The report of the Royal Commission on the Supply of
Coal is out, and will be found analyzed elsewhere. It comes pretty much to this. Professor Stanley Joyous was right, and we are burning our coal-fields up. If everything goes on as at present, our supply will be done by the year 2000. If we get down to 4,000 feet, which is possible, but will be costly and dangerous, and if the population increases in a decreasing ratio, it may last till 2230. Long before either time the price of coal will rise very sensibly indeed. There is a limit to the rise, of course, for at a certain price per ton foreign coal could be brought in ; but still, all manu- factures would be very severely affected. The best hope is in a new motor not requiring such a consumption of bottled sunlight to feed it, but that seems far off ; and we fear we must look for- ward to a time when England will again be an agricultural country very much burdened with debt, and with a population, organized on Swiss principles, of about ten millions. The debt, as Mr. Gladstone advised, should be paid before that.
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