Salt Lake Tribune | 1919-07-09 | Page 6 | Coal Shortage

: l.e co-l mined in the t'niTed Suites, r-ud lillij'jhs u.im-s are working only -iO ci-iii of th'-ir cm p:i--ity. The sari: o 'nl i 'inn Lol'U in oth'.-r states, and this vw:Ii ;ho w.rid r.eed;n; as it never no'lr-d it hef-jre. Fur the uti'ick-nc y in j-roduction the fact that there ii no Miarket is ;'i von 1-y the operators a s tiie reason for -1 J t.-r c-Mit, the other 20 pr-r cent defii-d'-n'.-y b'.-i:i accounted for hy cur sijorta-.', lahor shortage ;ind ru ino disability. "Up to the middle of June 195,000,-00 195,000,-00 tons of bit utninous coal ha-1 been mined in the L n i r eu States this year, as against 259,952,01)0 tons at the same rime last year. The public is to blame for this, for it b'.:ys coal during only about seven months of the year, and when it does buy it pays for having alloVed miners to go idle or on part time for the other five months. "The situation will be greatly improved im-proved if Europe gets sufficient credit to buy coal here. Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless truo that if the United States were selling 200,-000,000 200,-000,000 tons of coal in Europe every year and there is a market there for it coal would be cheaper in the United States, for miners would be kept busy the year around and the public would not pay an unitemized charge of 40 or 50 cents on every ton of coal it buys for having allowed a great number of men to be idle for five mouths a year. ' ' COAL SHORTAGE. The American householders arc being advised to buy their winter's fuel during dur-ing tiie summer months. We believe the advice to be sound, especially as the price has been lowered as an inducement. in-ducement. According to reports at hand many thousands of miners are idle at a time when the whole world needs coal. The situation was lucidly set forth by "W. II. Tartwriirht of Chicago Chi-cago in an interview in the Washington Washing-ton Post, which follows: "Illinois mines 23.2 per cent of all