ESTIMATE OF THE EXTENT AND PRODUCE of the Durham AND NORTHUMBERLAND COAL-FIELDS. "From South Shields southward to Castle Eden, 21 miles; thence westward to West Auckland "From Shields northward, 27 miles, by an average breadth of 9 miles Sq. Miles. 594 243 "Estimating the workable coal strata at an average thickness of 12 feet, the contents of 9,069,480,000 3,023,160,000 "This remainder is adequate to supply the present vend from Newcastle, Sunderland, Hartley, Blyth, and Stockton, of 3,500,000 tons, for a period of 1,727 years. "It will be understood that this estimate of the quantity of coal in Durham and Northumberland can only be an approximation, especially as the south-eastern coal district of Durham is yet almost wholly unexplored; but the attempt is made, in the hope of satisfying your Lordships that no apprehension need be entertained of this valuable mineral being exhausted for many future generations. "There is also a considerable extent of coal-field in the northern and south-western districts of Northumberland; but the foregoing comprises that which is continuous, and most suitable and available for exportation. It is, however, to be observed that the shipments of coal from the ports mentioned by Mr. Taylor has been largely increased during the last dozen years; so that, supposing the estimate to be in other respects accurate, it must now be modified accordingly.”—(Lords' Report, 1829, p. 124.) Dr. Buckland, the celebrated geologist, considers Mr. Taylor's estimate as greatly exaggerated; but in his examination before the committee of the House of Commons in 1829, he quoted with approbation a passage of Bakewell's Geology, in which it is stated that the coal-beds in South Wales were alone sufficient to supply the then demand of England for coal for 2,000 years. The passage is as follows:"Fortunately we have in South Wales, adjoining to the Bristol Channel, an almost exhaustless supply of coal and ironstone, which are yet nearly unwrought. It has been stated, that this coal-field extends over about 1,200 square miles; and that there are 23 beds of workable coal, the total average thickness of which is 95 feet; and the quantity contained in each acre is 100,000 tons, or 65,000,000 tons per square mile. If from this we deduct one half for waste, and for the minor extent of the upper beds, we shall have a clear supply of coal equal to 32,000,000 tons per square mile. Now, if we admit that 5,000,000 tons from the Northumberland and Durham mines is equal to nearly one third of the total consumption of coal in England, each square mile of the Welsh coal-field would yield coal for 100 years' consumption; and as there are from 1,000 to 1,200 square miles in this coal-field, it would supply England with fuel for 2,000 years, after all our English coal mines are worked out!" But supposing this supply to last only 1,000 years, that carries us so far into futurity, that it appears to be quite idle either to prohibit, or impose heavy duties on the exportation of coal, on the ground of its accelerating the exhaustion of the mines. Profits of Coal Mining. Coal Owners' Monopoly, &c. — Instead of the business of coal mining being, generally speaking, an advantageous one, it is distinctly the reverse. Sometimes, no doubt, large fortunes have been made by individuals and associations engaged in this business; but these are rare instances. The opening of a mine is a very expensive and hazardous operation, and of very uncertain result. Collieries are exposed to an infinite number of accidents, against which no caution can guard. The chances of explosion have, it is true, been a good deal lessened by the introduction of Sir Humphry Davy's lamp; and some mines are now wrought, that, but for the invention of this admirable instrument, must have been entirely abandoned. But besides explosions, which are still every now and then occurring, from the carelessness of the workmen, and other contingencies, mines are very liable to be destroyed by creeps, or by the sinking of the roof, and by drowning, or the irruption of water from old workings, through fissures which cannot be seen, and consequently cannot be guarded against. So great, indeed, is the hazard attending this sort of property, that it has never been possible to effect an insurance on a coal-work, against fire, water, or any other accident. Mr. Buddle informed the committee of the House of Lords, in 1829, that "although many collieries, in the hands of fortunate individuals and companies, have been, perhaps, making more than might be deemed a reasonable and fair profit, according to their risk, like a prize in a lottery; yet, as a trade, taking the whole capital employed on both rivers, he should say that certainly it has not been so."—(First Report, p. 56.) Again, being asked, "What have the coal owners on the Tyne and Wear, in your opinion, ge nerally made on their capital employed?" he replied, " According to the best of my knowledge, I should think that by no means ten per cent. has been made at simple interest, without allowing any extra interest for the redemption of capital."