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Show ! FORECASTS J BOOST k H THE PRKE I U!: COIL "Have your companies, the Lion and the Wyoming, reduced the price of Rock Springs coal?" , Replying to this question today, Dpl- bert H. Pape, general manager of these companies, which are owned by Ogden capitalists, said emphatically he had not reduced the price of coal; that, on the contrary, all reports indicated to him the necessity of inci easing the price. Furthermore, Mr. "Pape said he did not think the reduction by the Utah operators was bona fide. "We are now thirty per cent short of miners," said Mr. Pape. "Many are going to the war, others are going to Colorado, where the Rockefellers have raised wages ten per cent, to meet the scaJe which we are paying. We could sell our entire output many times over at a considerable increase over the present price. We have just declined, ,v with regrets, an order for 12,000 tons tofrom a copper producing company. Other large orders cannot be touched. I'm sorry, indeed, that conditions give warning of an early increase In the price of coal and of another famine 1 neat fall and winter." Local Dealer's Warning. City Commissioner Miles L. Jones, ' local coal dealer, said: J "Mr. Pape is right! The question isr'WIll the operators who announced i the reduction in price now deliver the goods in more than homeopathic quan- titles? Their agents are soliciting the dealers to sign up for orders, but they refuse to sign an agreement to assure the delivery of the coal. The retail price is going to $7.25 or $7.50, and the public might as well be warned to expect It" Mr. Jones was asked whether it wouldn't be a good idea for the public to be advised now to purchase coal at the reduced rato and store it for next winter. He said this wouldn't be advisable, because the dealers could not fill the orders. He also said that if he could break even on the past winter's coal business he would be satisfied. "The man who deserves the greatest credit for trying to relieve the coal famine here,' said Mr. Jones, "is Matt S. Browning, one of the mine owners, who has never been complimented for his efforts." Mr. Jones expressed regret for Governor Gov-ernor Bamberger's veto of the bill requiring re-quiring the weighing of coal at destination. desti-nation. "This bill would have helped the dealers and the public," he said, "but it was killed." Everything i3 going up up up," said Mr. Jones. "Last night, for example, ex-ample, I was informed tno price of sugar was to take another jump today and I am paying $35 a ton for hay." Mr. Jones was told by a listening visitor that while the "jumping" is so popular it would be a good idea for the city commission to jump the wages of firemen, policemen and laborers to $100 to enable them to pay household expenses; that the great majority were renters and they could not break even on less than $100, He did not comment com-ment on this proposition. |