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Show ANOTHER COAL FAMINE FEARED Before the special joint committee of the Legislature appointed to investigate investi-gate th coal situation, evidence was given by the State coal inspector and officials jof the railroad company that the coal, market of Utah has increased 500 per cent in the last two . years, while the amount of coal mined has increased in-creased lonly 30 per cent. It was further fur-ther shown that the equipment of railroads, rail-roads, though greatly increased, has been fat inadequate to fill the demand for transportation. The inspector ' declared that conditions condi-tions are such that another coal famine threatens for next winter. The only remedy that he said he knew for the situation is to have Congress increase the amount of coal land allowed one individual in-dividual or one association, and promote pro-mote more coal mines. The evidence showed that the cost of mining coal and placing it on the cars was about $1.25 a ton, while the charge was $2. No evidence could be secured as to the equity of charging $1.75 a 'ton freight from the mines to Salt Lake City. It was shown that the number of coal miners in the State has decreased 20 per cent in the last year; that there is no great delay in transit: that there are 1,800,000 tons of coal mined in the State, and Salt Lake City receives 264,000 tons each year. It was also shown that the miners receive nothingl for mining slack, while the coal company gets a good price for it. State I Coal Mine Inspector Gomer Thomas I occupied the attention of the commission most of this morning. Much of his testimony was statistical. He declared that in 1300 the cost of mining foal and placing it on the cars was 70 fents a ton, while at the present time it lis $1.10. President S. H. Love of the Senate asked a number of questions. ; "Is there not a fear on the part of the independent operators of pushing thir mines on account of supposed discrimination dis-crimination of railroads?" asked Mr. Love. "I believe that is true," replied the witness.! "If a maximum rate were charged, do you believe it would encourage independent in-dependent operators to go into the business F ' ' ' ' Ye ' ' The witness declared that $1.50 was the present rate from the mine at Coalville,- but that little of the coal there found its wav to the local market as it was sent to Park City for consumption. He declared that at the mines the miners mi-ners received 80 cents a ton for mining, but that one-fourth was taken off for slack. A miner could mine, he said from four and one-half to six and one-half one-half tots of coal a day and the wages were about $3.60 to $3.65 a day. H. GJ Williams, manager of the Utah Fuel company, declared that the statistics sta-tistics given by Thomas were substantially substan-tially correct. He said he did not believe be-lieve That any railroad company had kept pace with the times. All were unable (to do so. The vitnessY asserted that local consumption con-sumption had increased 100 per cent in the last six months. Under present conditions, he declared, the output of coal is 1 ,700,000 tons a year and it would be impossible to increase the supply more than 200,000 tons a year. |