The coal question; an inquiry concerning the progress of the nation, and the probable exhaustion of our coal-mines

Front matter

n

THE

COAL QUESTION

Chapter I >- Introduction And Outline I

or

22 CHAPTER II

OPINIONS OF PREVIOUS WRITERS T5

s

£ CHAPTER III

GEOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE QUESTION 40

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q CHAPTER IV

OF THE COST OF COAL MINING 56

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CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

OF BRITISH INVENTION IOO

CHAPTER VII OF THE ECONOMY OF FUEL 1 37

CHAPTER VIII

OF SUPPOSED SUBSTITUTES FOR COAL 1 58 vi CONTENTS

CHAPTER IX

PAGE

OF THE NATURAL LAW OF SOCIAL GROWTH I9J

CHAPTER X

OF THE GROWTH AND MIGRATIONS OF OUR POPULATION . 2C2

CHAPTER XI

OF THE CHANGE AND PROGRESS OF OUR INDUSTRY . . . 233

CHAPTER XII OF OUR CONSUMPTION OF COAL 261

CHAPTER XIII

OF THE EXPORT AND IMPORT OF COAL 285

CHAPTER XIV

OF THE COMPARATIVE COAL RESOURCES OF DIFFERENT

COUNTRIES 320

CHAPTER XV

OF THE IRON TRADE 368

CHAPTER XVI

PROBLEM OF THE TRADING BODIES 410

CHAPTER XVII

OF TAXES AND THE NATIONAL DEBT 437

CHAPTER XVIII

CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS 454

INDEX 461

EXPLANATION OF PLATES

PLATE I of the frontispiece reproduces Jevons' original frontispiece with the following changes : —

i. The curves of population and of imports are carried on to later dates than in the original.

ii. The progress of the vend of coal from Newcastle is traced at decennial intervals between 1800 and 1861. The following data, derived from the authority quoted by Jevons (p. 262), for years preceding 1845, and, for subsequent years, from the Transactions of the North of Engla?id Institute o> Mining Engineers, vol. xii, 1862-3, p. 169 (see also vol. xv, p. 257), show the total vend at intervals of ten years.

VEND OF COAL FROM NEWCASTLE (see also p. 262)

Year

Tons

Year

Ton3

1810 1820 1830

1840 1850 1861 '

5,587,384

8,471,685

10,527,581 1

1 Including 162,934 tons sent by rail.

iii. The curve showing what the output would become if it continued to increase at the rate determined by Jevons (p. 272) is supplemented by a similar curve showing the results of a continued growth at the rate experienced for the last quarter of a century (pp. 281-2). As with the former, so with the latter, the results show that the rate on which the curve is calculated cannot be continued for a long period.

Plate II is drawn to a logarithmic scale, so that progress at a uniform rate is represented by a straight line sloping upwards across the page. The figures for foreign countries, for and after 1868, are taken from the annual volumes of Mineral Statistics for the United States. For earlier years various sources have been employed, chiefly the Report of the Argyll Commission. For the United States the returns previous to 1880 are less complete than those for later years. In the earlier years the viii EXPLANATION OF PLATES

anthracite returns represent sales, not output. The figures for the first few years of the diagram are based on tables published by the U.S. Geological Survey, and on the census return for i860.

To bring the line relating to the world's output within the limits of the page, it has been made to represent one-tenth of the entire world's output. To show the whole of the world's output on the same scale as the output of individual countries included in the diagram, the line would only need to be moved upwards parallel to itself through about 3§ inches. The line representing British exports of coal is based on figures inclusive of bunker coal shipped on foreign-going ships. For the years before 1873 the return of bunkers is lacking, and an allowance based on the tonnage of steam vessels cleared from British ports has been made.

(For tables of production in different countries, cf. Chap, xiv, passim, especially p. 365. For exports, cf. pp. 318-9.)

Preface To The Third Edition

The extent to which the argument advanced by Jevons, in reference to the exhaustibility of British coal resources, has been misunderstood, is surprising in view of the care which he took to make his position clear. The Royal Commissions appointed in 1866 and in 1901 to investigate the question, in spite of the careful study which each of them gave to the important issues involved, both shared the general misunderstanding. In their reports Jevons is referred to as calculating that the coal consumption of the United Kingdom would reach certain very large amounts in the near future ; and, a divergence being shown between actual experience and what is called his prophecy, his argument is discredited. Now Jevons himself, in the text of Chapter xii (p. 274), took pains to point out that the figures set forth (p. 272) are merely a statex PREFACE

ment of how great the consumption of coal would become if the rate of progress shown at the time at which he wrote were maintained. It is an absolutely fundamental point in his argument that that rate could not long be maintained, and that the general prosperity of the nation must be affected by the inevitable reduction of the rate of increase of coal consumption. Though hesitating to name the date at which the reduction would become marked, he stated clearly that, in his opinion, it could not be as much as a century distant. In view of this, the fact that a decreased rate of growth became manifest within twenty years can hardly be regarded as a disproof of the validity of his arguments.

