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DAMMING OUR BLACK RIVER OF WASTE 349
United States, could be supplied adequately
with the product and still leave a
surplus of forty million tons. The coal
operators insist that the shortage has
been due to lack of shipping facilities.
mineral at all it was necessary originally
to cut down through various strata of
earth and soft rock. This soft formation
required a most ingenious and elaborate
system of bracing the walls and
CANDLES ARE COMING BACK
Because of the ban on the waste of electricity, Paris shop windows are illuminated now by arrays of wax tapers.
Production is useless without cars to haul ceilings. In their retreat, the Germans
the coal. The freight congestion would
seem to bear out their explanation of the
shortage. That is why we say the government
must commandeer the .railways
at the firing of the first shot. If the
railways cannot discharge satisfactorily
the responsibilities they have assumed,
the war powers vested in the National
Government should force them to do so.
But even after the war is over the coal
shortage problem will not be solved for
some time. Europe will make all' the
coal contracts she can with the United
States. France and Belgium, in particular,
will have to get coal abroad, for the
mines of those regions are ruined, probably
for years to come.
In northern France the coal mines lie
very deep underground. To get at the
indiscriminately destroyed these supports
with explosives, so that in the
blowing up of the pillars countless tons
of debris fell, closing up the mine shafts.
This was an obvious piece of military
strategy, designed not only to spoil all
chance that France might have of utilizing
these mines during the war, but possibly
with the idea in view of crippling
French industry after the war. In any
event, such will be the effect, for it may
take years to restore these mines to their
original working condition.
It appears, then, as if the world, after
the war, will have to look to the United
States for its coal supply. Oriental
fields, the only other source the world
may turn to, are not sufficiently developed
to be counted upon for supplying