—(p. 57.) In addition to the vast expense attending the sinking of shafts, the erection of steam engines, &c., and the risk of accidents, the coal, after being brought to the surface, has frequently to be conveyed 7 or 8 miles to the place of shipping; and those whose collieries are in that situation, have to pay way-leave rents, amounting, in some cases, to 500l. a year, for liberty to open a communication, or a railroad, through the properties lying between them and the shore. Much has frequently been said of the monopoly of the coal owners on the Tyne and the Wear; but we are satisfied, after a pretty careful investigation of the circumstances, that no such monopoly has ever existed; and that the high price of coal in the metropolis is to be ascribed wholly to the various duties and charges that have been laid upon it, from the time that it has passed from the hands of the owner to the time that it is lodged in the cellar of the consumer. What means have the coal owners of obtaining a monopoly price for their coal? They enjoy no exclusive privileges of any sort; they are a numerous body; and the trade is as open as any other to all capitalists to engage in. The number of places on the east and west coasts, both of England and Scotland, and the southern parts of Wales, from which coals are exported, render it quite visionary to suppose that any general agreement to keep up prices can take place amongst the various coal proprietors. And though such an agreement were entered into, it is imposible it could be maintained. The power of producing coal greatly exceeds the present demand; many new mines have been recently opened, and many others would be brought into activity were the price artificially enhanced. It is true that the coal owners referred to, having experienced the ruinous effects of throwing a superabundant quantity of coal upon restricted and already glutted markets, have occasionally met together; and each having named the price he thinks his coal will command, and at which he intends to sell it, they have proceeded jointly to regulate, according to the probable demand, the quantity that each shall raise during any particular period. By means of this arrangement, the supply and price of coal have been kept, during the time it has existed, comparatively steady. Common prudence prompts and justifies such an arrangement; but it also suggests the necessity of reducing the price of coal to the lowest level that will afford the customary rate of profit. For were the price demanded by the northern coal owners raised above this level, new mines would be opened in Durham and Northumberland; the imports from the Tees, whence a large supply of excellent coal is at present brought to the London market, would be augmented; and fresh competitors, from Swansea and other places, would come into the field and undersell them. Government should encourage and promote this fair competition; but it ought, at the same time, to do equal justice by all the competitors. It is not to lend assistance to, or remove burdens from, one set of adventurers, which it does not lend to or remove from others. It is no part of its duty to say how coals, or any species of produce, shall be carried to market. It is bound to give every reasonable facility for the opening of new channels or modes of conveyance between all parts of the country; but it would be glaringly unjust to lay a tax on the coals conveyed by a particular channel from which those conveyed by other channels were exempted. Mr. Buddle thinks that the aggregrate capital employed by the coal owners on the Tyne amounts to about 1,500,000l. exclusive of the craft in the river: and supposing this estimate to be nearly correct, it will follow, allowing for the value of the ships, that the total capital employed in the coal trade may be moderately estimated at from eight to ten millions; an immense sum to be almost wholly at the risk of the owners, without any insurance upon it. Progressive Consumption of Coal. Duties and Regulations affecting it, particularly in the Port of London. There are no mines of coal in either Greece or Italy; and no evidence has been produced to show that the ancients had learned to avail themselves of this most useful mineral. Even in England, it does not seem to have been used previously to the beginning of the thirteenth century; for the first mention of it occurs in a charter of Henry III., granting licence to the burgesses of Newcastle to dig for coal. In 1281, Newcastle is said to have had a considerable trade in this article. About the end of this century, or the beginning of the fourteenth, coals began to be imported into London, being at first used only by smiths, brewers, dyers, soap-boilers, &c. This innovation was, however, loudly complained of. A notion got abroad that the smoke was highly injurious to the public health; and, in 1316, parliament petitioned the