NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10020, 6 January 1896, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

At the November meeting of the Institute of Bankers, the prusidonb (Hon. H. Dudley Ryder) remarked in bis inaugural address, that there was do more remarkable financial feature of those times than the accumulation of gold in banking centres. The gold bullion and coin held by fcho Banks of England, France, Germany, and tho New York associated Banks had increased from £120,620,050 in 1885 to £185,936,000 in 1895. Owing to the increase in the production of gold, and the amount of loanable capital, it was becoming extremely difficult to lend safely at a profit.

Chambers's Journal contains an interesting and suggestivo article on "The Coalfields of the World." Considered in its industrial and social aspects coal is the most valuable and useful mineral known to man, for it is the foundation and indispensable requisite of practically almost every industry. L; is undoubted that the coalfields of Great Britain have been the principal factor in her wonderful industrial and manufacturing; progress. Coal has been worked in Britain for at least ten centuries, and to day moro coal is produced in the United Kingdom than in any other three countries combined, except tho United States. It is juft 25 years ago (in 1871) that the rapid development of demand for coal, and tho leaps and bounds in the quantity produced, caused a scare as to the possibility of exhaustion of the British coal mines within a few years. The past 25 years have, however, witnessed such developments of other means of energy and motive power, as electricity, petroleum, etc., and also the discovery of vast fields of coal in other parts of the world, that there is no longer any fear of a coal famine. Indeed during the lasb throe years the question has received much discussion, especially among coal miners, as to whether it is not desirable to restrict the outpub in Great Britain to assist in maintaining prices. In 1894 the British production was 188J million tons, of which one-fifth was yielded by the great coalfields of Durham and Northumberland ; the coal area of about 1000 square miles in Wales being a good second. The next largest coal-producing country in Europe was Germany, yielding about 79,000,000 tons annually; then France and Belgium, with 25 and 19,000,000 tons respectively. In round numbers Europe produces about 330,000,000 tons annually. It is impossible to arrive at exact figures aB to the proportion of the population employed in coal winning, but it is understood that a million and a-quarter persons are absolutely employed in coal mining, which, on the usual basis of five persons to the bread-winner, would give a population of 6| millions directly dependent on coal mining in Europe, to which may be added the large numbers engaged in the transport, shipping, and sale of the black diamond.