11117 " CORNER " IN COAL. A RE we to have
a Coal Syndicate ? Certainly syndi- cates are in fashion, and the warning conveyed by the collapse of the Copper Ring has little or no applica- tion to coal. Copper is almost indestructible, and it is made up into shapes which admit of being unmade when the price of the raw material makes the process a paying one. Coal can only be used by being destroyed ; it is food for the flame and for nothing else. Consequently, the very failure of the Copper Ring conveys encouragement for a Coal Ring. There are equal possibilities of profit in the two schemes, and the unknown quantity which brought the one to the ground is altogether wanting in the other. At all events, the idea seems on the eve of taking shape. It is seriously proposed to amalgamate all the coal interests in the United Kingdom into a new Co-operative Associa- tion. The promoters of this scheme are evidently aware of the immense unpopularity which a serious attempt to raise the price of coal would at once encounter. They speak of the workman and the consumer in a very different tone from that usually adopted by the capitalist producer towards his natural enemies. " The coal interests " of the United Kingdom is an elastic phrase, and the syndicate have stretched its meaning to the utmost. They have made it include every one who has coal to sell, coal to buy, or coal to raise. The lessees of the mines are to be models of moderation. It is pro- posed that they shall limit themselves to a dividend of 10 per cent., and all profit above that figure is to be divided between the consumers and the workmen. Economy in management and in working is expected to effect large savings on the present outlay, and as the right of the lessees to these savings will be exhausted when their 10 per cent. dividend has been drawn, the effect of them must be seen in lower prices. In proportion as prices fell, the wages of the workmen would rise, so that every one of the coal interests would be better off under the proposed syn- dicate than it is under the present system of unrestricted competition. Thus, the outcome of the plan seems to be that the consumer loses the advantage of competition, and gains in exchange a portion of the benefit arising from a diminution in the cost of production.
It must be admitted that the limitation of dividend is a new and important feature in the scheme. Whether its introduction is due to the good feeling of the framers, or to their sense of the disfavour with which the idea of a Coal Syndicate would have been received were no such pre- caution adopted, it undoubtedly removes the most obvious objection to which such organisations are open. It may be said, indeed, that under the present system there is nothing to prevent dividends from falling below 10 per cent.—it may be very much below—and that the difference, whatever it is, between the present interest on capital invested in coal-mines and the proposed maximum will come out of the consumer's pocket. We cannot say, however, that this objection seems to have much force. Competition does not always reduce the cost of production. For one thing, it is a constant inducement to the lowering of wages. The profits are so sharply cut down that the employer has to be constantly on the look-out for every opportunity of cutting down his outlay. The consequence is, that strikes become frequent, that the price of coal is suddenly raised, and that the plant of the coalowner and the time of the coalminer are alike wasted. The plan now proposed aims at making strikes unnecessary. The workman will have no inducement to bring pressure to bear on the masters, for he will know exactly what their profits are, and is assured of a share in them so soon as the prescribed limit of dividend has been passed. In this way one fertile source of outlay and annoyance will be dried up. More- over, the projectors of the syndicate hold out hopes of positive savings in other directions. Their command of capital will enable them to introduce improvements in the ventilation of the mines and in the removal of water, while large quantities of easily raised coal will be set free from their present function of separating one colliery from another. A single owner can always work more cheaply than many, and when the present lessees of coal-mines are all included in the " Coalowners', Lessees', Workmen's, and Consumers' Co-operative Association, Limited," this hitherto unattainable source of economy will be actually reached. It must be acknowledged, however, that this limitation of dividend does very much lessen the import- ance of the scheme to the public at large. Without this, the prospect would have been full of excitement. When once the necessary concert had been attained, there would have been nothing to prevent the coalowners from indefi- nitely raising the price of a necessary of life. Nothing, that is, in the ordinary course of events,—because it is probable that had coal really been pushed up to famine prices, public exasperation would have driven the Government into some form of preventive legisla- tion. Such legislation would necessarily have been of a very risky and experimental kind, and we may well feel relieved that, supposing the Coal Syndicate is really formed, nothing of the kind will be thought necessary. At the same time, what is gained in public composure is lost in public interest. If the result of a Coal Ring is to lower prices while making wages higher and profits more stable, who is there but must wish to see a Coal Ring in existence ?
Whether the wish will ever be realised, is another question. To bring all the coalowners of England and Scotland into a single Company is a very ambitious project, —so ambitious, indeed, that it is hard to believe that it will ever be realised. Its success depends on its complete- ness, because if it merely embraced a portion of the coal- owners, competition, and the temptations competition brings with it, would not be excluded, and then two of the expected methods of saving would remain out of reach, and the only change in the situation would be that another joint-stock Company would have taken the place of a certain number of individual concerns. Human nature, it would seem, must be a good deal changed before all the coalowners of Great Britain will be convinced that their interest lies in amalgamation rather than in remaining independent. It is not found very easy to bring two Railway Companies up to this point of enlightenment, and two Boards of Directors are less hard to bring to an agreement on the business value of a proposal than hundreds of separate owners of the most various degrees of intelligence and public spirit. All we know at present is that " the project so far has not been taken up at all unanimously by the coalowners in the various districts affected by the proposed scheme;" and when we learn that the districts in question " com- prise Scotland, Durham, Northumberland, Wales, Mon- mouthshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Cheshire," we feel that it would be far more surprising if it had been taken up unanimously. Considering the differences of view as to the merits and chances of any considerable project which are certain to prevail among a large number of men of different condition, habits, and antecedents, we question whether anything short of a miracle will make them of one mind upon a point that so nearly touches their interests and convictions. When all the coalowners of Great Britain agree how coalmining can best be carried on, the Millennium will surely not be far off.
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