Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

moment you think of William Blake, another of William H. Davies and his quaint simplicities. We should like to quote the whole book, but what would the publishers say ? Here is just one song of a Dublin street where is a well-known railway station "The British Coal Trade." By H. Stanley Jevons, MA. London Kegan Paul & Co., Ltd. Pp. 876. 6s. net. Professor Jevons was recently appointed to the Chair of Economics at the University of Allahabad. He has left behind as a parting gift this admirable survey of one of our great British industries, and one- which is of supreme interest to all Welshmen. The book is correctly described in the Preface as a popular account of the coal mining industry and of the coal trade of the British Isles, in which special attention is paid to the economic and social aspects." It is thus much more comprehensive than any previous book on the subject. It deals in detail with the methods of mining coal, the economics of sale and purchase, problems of safety and inspection, trade union policy, the amalgamation of colliery undertakings, the working of the Minimum Wage Act, the housing of the miners, the use of oil as a substitute for coal, the world's coal resources and their probable duration. Over this wide field Professor Jevons ranges with the expert eye of a trained geologist and economist. He has made full use of the available authorities especially of the reports of the recent Royal Commissions. But he has supplemented these by much first-hand observa- tion. Luxurious critics at a distance who label all South Wales miners as ignorant and unpatriotic WESTLAND ROW. Every Sunday there's a throng Of pretty giro, who trot along In a pious, breathless state (They are nearly always late) To the Chapel, where they pray For the sins of Saturday. They have frocks of white and blue. Yellow sashes they have, too. And red ribbons show each head Tenderly is ringleted And the bells ring loud, and the Railway whistles urgently. After Chapel they will go, Walking delicately slow. Telling still how Father John Is so good to look upon, And such other grave affairs As they thought of during prayers. traitors to the State should correct their prejudice by reading some of the chapters in which the author describes the social characteristics of the mining valleys. Fifty years ago the author's father published a brilliant essay on The Coal Question, rhere is, therefore, a natural temptation to compare the two works. The earlier book was a highly original and speculative discussion of the duration of our coal supplies in relation to our national destiny: the present book is rather an example of descriptive economics. Originality was more possible fifty years ago. It was, indeed, the publication of the late Professor Jevon's book which led directly to the appointment of the Royal Commission on Coal Supplies of 1871 and less directly to the subsequent similar Commissions. His prophecies have often been popularly misrepresented. He never said that our coal seams would be worked out in a century from 1863— the date of his book. He was not so much concerned with the ultimate and remote exhaustion of our coalfields as with the much earlier loss of the relative advantage which we enjoyed from cheap coal. He correctly foretold that the United States would out-distance us in the making of iron and steel. "In 1862 we turned out five times as much pig-iron as the United States but now their output is nearly three times as great as ours, and it may be only a question of time for us to lose practi- cally the whole of the heavy steel trade." Similarly the father showed that the economy in the use of coal, such as has been since achieved, whereby one ton will do the work done by two tons fifty years ago does not mean delay in exhausting our supply, but rather a bigger demand owing to the consequent fresh and cheaper uses. What was not foreseen by Jevons in 1865 was the discovery of new coal deposits faster than we have been raising coal from all the coalfields of the country. Nor did Jevons senior sufficiently allow for the great econo- mies in mining and marketing coal which have become possible since his day. In his day pits were fitted to send up 500 tons per day, but we may live to see pits equipped to raise 8,000 tons per day, or 15,000 tons per day if working double shift at the face of coal." As the general introduction of the double shift throughout South Wales would mean doubling the population we hope that deluge may be postponed for another half century. While Jevons junior takes a more optimistic view than did his father of the resources of the concealed coalfields, he does not under-rate the seriousness of American competition, and there are some earnest appeals for more efficient organisation, better mechanical appli-