A COAL FAMINE IN FRANCE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 23, 28 January 1911, Page 20

A COAL FAMINE IN FRANCE.

RESULT OF STRIKE AND FLOODS. In the North of France at present there is a peculiar crisis in tho coal trade, said a recent number of the Budget. The mines and depots have too much coal, because the means of transport have failed. For a week or ten days tho railway strike interrupted the consignments being sent from the North and West, and as soon as it was ovei no effort was spared to make up for lost time. But almost directly after the strike camo the floods, rendering the canals useless, and the hunt for wagons and trucks began. Mineowners and coal dealers are clamouring for them, but the Northern Railway replies that it has lent to the Western, and net yet had its roljipg stock returned. Consequently Paris is reduced to living on its reserve. In ordinary times, to meet the demand, Paris receives about two thousand truck loads of coal a day from the North and the Pas de Calais, and now it is getting barely three hundred. In consequence, many of the mines will have partially r. shut down, which will be a considerable | loss to them. But they will not be the j only sufferers, because there is an old custom of tho mines according to which, for | a fortnight before the miners' fete — the Fete of St. Barbe — the men are allowed to work after hours for extra pay. In consequence of tho dearth of transport | this custom will not be observed in many large mines, and tho railway strike, which has already cost the cheminots so dear, will also bring severe losses on their fel-low-workmen in the mines, who had nothing to do with either their quarrel or their movement. And, incidentally, everybody in Paris will feel tho effect of scarcity and dearness of coal.