king, Edward I., to prohibit the burning of coal, on the ground of its being an intolerable nuisance. His Majesty issued a proclamation conformably to the prayer of the petition; but it being but little attended to, recourse was had to more vigorous measures; a commission of oyer and terminer being issued out, with instructions to inquire as to all who burned sea-coal within the city, or parts adjoining, to punish them for the first offence, by "pecuniary mulets;" and upon a second offence, to demolish their furnaces; and to provide for the strict observance of the proclamation in all time to come. But notwithstanding the efforts that were thus made to prohibit the use of coal, and the prejudice that was long entertained against it, it continued progressively to gain ground. This was partly, no doubt, owing to experience having shown that coal smoke had not the noxious influence ascribed to it, but far more to the superior excellence of coal as an article of fuel, and the growing scarcity and consequent high price of timber. In the reign of Charles I. the use of coal became universal in London, where it has ever since been used to the exclusion of all other articles of fuel. At the Restoration, the quantity imported was supposed to amount to about 200,000 chaldrons. In 1670, the imports had increased to 270,000 chaldrons. At the Revolution, they amounted to about 300,000 chaldrons, and have since gone on increasing with the growing magnitude and population of the city; being, in 1750, about 500,000 chaldrons; in 1800, about 900,000 chaldrons; and at present about 1,700,000 chaldrons. (Campbell's Political Survey of Great Britain, vol. ii. p. 30.; Edington on the Coal Trade, p. 41, &c.) It might have been supposed, considering that coal is, in this country, a prime necessary of life, and by far the most important of all the instruments of manufacturing industry, that it would have been exempted from every species of tax; and that every possible facility would have been given for its conveyance from the mines to the districts in the south of England, and other places in want of it. But such has not been the case. The coal trade of Great Britain was, for more than a century and a half, sub jected to the most oppressive regulations. From a very early period, the corporation had undertaken the task of weighing and measuring the coal brought to London; and had been accustomed to charge 8d. a ton for their trouble. In 1613, the power to make this charge was confirmed to the city by royal charter, it being at the same time ordered that no coal should be unladen from any vessel till the Lord Mayor had given leave. The right to charge this sum according to the chaldron of coal, has since been confirmed to the city by act of parliament; and as the labouring meters, notwithstanding they have been very well paid, have received only 5d. out of the 8d., the balance of 3d. per chaldron, which produced about 20,000l. a year, went to the city treasury. But besides the above, duties for civic purposes have been laid on the coal imported into London from the reign of Charles II. downwards. They were originally imposed in 1667, after the great fire, in order to assist in the rebuilding of churches and other public edifices; and have ever since been continued, to enable the corporation to execute improvements in the city; though it is probable most of our readers will be inclined to think that few improvements could be so great, as a reduction in the price of so very important an article as coal. Exclusive of the corporation duties, a duty payable to government was laid on all sea-borne coal in the reign of William III., which only ceased in 1831. This duty was at once glaringly unjust and oppressive: unjust, inasmuch as it fell only on those parts of the empire to which coals had to be carried by sea; and oppressive, inasmuch as it amounted to full fifty per cent. upon the price paid to the coal owner for the coal. This tax, after being long stationary at 5s. a chaldron, was raised to 9s. 4d. during the late war; but was reduced to 68. in 1824. But the inequality of the tax was not confined to its affecting those parts only of the empire to which coal had to be carried by Even there its pressure was not equal; for, while it amounted to 6s. a chaldron, or 4s. a ton, in the metropolis and all the south of England, it only amounted to is. 7 d. a ton on coal carried by sea to Ireland, and to 1s. 8d. on that carried to Wales; while Scotland was for many years entirely exempted from the duty. sea. Besides this striking partiality and injustice, various troublesome Custom-house regulations were required, in consequence of distinctions being made between the duties on large and small coal, between those on coal and culm (a species of coal), and coal and cinders, and of coal being allowed to be imported duty free into Cornwall, Devon, &c. for the use of the mines. These distinctions were, however, wholly abolished in 1830, and no duties exist on coal except