The problem of the miner and his industry may be stated in another way.
We consume all the coal we produce. We produce it with labor that upon
social and economic grounds works as a rule too few days in the year. We
therefore must have a longer miners' year and fewer miners or a longer
miners' year and additional markets. One or the other is inevitable
unless we are to carry on the industry as a whole as an emergency
industry, holding men ready for work when they are not needed in order
that they may be ready for duty when the need arises. There are too many
mines to keep all the miners employed all of the time or to give them a
reasonable year's work. This conclusion is based on the assumption that
we now produce only enough coal from all the mines to meet the country's
demand, which is the fact. More coal produced would not sell more coal,
but more coal demanded would result in greater coal production. With the
full demand met by men working two-thirds or less of the time in the
year there can not be a longer year given to all the miners without more
demand for coal. This seems to be manifest. Therefore the miners must
remain working but part time as now, or fewer miners must work more
days, or market must be found for more coal and thus all the miners
given a longer year. If we worked all of our miners in all of our mines
a reasonable year, we would have a great overproduction. And to have all
our mines work a longer period means that we must find some place in
which to sell more coal, either at home or abroad.
Why have we so many mines working so many miners? There can be no
one-word reply to this question. It penetrates into almost every social
and economic condition of the country--the 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.