coal trade bulletin - Clpdigital.org

The Coal Trade In 1913.
(CONTINUED PEOM PAGE 26)
producing from 850,000,000 to 900,000,000 tons of
coal a year.
With all this tremendous production there is a
great waste going on. With the exception of one
or two small areas there has been practically no
conservation practiced in the operation of coai
mining or much intelligent direction given to the
selling and marketing of coal.
All these factors working together are likely to
increase the price of coal suddenly in the near future.
To waste and destroy in the hill 25 to 40
per cent, is too rapidly exhausting the resources
of the country. Mining methods today are
crude. The supply of miners is being graduallylessened—going
into other work. More than SO
per cent, of the cost of coal today is labor, and
the demands of labor are bound to increase rapidly.
Some means must be looked for at once
for eliminating a large percentage of manual labor
in coal production, and it can come none too soon.
The present mechanical development in niining
puts most of the work on the manual toil of the
miner; little advance has been made over the ancient
method of pick mining. With the tremendous
amount of coal required for consumption such
archaic methods are wholly inadequate for the
future.
No industry today offers greater opportunities
for the exercise of ability in engineering and its
several branches and a strong directing generalship
than coal mining. . The rigorous application
of efficiency in the industry will be, too, of advantage
to more people than the same application of
efficiency in almost any other modern industry.
With the rapidly increased consumption of fuel with
decreasing labor supply, the country is entering
on a new era in coal mining. New methods are
needed and the only solution of the difficulties is
along the lines of mechanical development and the
elimination of more manual labor.
The price of Pittsburgh coal last year was low,
considering the quality and the consumptive demand.
It was higher by 10 or 15 cents a ton than
the year before, but that was in a period of a
highly competitive warfare, when miners' wages
were increased, prices reduced and the reduced
freight rate to the lake front was given to the
lake buyers of coal.
One of the chief difficulties in the industry is
that the selling price of coal is apparently not
fixed with any reference to the true cost of its
production, which involves a proper percentage of
the recovery of the coal in the hill as well as the
cost of mining and selling it. Whether or not a
district operates full 10 months a year or 12
months a year is to some extent involved in this
question. The archaic but familiar method often
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 57
adopted by coal companies to ascertain what price
they should ask for their product is to call in all
their salesmen and get the concensus of their
opinion on that important subject. As the salesman
is not interested in the company, has no
knowledge of its cost of production and is interested
only in selling as large a tonnage as possible,
it is obvious that it is easier for him to
sell coal at $1.25 a ton than at $1.50. He explains
how low some other company is selling coal,
that the present year ahead is not a good year to
advance the price, but that no doubt the following
year will be a good coal year and better prices
can be had then (but this so-called following year
of good prices is never reached—it is always the
year ahead) therefore he advises the company
strongly to maintain the lower price and run a
good tonnage. The sales manager thinks usually
in tons; rarely in profits.
The outlook for the year 1914 for the Pittsburgh
district is good and the potential strength of the
industry in the Pittsburgh district is rapidly attracting
attention. Where efficiency of operation
was maintained in the Pittsburgh district, low costs
obtained, good salesmanship displayed, fair but
not large earnings were made over 1912. The successful
and profitable operations in coal mining
in Pittsburgh district soon will converge and depend
on the elimination of crude and antiquated
methods of operation ancl the application of methods
that will reduce the cost of mining, improve
living conditions of the miners, effect a larger recovery
of coal and decimate injuries in mining
operations.
The coke industry is involved in any consideration
of coal niining in the Pittsburgh district.
Pittsburgh is the center of the greatest coke- consuming
region in the world. The Connellsville
field has produced considerably more coke in the
last 10 years than in its entire previous life; a
large percentage of operations are going out each
year for want of c-oal and the Connellsville field
will be practically exhausted in 15 years. The
life of that coke field is short. All this is a matter
of serious import for the Pittsburgh district,
but it is little heeded. The Pittsburgh fuel resources
should be protected and that protection
be aided by the Pittsburgh industrial commission
and an awakened civic pride. The coal resources
of the Pittsburgh district are the foundations of
all that makes for the greatness of Pittsburgh and
a movement of some kind looking to the better conservation
and the protection of this wonderfully
high grade fuel for Pittsburgh's use and benefit
should be started and maintained.
The Parish Coal Co. of Bicknell, lnd., has
struck a 6-foot vein of coal on its property just
west of Petersburg, lnd.