initiative of capital, the size of the country, the pride of localities, the intense competition between railroads, their inability to furnish cars when needed, the manner in which cars are apportioned between mines, the manner in which the railroads are operated so that movement is slow and equipment is short, and this runs into the need for new facilities, such as more yards, more tracks, more equipment, which brings us into the need for more capital and so on and on.

We have none too many mines or too many miners to supply our need if the mines are operated as at present. But we have too many to fill that need if they are operated on a basis nearer to 100 per cent of possible production.

THE LONG VIEW.

Passing from the labor phase of the coal situation to the larger aspect of our coal supply as related to the whole problem of the economical production of light, heat, and power, which Sir William Crookes has characterized as "first among the immediate practical problems of science," we find ourselves both rich and wasteful, following the primrose path, heedless of the morrow and not yet conscious that the morrow is to be a day of battle.

In the first place we treat coal as if it were a thing which was exclusively for home use, a nonexportable commodity which must be used "on the farm," whereas it should be treated with profound respect, because we know from Paris that sacred treaties and national boundaries turn on its presence. The world wants our coal, envies us for having it, fears us because of it. It is not only useful to us, but it has a cash value in the markets of the world. Therefore it should be saved.

In the next place we treat coal as if it were all alike, not selected by nature for specific uses; whereas we should choose our coal with as scientific a judgment as we choose our reading glasses. There is coal for coke and coal for furnaces and coal for house use and coal adapted for one kind of boiler and a different kind of coal for a different kind of boiler. Therefore we should discriminate in coal.

And again we have shown little willingness to dignify coal by seeking to draw out by improved mechanical processes all the stored content of heat in this lump of carbon. Instead we content ourselves by giving it a mere pauper touch, driving off the greater volume of its value into the air. This is a task for the mechanical engineer.

Then, too there is the problem of using coal in the form of steam or in the more exalted form of electric current. The lifting, bobbing lid of James Watt's teakettle did not speak the last word in power. We are only beginning to know how we may move on from one form of motive power to another. The wastefulness of steam power as contrasted with electric power is a real challenging problem in conservation by itself.

And then we naturally ask, Why this long haul over mountains and through tunnels and across bridges and along streets and into houses, by railroad, truck, and on the backs of men, when at the very pit mouth, or within the mine itself, this same coal might be transformed into electricity and by wire served into factories and homes 100, 200, 300 miles from the mine? Why burden our congested railroads with this traffic? Why strew our streets with this dirt? This may be a practicable thing, a wise thing; it deserves study if coal is worth conserving.

Are there no substitutes for coal which we can use and can not export? This question immediately raises the water-power possibilities of our land, of which only the most superficial study has been made. Sell coal and use electricity would appear a thrifty policy.

As petroleum is being used as a substitute for coal—and inasmuch as the whole problem of fuel supply is one—we are ultimately compelled to an investigation of the ability of our petroleum supply to meet its present drain and to meet the expansion in its use, which is the most surprising development of our day in the study of power creation.

This spells a program of development and conservation which should challenge the ambitions of this Nation, and on a few of its features perhaps a few further words would be justified.

SAVING COAL.

The two ways by which coal in greatest volume can be saved are the discovery of the method by which more power can be taken from the ton and the discovery of what kind of coal is best fitted for any particular use.

It has been everyone's business to save coal, hence.... The railroads have experimented with some success. They get perhaps 10 per cent of the heat energy from a ton shoveled beneath the locomotive boiler, 10 per cent of the total in the ton. They use one-quarter of all the coal mined. Next to labor this is the greatest expense which our railroads have. This shows how great the problem is to them. Some have adopted a system of paying a bonus for the greatest distance made on a given quantity of a given coal. But this laudable effort has not met with the cooperation that would be expected from the firemen, for reasons that go far afield. Industries, especially those which generate electric power, have made similar effort to gain from their fuel its greatest potentiality, and with varying success. We can overlook the stoking of the domestic furnace as a national concern, for the amount of coal used in this way amounts to not more than 17 per cent of the national coal bill, and this whole charge could be saved, it is estimated, by giving care to the 75 per cent of our coal which is burned under boilers to make steam. Here there is a maximum figure of 13 per cent of the energy of the coal put into harness, and the average is less than 10 per cent, even in the larger plants.

In one establishment visited by the fuel engineers of this department during the war a preventable waste of 40,000 tons a year was discovered. By changes in the admission of air to the furnaces and in the "baffling" of the boilers the engineers of the Bureau of Mines are confident that they have been able to increase the economy of coal in the ships of the Emergency Fleet Corporation by 16 per cent, making 6 pounds of coal do the work of 7. If such a percentage of economy could be generally effected it would mean the saving of as much coal as France and Italy together will need in this year of their greatest distress.

COAL AND COAL.

The Government should sample and certify coal. We do this as to wheat and meat; it is just as necessary to avoid injustice in the case of coal, and it is thoroughly practicable. The public should know the kind of coal it is buying, because it should buy the coal it needs. There need be no prohibition against the mining or selling of any coal,[4] but coal should sell in terms of its capacity to deliver heat. Some coal that is only a pint bottle is selling as a quart bottle. And the quart is hurt by the competition of the pint. A bill to effect such fuel inspection has been drafted and will be presented to Congress. It is not a bill commanding anything, but rather gives to those who are willing an opportunity to have their product inspected and attested and thus acquire merit in the eye of the world as against those who are not willing to subject their coal to the official test tube. Coal is coal in the sense of the classic traffic classification. Coal is, however, not always coal, nor is it altogether coal when put to the pragmatic test of the furnace. If such a bill were passed it would promote the interests of those who schedule their price upon the merit of their goods and make against the hauling of slate and dirt, its storage and handling under an assumed name. The plan is not to punish the malefactor who