Some critics have, with great pains, worked out the effects of a progressive rate of diminution of the annual increase in coal output, based on the difference between that annual increase as noted by Jevons and as revealed by the returns for later years. The elaborate tables, printed at length in an appendix to the reports of the recent Royal Commission, in which Mr. R. Price-Williams

PREFACE xi

gave a revised version of tables presented to the Commission of 187 1, afford an example of this. Though calculations on these lines appear to be intended as a refutation of the arguments of Jevons, they embody, in truth, the very error of which their compilers accuse Jevons. They are based on the assumption that the rates of change observed in the recent past will continue unaltered into the distant future. Though, by the exercise of proper care, the reader of these tables can assure himself that they are not intended to embody a prophecy, but merely to represent what is implied by the persistence of existing rates of movement, there is little in the tables themselves, or in the reflections naturally based on a consideration of their results, to compel attention to their hypothetical character. Now Jevons used his tables to show that the rate of growth manifested in them could not be maintained for any long period of time. In this may be seen the superiority of his method over that of his critics.

The experience of the last thirty years shows a rate of progress of the British coal output xii PREFACE

nearly unchanged, if we base the comparison, not on single years, but on broader averages. In detail, a decrease of the rate of progress, followed by a recovery, is noted. In view of this, no attempt is made in the text to set forth the results of an assumed progressive rate of decrease in the annual addition to output. It is shown that, even at the average rate of progress manifested in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the annual output would, by the end of the twentieth century, amount to some 1,500,000,000 tons. Hence Jevons7 argument, that a reduced rate of progress must set in before the end of a century from the time at which he wrote, may be repeated. There is no conflict between this view and that set forth in the reports of the recent Royal Commission, in spite of the apparent belief of the Commissioners that the experience of Jevons might serve as a warning to them of what to avoid. That the reduction is inevitable is clear, though it is submitted that the data available do not afford a reliable basis for a calculation of the approximate date when growth of output will cease.

PREFACE xiii

A point to be noted in passing is that the Commission reported that the average rate of increase of output for the last thirty years has been 2\ per cent per annum. This rate results from a comparison of individual years at the beginning and end of the period in question. If we compare the five years 1870- 74 with the five years 1900-04, the rate of increase per annum is found to have averaged but z\ per cent over the interval of thirty years. The difference between the 2\ per cent per annum, reported by the Commission, and the rate of 2\ per cent, determined by the method named is considerable. A rate of progress of i\ per cent per annum, on the output of 1870-74, would have resulted in an output for the five years 1900-04 exceeding that actually recorded by about 27,000,000 tons yearly. In the computations of the text, and in the frontispiece, the rate of increase taken to represent the facts of the recent past has been 2 per cent per annum (see p. 281), and the second diagram of the frontispiece will make it clear how nearly uniform the average rate has been, and how indecisive as yet are xiv PREFACE

the indications of a progressive decrease of that rate.

This second diagram brings out also the steadiness of the rates of increase of output in Germany, France, Belgium, and in the world as a whole, as also of British coal exports. In the United States, development has progressed so rapidly in the last decade that the high rate of annual increase in coal production, which had prevailed for a dozen years before, has undergone acceleration. A study of the diagram will show that, in respect to coal output, the United Kingdom took the second place among the nations in 1899. Should the rates of progress recently prevalent be maintained for so long, the diagram further shows that even the second place will only be held during about two decennia.

The most important change in the general situation, so far as relates to the subject of this book, since it was originally written, is the development of the coal resources of Germany. This has necessitated substantial changes in the chapter dealing with the coal resources of different countries, and introduces new considerations into the arguments relating to actual and

