AMERICAN COAL INDUSTRY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 31 July 1922, Page 3

AMERICAN COAL INDUSTRY.

] WASTEFUL METHODS. I Writing on May 8 the New York correspondent oi: the ''Manchester Guardian" said V-When, in the coai strike two years ago, the miners asked for a five-day week, the public protested violently, and when the miners claimed that they were asking for more work rather thay less the public listened with incredulity. The coal strike this year finds the public rather bored, occupied with worries of its own, but in a less antagonistic mood, and readier to listen to the miners'. complaints. Various statistical bureaux have been studying the coal-mining industry in the United States, and the public is quite ready to believe their reports that it is one of the most wasteful and inemcienfc industries in the United States. A variety of forgotten reports are being studied, and, while there is nothing remotely resembling a consensus of opinion regarding the way out, the most eohservatve people have come to recognise that something will have to be done. In the past 32 years, from 1890 through 1921, the soft coal mines of the United States have been worked on an average only 214 days a year. (There are few holidays in the United States; making allowance for holidays and Sundays, a full working year would have 30-1 days.) , In the Illinois mines, '[ which have been the centre of many of j the worst labour troubles, the average i work year has had less than 200 days, j Nor has this average been much affected by strikes or even by periods of industrial depression. Strikes have been anticipated and compensated by increased previous output. Only in the war year 1918 did the work year rise above 240; only in the panic year 1894 j and in 1921 did it fall below 190. For I thirty years the miners have averaged very close to a four-day week. Meanwhile, of course, the production of coal has enormously increased—from an ! average of 120 million tons in 1890-94 'to an average of 507 million tons in 1 1915-19. Rut this increased production lias brought no regularisation of employment: instead, tlie number of men employed has gone from 217,000 in the earlier period to 591,000 in the later. New and poorer mines have Leen openedand more men employed. A Government report states that "at the present time America requires less than 500,000.000 tons of bituminous coal a year, while the capacity of the mines in operation is over 700,000,000 tons." Other statisticians reckon^the presenti day capacity at well over 800,000,000 ■ tons. In any case, it is clear that the industry has been wa?tefully overdeveloped, and that coal enough to meet the country's needs could be more efficiently produced by fewer men. The United States Geological Survey, after a survey of the industry, reached the conclusion that of every hundred idle days in the mines 37 were due to overdevelopment, 47 to seasonal demand. — which might in part be - remedied by careful _ planning—and 16 to business depression. Such figures can, of course, be no more than estimates; but they are the best estimates we have. Now America worships at the shrine of the great god efficiency. It is the country of prodigal waste, but it is also the country where waste once realised is most abhorred. No word is pronounced with more universal respect than "efficiency." Perhaps America's worst faults are committed in its name, but it has some virtues. In the past ' its application lias been chiefly to labour. Latterly there .has come an increasing realisationniiat management was even more inefficient than labour. Mr. Herbert Hoover has been leading this new movement. A few months ago the committee of seventeen industrial engineers appointed by Mr. Hoover issued their epoch-making report on elimination of waste,in industry. That report, after a study of half a dozen industries, indicated1 that from 50 to 75 per cent, of the preventible waste in those industries was due to faulty management; except in the printing industry, which suffers most from antiquated union rules, labour was blamed for less than 20 per cent. This was no Radical's report; it was immediately put upon the agenda for the annual conventions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Society of Industrial Engineers, the Industrial Management Council, the Federated American. Engineering Societies, the Associated General Contractors, and similar organisations. Among its other recommendations was one calling for "a definte programme of action that! will lead to elimination of waste and more regular employment in seasonal ana intermittent industries, notably in the coal industry, in order that the dram upon capital may be lessened and the annual income of workers may be increased." The solution of the perennial coal disputes may be along some such lines. 1 lie present coal dispute is in part due to the national movement to smash the unions; it is in part a wage dispute lint .serious men know that if the United Mint workers were smashed another union would take its place, and a slight rise or drop m wages would settle nothing. The miners are forced to seek abnormally high waces because of long periods of enforced idleness when they earn nothing. 'The public will not permit an increase in the cost of coal; the miners are now living below the statistical "minimum of subsistence ' But a more efficient industry would not need to raise prices, and if the miners had more regular employment they would be satisfied with thenpresent, or even lower wages. Toward the problems of democracy in industry America is still, apathetic; her peculiar genius finds its natural field in the problem of managerial efficiency in industry.