Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

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September 16, 1922 RECORD AND GUIDE 357 Coal Industry Must Be Stabilized The coal-carrying roads, despite the serious handicaps caused by the shopmen's strike, are making systematic efforts to rush fuel from mines to market. This indicates an alertness on the part of the railroad managers which cannot but be encouraging to the great mass of citizens who are worrying over the winter's fuel supply. It answers quite satisfactorily the assertions of strike leaders that the railroads, because of inadequate equipment, would fail the public in the fuel crisis. It must be kept in mind, however, that no matter how Vv'ell the coal-carrying roads do in this emergency, they cannot haul to market in a few weeks the tonnage of coal which usually comes in to the metropolis during the sum¬ mer months. To expect them to do this would be to expect an impossibility, entirely disregarding the vital fact that even if the railroads had not been crippled by the shopmen's strike the supply of fuel at the mines has been far below normal because of the miners' strike. A serious shortage in the quantity of coal available to the public this winter must be expected. This is demon¬ strated by so competent an authority as Air. Sydney A. Hale, Editor of Tlic Coal Trade Jour'nal, who points •out that even with the railroads furnishing 100 per cent, service and the miners working at top speed from now on, it would be physically impossible to make up the loss of tonnage during the twenty-three weeks the mines have been idle. In proof, Mr. Hale points out that the average yearly ship¬ ments of anthracite during the seven years ended last De¬ cember were 70,369,571 gross tons, and that in only two years of that period have shipments exceeded the average. In 1917 the total shipments were 77,133,305 tons, and in 1918 the total was 76,749,919 tons. Shipments last year dropped to 67,617,713 tons, and the figures for the seven }ears represent an average monthly shipment of 5,864,130 tons. The highest monthly shipment on record was in March, 1918, and totalled 7,726,717 tons. Mr. Hale notes that if this rate could be maintained without break for the rest of the current coal year, which he regards as highly- improbable if not obviously impossible, the shipments for the year would total 48,511,446 tons, or 21,858,125 tons less than the average for the last seven years, and 19,106,- 267 tons behind the last calendar vear. It is obvious, there¬ fore, that the emergency can be met only through the ex¬ ercise of the greatest care in the use of this year's supply of coal, and by resorting to fuel substitutes wherever possible. In this connection some excellent suggestions have been made by the Xew York Building r^Ianagers and Owners' Association. The application of war-time methods to regulate the dis¬ tribution and selling-price of coal gives promise of as square a deal to coal consumers as could be hoped for in the cir¬ cumstances. At the same time, these are emergency meas¬ ures adopted to meet an emergency which ought not to have arisen. The plight of the public, worried over an inadequate supply of coal and with higher prices for what will be available harassing them, will put the strongest kind of public sentiment back of efforts to get the coal busi- litss on a permanent sane basis. Secretary Hoover summed up the situation accurately when he declared in a New '^'ork address early this week: "\Mien the public can be made the victim of infinite loss ;ind_ suffering by such disagreements as we have witnessed ; when the whole Nation can once every two years or less be pushed to the edge of the precipice of want and commercial collapse; when our public utilities, hospitals, schools, and kitchens are dependent upon short rations of non-union coal; when the Federal Government is forced to interfere with business and transportation to secure even this move¬ ment to essential points ; when we are brought to consid¬ eration of price fixing against extortion in peace time; when hundreds of thousands of workers not only in the industry but outside of it are thrown into skimping and starving; V. hen the Nation is made to suffer the shame of Herrin and rampant crime that has followed in train of strikes—then some examination of our industrial sanity is called for." Secretary Hoover declared that the two problems which must be solved are: first, the employer-employee relation¬ ship ; and second, the economic reorganization of the coal industry. As ^Ir. Hoover pointed out, the present rela¬ tionship of employer and employee in the industry com¬ prises a periodical national danger, because with national organization and national disagreement it means national stoppage. In the end, as he so pertinently declares, the issues of the struggle are consciously or unconsciously im¬ posed Ijy pinching the welfare of 99 per cent, of the public vv'ho are not parties to the quarrel. Through subsequent ]ear an historic period in the annals of the con¬ struction industry, is showing a greater ratio of increase in the Southern States than in any other section of the coun¬ try. An exhaustive survey of the building situation in sixteen Southern States was recently undertaken by G. L. Miller & Co., Inc., of .\tlanta, and it shows a remarkable