PREFACE xv

prospective foreign competition with British industry. The investigations of the last ten years have done more than anything previously known to demonstrate the solidity of the basis on which the German industrial fabric is reared on its material side. In the text (p. 324 et seq.) reference is made to the statements of Herr Oskar Simmersbach on this subject, but the material on which those statements are based is summarised in Mr. Bennett H. Brough's report to the recent Royal Commission, printed in Part XI of the Appendices to the Final Report. It is in collating this information, rather than in calling attention to any considerable mass of newly ascertained facts, that Herr Simmersbach has been led to the remarkable results cited in the text. To anyone who shares the views expressed by Jevons, on the supreme importance of coal in relation to industrial development, the advance of Germany, like that of the United States, will appear to have resulted from the natural conditions of the territory occupied by an energetic and intelligent race, rather than from the conditions created by legislatures. In looking forward to the future, and in xvi PREFACE

considering the forecast of the authority cited, namely, that Germany is destined to succeed to the commercial and industrial inheritance of Britain, the great depth at which much of the coal included in his estimates lies cannot be ignored as a factor in the problem. Apart from unproved coalfields, in view of the rates of increase of output which now prevail in the two countries, it would seem probable that the exhaustion of the British deposits will not progress much, if at all, more rapidly, in relation to their total contents, than will be the case with the German coal. Unless the unproved areas are found to yield much larger quantities of good coal, accessible at moderate cost, in Germany than in Great Britain, the rise in the cost of coal due to approaching exhaustion will proceed pari passu in the two countries, even if it be not more rapid there than here. In the meantime, however, the growing annual output, and the revelation of the extensive resources of the German coal mines, are matters of the utmost importance to the industrial communities of Great Britain. Looking beyond these islands to the daughter xvn states across the seas, the reported coal resources of Canada and Australia suggest the reflection that, even though an increasing cost of power in Britain involve the decay here of the industries on which our country's great preponderance has been based, the mercantile and industrial greatness of the British Empire may not pass away. The future pictured by Jevons on pp. 429 and 430 is one the consideration of which has by so much the greater interest as the conditions on which its advent depends approach nearer to their realisation.

The discussion of possible substitutes for coal as a source of mechanical energy, which occupies Chapter viii, has needed but little change or addition to the exhaustive treatment given it by Jevons. In one direction there does appear to be scope for an addition to his discussion, namely, in reference to water-power used to develop electric energy. Of late years great strides have been taken in the utilisation of waterfalls and streams in this way. So much, in fact, has been done to perfect the appliances used that even the most economical of known methods of generating electricity by the use

b of coal in this country fail to reach the low level of cost from favourably situated water-powers in some other countries. In considering the coal resources of various countries, one of the two points to which Jevons directed particular attention was the possibility of "a system of manufacturing industry capable of competing with ours " being supported on such coal resources (p. 327). Clearly, where cheap power can be obtained without the use of coal, the lack of coal is not the only matter to which attention must be directed. An industry competing with ours might develop in a country whose supplies of coal were scanty if its water-powers were sufficiently extensive. The absence from the text of any attempt to estimate the degree in which, in different countries, water-power may supplement or replace coal is due in part to the difficulty of obtaining information really meeting the needs of the case. So far as developments have proceeded up to the present, the position appears rather to resemble that of the majority of countries in respect to coal, to which Jevons applied the words (p. 327) : u none are at all capable of competing in quality

PREFACE xix

or extent with our coalfields. They will prove very useful in furnishing a supply for local industry . . . ." The same reasons which permitted Jevons to pass over these coalfields of minor importance must serve as the chief justification for omitting any but a passing mention of the utilisation of water-power in modern times. As regards Great Britain, the evidence laid before the recent Royal Commission showed that the amount of water-power from streams, available for the development of electric energy, is so small as not to affect seriously the question of coal consumption. Other countries may find — are finding — in their water-powers a useful and effective substitute for coal. Thus there is afforded a forcible illustration of the reflection of Jevons (p. 188) that the advantage possessed by Great Britain in her abundant coal-deposits does not extend to other possible sources of power.

Much attention was devoted by the recent Royal Commission to the possibility of effecting economies in the consumption of coal, and it was shown that very large economies are perfectly feasible. In general, however, the

b 2 xx PREFACE

adoption of such economies needs the stimulus of a high price for coal. These economies, too, are open to our competitors equally with ourselves, and thus competition operates to compel their adoption in advance of the high prices consequent on approaching exhaustion.

In considering the history of coal production during the nineteenth century, the tables of Chapter xiv make clear the fact that, not in Great Britain alone, but also in neighbouring Continental countries, the increase of- output proceeded with much greater rapidity before 1865 than it has done since about that date. The introduction of the steam-engine in modern industry and transport caused a much more rapid growth in fuel production than sufficed for the maintenance of steam-driven industry when once coal had been established as the general source of power. It follows that the transition, from progress in coal production at the rate of 3J per cent, per annum to progress at the rate of 2 per cent, per annum, is not necessarily the sign of a reduced degree of general welfare. But, whether the experience of the last quarter of a century be or be not

PREFACE xxi

a beginning of that decline in our manufacturing prosperity to which Jevons looked forward in a longer future, the substitution of a slower rate of progress, or a stationary output, for the actual advance at the rate of 2 per cent, per annum, will necessarily mark a check in our industrial progress. And that check must be experienced in a future not far distant. Should we hasten it by placing obstacles in the way of the expansion of those industries in which coal plays so important a part? Or should we not rather, while pressing as far as possible the advantages which are ours in the present, prepare for those phases of industrial advance which are more suited to a nation unprovided with an abundance of cheap coal ?

