A great deal of nonsense is being talked about our coal-mines. I should
like therefore to throw a little helpful light on the subject of
nationalisation. Speaking as an owner and not as a miner (I have at the
present moment at least six coals and a pound or two of assorted mineral
rubbish), I want to consider some of the pros and cons of this debatable
proposition. I take it, first of all, that we shall pay for our coal along
with our taxes and in proportion to our income. This will come rather hard,
of course, on the kind of people who insist on warming their rooms with
three large electric vegetable marrows, or by means of a number of small
skeletons pickled in gas. But such people will no doubt be able to claim
rebates, and rebating is one of the most healthy and instructive of our
British parlour games. Let us pass on, then, to the means of distribution.
I greatly doubt whether under State organisation the practice of opening up
those romantic and circular caverns in the middle of the pavement and
suddenly filling our cellars with smoke, rain and thunder will be allowed
to continue. Rather, I expect, at the moment when John Postman pushes the
budget of bills through the slit in the front-door, William Coalman,
walking along the roof, will be dropping a couple of Derby Brights, in the
mode of Santa Claus, down the chimney. This will get over the basement
trouble, and deliveries of course will occur frequently, if irregularly,
throughout the day at such times as the Government consider them to be
necessary for making up the fire.
But whatever happens about deliveries the Inspector of Grates will be an
infernal nuisance. Nothing makes a man more unpopular than interference in
a quarrel between husband and wife, and I imagine that there will be many
little suburban tragedies like the following:--
SCENE.--_A Kensington drawing-room._ Mr. _and_ Mrs. Smith _are
discovered shivering over the fire_.
_Mr. Smith._ No, no. Not like that at all. You must break up that big lump
first.
_Mrs. Smith_ (_coldly_). This is the way my mother taught me to make up
fires.
_Mr. Smith._ Your mother! Ha!
[_Snatches the poker from her hand._
_Mary_ (_entering_). The Coal Inspector has called.
_Enter_ Coal Inspector.
_Taking the poker from_ Mr. Smith's _nerveless grasp, with three
vicious thrusts he assassinates the already moribund fire. They watch
him with faces of horror. As he turns to go they glance at each other,
and with a simultaneous impulse seize the tongs and shovel and strike
him with all their strength on the back of the head._