those collected in London and a few other ports, and appropriated to local purposes. A small supply of coal was of late years brought to London from Staffordshire, by canal navigation. This coal was charged with a duty of 18. a chaldron; but this is now also repealed. The regulations to which the sale and delivery of coals were subjected in the city of London were, if possible, still more objectionable than the duties imposed on them. Instead of being sold by weight, all coals imported into the Thames were, previously to 1831, sold by measure. It is curious to observe the sort of abuses to which this practice has given rise. It is stated by the celebrated mathematician, Dr. Hutton, who, being a native of Newcastle, was well acquainted with the coal trade, that, "If one coal, measuring exactly a cubic yard (nearly equal to 5 bolls), be broken into pieces of a moderate size, it will measure 7 bolls; if broken very small, it will measure 9 bolls; which shows that the proportion of the weight to the measure depends upon the size of the coals; therefore, accounting by weight is the most rational method." The shippers were well aware of this, and insisted upon the coal owners supplying them with large coal only; and to such an extent was this principle carried, that all coal for the London market was screened, as it is technically termed, or passed over gratings, to separate the smaller pieces. Inasmuch, however, as coals were sold in all their subsequent stages by measure, no sooner had they been delivered by the owner, than it was for the interest of every one else into whose hands they came before reaching the consumer, to break them into smaller portions. In fact, the profit of many of the retailers in London has arisen chiefly from the increase of measure by the breakage of coal. And Mr. Brandling, a very intelligent and extensive coal owner, stated to the Commons' committee of 1829, that, in consequence of the breakage, coals are reduced in London to a size inferior to what they would be, were they put on board unscreened, and subjected to no additional breakage. The The statements now made sufficiently evince the nullity of all the regulations enforcing the sale of coal by correct measures: for even though these regulations had been enforced, instead of being, as they usually were, wholly neglected, they would have been of almost no use; inasmuch as any dishonest dealer was as able to cheat, by breaking his coals a little smaller than usual, as if he had sold them in deficient measures. The loss occasioned by the useless process of screening has been very great. quantity of coal separated by it has amounted in some cases to from 20 to 25 per cent. of the whole; and the greater part of this residue, containing a portion of the very best coal, is burned on the spot. "I have known," says Mr. Buddle, "at one colliery, as many as from 90 to 100 chaldrons a day destroyed. If they were not consumed, they would cover the whole surface, and in the burnings of them they are extremely destructive; they destroy the crops a great way round, and we pay large sums for injury done to the crops, and for damage to the ground.”—(First Lords' Report, p. 72.) The waste of coal has been in this way enormous; and the coal owner has been obliged to charge a higher price upon the coal sold, in order to indemnify himself for the loss of so great a quantity, and for the mischief he does to others in burning. The fact, that so monstrous a system should have been persevered in for more than a century, sets the power of habit in reconciling us to the most pernicious absurdities in very striking point of view. Happily, however, the nuisance was at last abated; the sale of coal by weight taking away both the temptation to break coal, and the necessity of screening. The duties of all sorts that were formerly paid to the corporation of the city of London were commuted in 1830 for a duty of 18.1d. per ton*, which produced in 1841 a gross revenue of 152,8871. 95. bd. (Westminster Review, No. 77. p. 532). Various oppressive duties and regulations were then also abolished, a measure which has been productive of a considerable saving to the public. Supposing the average price of a ton of coal, in the pool below London Bridge, to be at present (1943) 20s., it would perhaps be made up nearly as follows: £ s. d. 0 9 3 per ton. The charges on the conveyance of coal from the vessel to the cellar of the consumer amounted, in 1830, to about 11s. a ton, but at present they do not exceed 7s.; thus: No doubt, however, the expenses attending the delivery of coal to the consumer might be farther and very materially reduced, were quays constructed at which ships could lie alongside, and discharge their cargoes without the intervention of lighters, and without being subject to the delays to which they are now exposed. It appears also, that, the practice of sending coals to the consumers in bags might in the great majority of cases be advantageously dispensed with. No such practice exists in Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, or other large towns; and, generally speaking, it seems to occasion not only a heavy, but a perfectly useless, expense. There is a very keen competition in the retail coal trade in London, and the individual who deals with a respectable coal merchant may be pretty well assured that he gets his coals at the lowest price at which, as matters now stand, they can be sold. Eightpence per ton of this duty will (unless the regulations under which it is now imposed be altered in the interval) cease in 1862, its produce having been mortgaged till that year, to defray the cost of certain city improvements. 