The more firmly we are convinced of the exhaustible nature of the basis of our present material prosperity, and of the comparatively near approach of the end of the plenty and cheapness on which we have flourished, the more urgent is the consideration of measures aimed at the amelioration of the condition of the future inhabitants of these islands. Jevons strongly urged the speedy reduction of the xxii PREFACE

National Debt. As the lapse of forty years sees the Debt swollen once more nearly to the dimensions it had in 1865, while the reserves of coal have been reduced substantially in the interval, what was urgent in 1865 is even more urgent to-day. The fact that each generation is apt to find its own burdens quite heavy enough finds illustration in the renewed growth in the National Debt after a long period of reduction. The injustice of handing on to our descendants a country whose fuel resources are seriously impoverished and which is heavily burdened with public debt is sufficiently manifest.

In other ways of meeting our obligations to our successors somewhat more effective progress has been made in the last forty years than in the matter of debt redemption. By the establishment of a system of public education, and by raising the age at which children may be legally employed in industry, something has been done towards meeting those obligations. These measures, urged in the preface to the second edition, have been embodied in legislation. But these achieve-

PREFACE xxiii

ments fall far short of what the situation demands. The renewed consideration of the case urged by Jevons should serve to stimulate to further action along the lines indicated by him.

It remains to state the general scheme of revision of the text which has been followed in preparing this new edition. To attempt to rewrite the book, preserving its method and spirit, but taking account of the knowledge accumulated in the forty years since its original issue, was clearly undesirable. To reprint the text as it was, using footnotes and appendices to supply pertinent information of later date than the text, wTas a possible plan, but one which would have demanded a constant, and often unnecessary, effort on the part of the reader. In selecting a course intermediate between these two, the editor has sought to preserve the text unaltered as far as might conveniently be done, while relieving the reader, as far as possible, from the necessity of the constant vigilance needed to remember that the standpoint is that of forty years ago.

In Chapters ii to ix, a few verbal

XXIV alterations, together with some footnotes, and notes at the end of Chapters ii and v, have been judged sufficient for the purpose indicated, while the references to Mr. Vivian's mode of estimating the resources of the South Wales coal area have been omitted from Chapter ii.

In Chapter x and the first part of the following chapter, the tables of population, etc., have been continued to date in the text, rather than break them into two parts, one in the text, the other in footnotes.

Chapter xiii has been changed but slightly, except in one point, namely, the statistical study of freight rates. On pp. 266-71 of the second edition an admirable study of the freight market of forty years ago is given. In view of the revolutionary changes which have occurred in the general and comparative levels of ocean freights, it has been reluctantly omitted from this edition.

In Chapters xiv and xv a considerable amount of reconstruction and some addition was unavoidable. It has been made with as little change of the original text as seemed consistent with a reasonable statement of the

XXV facts now known. Where an opinion, such as that relating to Belgium's possible competition with Great Britain (p. 337), seemed to be such that the later developments might have left the author's view unchanged, the editor has not considered himself at liberty to alter it, even though, in some cases, he may not share it.

The first chapter forms practically the author's preface to the first edition, in which the numbering of chapters began with what became Chapter ii in the second edition. It has, consequently, been left with but trivial changes in phraseology, just as the preface to the second edition has been reprinted without change. In reading both, it must be remembered that the situation dealt with is that presented at the time at which Jevons wrote them.

A second case in which it has been judged advisable to make no attempt to revise the text is that of the latter part of Chapter xi and the whole of Chapter xii, in which the rate of progress of industry and of coalconsumption is treated. More ample informaxxvi PREFACE

tion than was available to Jevons is now at our disposal, but the data he used are repeated in the text, later figures being set forth in a note at the end of Chapter xii.

The " Problem of the Trading Bodies," treated in Chapter xvi, has also been reproduced without change. As it stands it is easy to take exception to the position assigned to Germany. The nature of the argument is not essentially altered by admitting the industrial development of Germany, as well as of the United States, as a factor of the first importance in the problem. No revision of the argument, so as to fit it to the conditions existing at the present time, could have made up for the loss to the student which would have been involved in discarding Jevons' masterly exposition of the subject.

In like manner the following chapter on ''Taxes and the National Debt" has been repeated without modification, while the final chapter needed no other revision than that which it had received at Jevons' own hands.

