Abstract

England's Coal Tragedy

Since the "hungry forties" of last century there has been no industrial calamity in England comparable in the magnitude and intensity of its distress with the present condition of our coal-fields in Durham, South Wales, and some other industrial areas. Like most tragedies it is the joint product of fate and human folly. A famous economist of half a century ago remarked that "Coal is the foundation of English prosperity." Before the war it was becoming manifest that this foundation was itself undermined. Oil and hydro-electricity were rapidly advancing as sources of power and new rich coal-measures were being opened up in countries hitherto dependent upon British exports. In the U.S. and Germany better technical equipment and business organization were outcompeting the older and worse-managed mines. Statistics of coal and the closely related iron and steel industries made this manifest.