![]() ![]() As in the past, mechanization discussions and mechanical loading eąuipment will have the spotlight. Desirable as tire Washington aim may be, the Cineinnati objective is broader in scope and more effeetive in esecntion. At best Washington is laboring to reestablish cheeks against ruinons competition witliin the industry Cineinnati offers a forum for planning how coal may be marketed at a profit in competition with other fuels. The contrast is both dramatie and significant. And would competitors have driven that home in explaining higher prices to disgruntled consumers! Cincinnati Beckons W h i l e W a s h i n g t o n struggles with minimum-price problems, Cincinnati again invites progressive mining men to meet at the annual convention and exposition ofĢ the American Mining Congress to consider ruethods of reducing costs. Second and more important, favorable action would have placed the coal industry in the unenviable position of haring fostered a tax on a competitive fuel. First, a tax on fuel oil produced in the United States this year would have been an irresistible invitation for further taxes on coal next year. Fortunately for two reasons which the industry seemed to have overlooked. So it should not be surprising that many coal men enthusiastically supported the proposals of Congressmen Boland and Flannery for a tax on fuel oil. Happy Defeat M i s e r y not only loves but freąuently actively solicits company. The need for such intensification is too pressing to justify delays wliile groggy producers recover from Washington political or recession shocks. That means more meclianization of operations still on a hand-and-mule basis and greater efficiency in mines already mechanized. Success will not be found in maintaining a floor level of prices which will support the inefficient operation but in a continuous drive for lower costs which will enhance the fuel-value purchasing power-of every dollar spent for coal. This should make the course of the coal industry plain. Standards of value may differ as between industries and as between domestic users, but, howsoever the standard may be determined, it is still the greatest fuel value that is the goal Word sharps may draw nice distinctions between value and price but in a practical buying world the two merge. In the last analysis every industrial buyer and every household consumer is seeking just one thing: the greatest fuel value for his dollar. Whether its percentage contribution to the national energy total will diminisli or increase in the coming years rests primarily with the industry itself. Despite the hard buffetings by competitive fuels, coal still remains the chief source of energy. The real danger, however, is not the effect of today s declining market but that the gloom thus induced may obscure certain fundamental objectives which must be pursued relentlessly if the coal industry is to build for a sound and espanding futurę. Denied both the price protection of tlie Guffey act and the spurt in demand tliat many had anticipated would develop when that protection was withdrawn, a pessimistic view of the immediate futurę has hecome fairly common. H A L E, E iito r April, 1938 They Still Burn Coal S u s p e n s i o x of all minimum-price schedules coming on tlie top of a market which sliows only languid interest in buying leaves most bituminous operators in an unhappy state of mind. DEYOTED TO THE OPERATING, TECHNICAL AND BUSINESS PROBLEMS OF THE COAL-MINING INDUSTRY S Y D N E Y A. 1 COAL AGE Established 1911 M cg raw -H ill Publishing Com pany, Inc. ![]()
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