Additions and changes made in the text by the editor are marked by square brackets, thus

PREFACE xxvii

], except in the case of quite trivial verbal alterations. No such mark has been deemed necessary to distinguish footnotes added to those of the original version. These latter being almost exclusively references, and the references added being rarely to works of a date such as could have appeared in the second edition, confusion between original and added matter is unlikely to arise. The notes given as appendices to some of the chapters needed no mark to distinguish them from the author's text.

In all changes, the purpose in view has been the reproduction of Jevons' book, with the additional information necessary to adapt it for use in reference to the current situation, and with the least change consistent with that general aim.

A copy of the volume, on the margins of which Jevons had begun the work of revision, was found by Mrs. Jevons. Unfortunately this copy contained no indication of any plan of rewriting, the revision being confined to verbal changes, and only extending to Chap, vi pp. 100-104, Chap, viii pp. 158-160, Chap, ix xxviii PREFACE

and Chap, xviii. The changes indicated have, of course, been embodied in this edition. It is a matter for great regret that the author's revision did not extend to those chapters which have undergone most change in the present edition.

The evidence taken by the Royal Commission on Coal Supplies has been of a value which it would be hard to overestimate in the preparation of this edition. To Mr. H. Stanley Jevons, who has kindly read the proofs, and to colleagues who have aided me by directing me to sources of needed information, I desire to express my indebtedness and my gratitude. I trust that the course followed in the arrangement of matter in this edition will commend itself to the numerous admirers of the book and of its author

A. W. FLUX.

January ', 1906

Preface To The Second Edition

I am desirous of prefixing to the second edition of the following work a few explanations which may tend to prevent misapprehension of its purpose and conclusions.

The expression " exhaustion of our coal mines " states the subject in the briefest form, but is sure to convey erroneous notions to those who do not reflect upon the long series of changes in our industrial condition which must result from the gradual deepening of our coal mines and the increased price of fuel. Many persons perhaps entertain a vague notion that some day our coal seams will be found emptied to the bottom, and swept clean like a coal-cellar. Our fires and furnaces, they think, will then be suddenly extinguished, and cold and darkness will be left to reign over a depopulated country. It is almost needless to say, however, that our xxx PREFACE

mines are literally inexhaustible. We cannot get to the bottom of them ; and though we may some day have to pay dear for fuel, it will never be positively wanting.

I have occasionally spoken in the following pages of "the end," of the "instability of our position," and so forth. When considered in connection with the context, or with expressions and qualifications in other parts of the volume, it will be obvious that I mean not the end or overturn of the nation, but the end of the present progressive condition of the kingdom. If there be a few expressions which go beyond this, I should regard them as speculative only, and should not maintain them as an essential part of the conclusions.

Renewed reflection has convinced me that my main position is only too strong and true. It is simply that we cannot long progress as we are now doing. I give the usual scientific reasons for supposing that coal must confer mighty influence and advantages upon its rich possessor, and I show that we now use much more of this invaluable aid than all other countries put together. But it is impossible we

PREFACE xxxi

should long maintain so singular a position ; not only must we meet some limit within our own country, but we must witness the coal produce of other countries approximating to our own, and ultimately passing it.

At a future time, then, we shall have influences acting against us which are now acting strongly with us. We may even then retain no inconsiderable share of the world's trade, but it is impossible that we should go on expanding as we are now doing. Our motion must be reduced to rest, and it is to this change my attention is directed. How long we may exist in a stationary condition I, for one, should never attempt to conjecture. The question here treated regards the length of time that we may go on rising, and the height of prosperity and wealth to which we may attain. Few will doubt, I think, after examining the subject, that we cannot long rise as we are now doing.

Even when the question is thus narrowed I know there will be no want of opponents. Some rather hasty thinkers will at once cut the ground from under me, and say that they never supposed we should long progress as we xxxii PREFACE

are doing, nor do they desire it. I would make two remarks in answer.

Firstly, have they taken time to think what is involved in bringing a great and growing nation to a stand ? It is easy to set a boulder rolling on the mountain-side ; it is perilous to try to stop it. It is just such an adverse change in the rate of progress of a nation which is galling and perilous. Since we began to develop the general use of coal, about a century ago, we have become accustomed to an almost yearly expansion of trade and employment. Within the last twenty years everything has tended to intensify our prosperity, and the results are seen in the extraordinary facts concerning the prevalence of marriage, which I have explained in pp. 222 — 225, and to which I should wish to draw special attention. It is not difficult to see, then, that we must either maintain the expansion of our trade and employment, or else witness a sore pressure of population and a great exodus of our people.