3,199 559,103 Regulations as to Sale in London. A seller's ticket is to accompany all coals sold within the city of London and its environs, specifying the species of coal, and the number of sacks and weight of coal sent. The coals may be either in bags containing 1 or 2 cwt., or in bulk. The carman is in all cases bound to carry a weighing machine with the coal, which machine is to be made conformably to regulation; and, upon being desired, he is to weigh any one sack, or the whole sacks in his wagon. Penalty on refusing to weigh, or otherwise obstructing the weighing, 201. Penalty on non-delivery of ticket to purchaser, 207. In the event of the weight being deficient, a penalty is imposed of 107, or 507,, according to deficiency. Quantities of less than 560 lbs. may be sold without being weighed. — (1 & 2 Will. 4. c. 76.) In order to save trouble in collecting the duties that still attach to coal in the port of London, the corporation is authorised to compound with the owner or master of any ship or vessel importing coal, for the tonnage upon which the duties are to be paid. A certificate of such composition, expressing the number of tons of coal, cinders, or culm, agreed to be taken as the cargo of the ship or vessel compounded for, is to be given to the master or owner of the same, and to be taken as evidence of the quantity on board. When no composition is entered into, the coal is to be weighed in the presence of an officer of the customs at the port of shipment; and the duties are to be paid upon the weight so shipped. The shipment of coal in the Tyne is at present regulated by the Act 5 Geo. 4. c. 72., commonly called the Turn Act. The object of this act is to make all ships engaged in the trade of the Tyne be loaded in the order in which they arrive. It prevents any preference being given to particular ships; and renders it nearly impossible for any coal owner to give constant employment to any vessel in the trade which he may wish to employ. In some respects this act is probably advantageous, but, on the whole, its policy seems very questionable. Why should a coal owner be prevented from employing certain ships in preference to others? Under this act, if more ships engage in the trade than can be profitably employed in it, the loss produced by detention in port, and waiting for a cargo, instead of falling, as it naturally would, were the trade free, on particular ships, and driving them from the business, falls equally on every ship employed, and depresses the whole trade. There is no regulation of this sort on the Wear. Duty on Coal conveyed to London by Railway, Canal, &c. — The 8 & 9 Vict. c. 101. has imposed the same duties on coals conveyed to the metropolis by railway, canal, or other inland carriage that are imposed on them when conveyed by sea. It has farther enacted that Id. per ton of the produce of such duties shall be accumulated, from the 31st December, 1845, as a fund for the execution of improvements within the metropolis. The question as to the policy of laying duties on the exportation of coal depends (as the exhaustion of the mines need not be thought of) on the fact, whether British coal be necessary or of considerable consequence to the progress of manufactures and of the arts in foreign countries. If it be, then certainly it would be good policy to preserve that superiority which we derive from the possession of coal by prohibiting its exportation, or burdening it when exported with a considerable duty; but if the possession of our coal be not necessary or of considerable importance to the foreigner, such prohibition or duty would encourage the working of foreign mines by discouraging the working of our own, without producing any corresponding advantage. It is not, however, very easy to say how the fact stands. But on the whole there seems to be little doubt that a supply of British coal, though not indispensable, is of very considerable advantage to the foreigner; and if so, it would seem to be sound policy to lay reasonable duties on its exportation, such, for example, as those imposed in 1842. These, however, were repealed in the course of the present year (1845). An Account of the Quantity and Value of the Coal, Culm, &c. exported from the United Kingdom in 1842, specifying the Quantity and Value of the Coal sent to different Countries. |
