form of control in between these extremes can be had, and whether it would enable us to conserve our resources and to reorganize the industry.

Some who are versed in constitutional law are of the opinion that a basis of control could be obtained through a law extending the Federal powers to license businesses. The question may be raised, whether this power would prove effective enough to determine when new mines should be opened, to enforce the exploitation of the thick veins or the thin veins, and the best grades or low grades of coal to suit our needs, to require the recovery of the maximum percentage of coal at the minimum of expense, to control technical processes and the use of equipment, to standardize and enforce accounting, to regulate distribution, to standardize coal according to quality, to deal with wages and conditions of labor, and to provide for adequate coöperation between managers and workers.

The mere enumeration of these factors forces the attention upon matters with which we shall have to deal. A process of mining that leaves from 20 to 50 per cent of the coal in the ground cannot long be condoned. Shoveling 600,000,000 tons of coal into mine-cars by hand, at a cost of 89 cents per ton, when it can be done by loading machines at a very small expense, is as primitive as digging the soil with a spade. To continue a method of mining by ‘rooms’ permits of little use of machinery, whereas the ‘long-wall’ system is favorable to the use of machinery and larger mine-cars, recovers the maximum percentage of coal, and is conducive to safety in the industry.

The investigations of the Federal Trade Commission and the Fuel Administration into costs demonstrates that one of the best things that could happen to the coal-industry would be an introduction to adequate and dependable record-keeping. The existing powers of regulation over transportation could easily be extended to supplement a policy of conservation, and encourage localities to provide storage and regularize their demands. To continue to permit the buying and selling of coal without a classification according to quality is to perpetuate a disadvantage both to the producer and to the consumer. Wherever commodities have been graded and standardized, the producer profits by the sale of a superior article, and the purchaser is protected against misrepresentation.

In the case of coal, as in general with all industries, the last factor in the industry to receive careful consideration is the human one. The production engineers seem to be the only people who have caught the meaning of the vision of bringing three fourths of a million of men out of underground work. Not only would it mean the release of an immense labor-power that could be profitably diverted to other employment, but proper organization and technical equipment would give those remaining in the industry better wages and working conditions. The vista of increasingly harmonious relationships between capital and labor in the industry would be considerably widened by such a development.

One thing is certain: we shall make a choice in connection with the present problem. Either we shall seek adequate powers and procedure for regulation, or we shall permit the waste and inefficiency to continue. But we shall ultimately face conditions in both anthracite and bituminous fields which will compel a policy of regulation. Both wasteful, competitive exploitation and concentration of ownership and monopoly will lead to the same result. Each entails a consequence which will force control in the interest of public welfare. If this is true, all parties concerned — owners, workers, railroads, manufacturers, and household consumers — could do no better than agree upon and work for a plan of industrial control founded upon adequate sovereign powers and enforced through effective organization.

It should be entirely reasonable to suggest that a nation depending increasingly upon power and industries for growth and progress should turn to the use of technical equipment and organization to conserve its resources. Moreover, consumers depending altogether upon coal for power, warmth, and health will ultimately demand an effective basis of control to meet these needs, regardless of the obstacles that may now seem to hinder its attainment.