It seems paradoxical that the miners, of all people, should
be pressing for a reduction in the price of coal, which they have helped to increase by insisting on very high wages for a shorter working day and by indulging in incessant strikes for the most trivial reasons. But their motive in urging the Government, at a Conference on Tuesday, to reduce the price is obvious enough. They dislike the unpopularity which their excessive and arbi- trary demands have brought them among all classes of the com- munity. We may infer that the chastened attitude of the miners' Executive dining the last month or two is not unrelated to their fear of public opinion or to the improvement in the out- put of coal. Whether this improvement will be maintained is uncertain. If it is, and if export and bunker coal can be sold in large quantities at a very high price, then the Government may be justified in reducing the price of coal for home consump- tion. The present price is, of course, a severe tax on every householder and a ruinous handicap to every manufacturer. But it would be folly to reduce the price if it involved a State subsidy to the coal-mines, or if it cut down the profits to such a low level as to discourage the owners from developing new pits or introducing machinery.
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