OF COAL Cost to Consumer Held Out of All Relation to Production Pro-duction Expense WASHINGTON, April 10 The United Unit-ed States bituminous coal commission, which settled the dispute between soft coal miners and operators, declared iiii a formal statement today that present prices of bituminous coal "were inexcusable" inex-cusable" and "out of all relation to the increase in the cost of production caused by higher wages granted by the commission." Declaring that the present rise in prices could not be attributed to the campaign for early buying, the commission's com-mission's statement said there were various causes-for the "temporary up- ward trend" Including widespread feeling feel-ing that there might be a scarcity of coal for domestic use, due to foreign demand. "There seems also to be a misap-prehpnsion- in regard to production," the statement added. "The weekly reports re-ports of the geological survey show that in the Tirst quarter of the present year our production was decidedly in excess of the production last' year and slightly in excess of the production 1 under high pressure in 1918. There is, therefore, no reason based on the past few months, for the skyrocketing of prices. "The fear of immediate suffering . from car shortage seems also to fig- ure in tho reasons for the flurry. There' were sufficient cars and motive power to distribute this unusual production of the past few months, on account of careful and energetic car distribution. These cars and motive power are practically prac-tically all available and while there is definite need for more of both in order to stabilize the industry, tliore is no immediate serious threat of a car shortage such as has not existed during dur-ing tho winter, unless it is necessary because of emergencies, to divert coal cars for other purposes." oo