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Let • us interpolate here a noticeable fact which has

been brought out in the past few days. The export figures of the coal industry have been rising rather rapidly all over the country but particularly in South Wales. Thus, whatever the coal subsidy may amount to in the end it will have brought an improvement in ./ the shipping and Steel trades, -which- is 'worth a good deal. Fewer ships are leaving our shores without a cargo of coal. No longer is there the familiar spectacle of steamships going down Channel empty in order to bring back cargoes of imports ; their propellers are no longer half out of the water ; most of them are again carrying coal. Incidentally this makes one- hope that the margin between success and failure in the coal mines is not quite so wide as had been feared.

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