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Show Two Seasonal Problems of Kansas Solved in a C M.1 juggesuun By MABEL ABBOTT (N. E. A. Staff Correspondent.) PITTSBURG, Kans., April 17 How to give coal miners steady work and reduce lay-offs. How to get men to plow, plant and harvest tho crops. These two serious and long-standing Kansas problems have seemed so insoluble in-soluble that they had come to be regarded re-garded as unalterable conditions, like tho climate. And now tho new Kansas industrial court suggests that perhaps one is the answer to the other! Here is the idea as set forth by Judge W. IT. Iliggins: "Htin nf I li n nrlnplnnl niucne r f i KJim ul me pi inuijnii causes oi jn-rest jn-rest in tho coal fields is tho fact that mines lay off their men when the demand de-mand for coal is llghL "Coal oporators say-tho coal In this field does not stand storage well; that it crumbles and is subject to spon-' taneous 6ombustion, and so they have to mine it jifst as fast: as it is wanted and stop wnen it is not wantod. "The miners and their families suffer. suf-fer. '.'The heavy demand for coal comes in the winter. There is work for all the miners then. "Farmers, on the other hand, need men in the spring and summer. Kansas Kan-sas farmers offered 15 a day for harvest har-vest hands last year. "There are nearly 13,000 minors in this district. Many of them iose six or eight weoks' work in a year. "If tho idle days could be arranged so that tho men could go to the rai-uis at plowing and planting and harvest seasons, they would earn good money, there would bo work enough at tho mines so those who remained need not be laid off, and tho farmers would have the help. "This court has the power to fix schedules of operation if it sees fit. Tho investigation will go into the feasibility of this idea." oo |