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Show ITALY PAGES GREAT GOAL SHORTAGE; FORTY DOLLARS PER TON THE PRICE ROMI, Dec. 111. Coal is forty dollars a ton in Italy, and con- H tinucs to soar. It went up ten dollars a ton in ono week. This has jH become a scilous, and might become a decisive war factor, so fnr H as Italy is concerned, for coal is tho fundamental clement of Italian B Industry and commerce, moving tho inilvvays, running the factor- ies, and keeping up such public utilities as electric light and power H plants, gas and waterworks, sticct railways and tramways, as well l as for household heating and cooking, not only in Rome but all over H Italy. Such a phenomenal rise in tho pi ico of coal has never beforo H been known. To Italy the shortage is serious chiefly because Italy fl possesses no coal mines of her own at home or in tho African col- H onics, so there is no outlook for getting a supply except from H abroad, and the foreign supply is in tho hands of tho enemy or H taxed to its utmost capacity tor its ow n needs. While there was no war Italy needed no coal fields of her own, i as tho French nnd Belgian fields were near at hand. Dut now the fll French coal fields of Pas do Calais, and those of Belgium, hnve H passed into control of Germany, the ally of Austria, with whom Italy Is at war. Similarly Austria stretches as a barrier between lH the Polish coal fields and Italy. So that about tho only supply left WM for Italy Is England, where the Welsh coal fields arc hardly equal to the demands of England's own factories and navy, nnd her H nearby ally, Fiance, without also supplying Italy's needs. And so H coal is mounting eight dollars some time ago, then ten, then fif- iHHI teen, then twenty, twenty-five, thirty, and now forty dollars a ton. :IE People no longer buy conl by the ton, .but by tho bag, nnd a bag B of coal which can be slung over tho shoulder costs seven dollars. IH This means, of course, that poor people can no longer keep wnrm, 'M except as the mild Italian climate may help them. But tho cllmnte ii docs not help the railways and factories, and industrial Italy is the H worst sufferer from coal shortage and excessive prico. There has fl even been talk, since Italy is not nt war with Germnny, of getting IH coal from Germany, and for the possible exchango of some other H articles of mutual need. Importing coal from Japan is also being ffH considered, but tho transportation coat is so great that Jnpanese B coal would probably not bring tho prico down much in Italy. Wood as a substitute is out of the question, for Italy's tree and H timber supply is practically exhausted, and even bunches of twigs gH and fnggota have become a luxury at high price. The leading iB hotels at Rome havo posted a notice stating that owing to tho high IH price of coal the Association of Hotclkecpers have agreed to charge HH each guest ono lira (twenty cents) per day for tho hotel's expenso JK9 for coal. This is in the largo and important hotels known to lB Americans, where no such requirement has ever beforo prevuiled. HB A fnmily of fivo thus pays thirty dollars extru per month for Its H share of the hotel's coal. flH American coal shippers have been urged to enter the Italian HB field. But the scarcity of shins and the high cost of transportation fI due to the dnngers of coal ns contraband of war aro said to rH stand In the way of relief from that quarter. So that one of the fl effects of tho European war is to mako tho high prico of coal a jH vital question for Italy, nnd the absence of any apparent remedy EH is even a more serious question. fiH |