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28.-Monthly average spot prices of bituminous coal f. o. b. mines, 1923, as quoted by Coal Age. Data in Table 62, p. 621

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1923

Government price control

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scale in the number of mines working full time. By November, 1923, 14.8 per cent were working practically at capacity, and this included a large share of the biggest mines.

Thus before the agreement of 1923 had run its span of one year the competitive forces of unsettlement in the bituminous-coal industry began to reappear. Even in a period of active demand the market could not absorb the potential output of the existing mines. Overdevelopment was forcing intense competition, and already the nonunion fields, free to reduce costs by cutting wages, were beginning again to press hard upon the union fields operating on a fixed wage scale. Of this tendency more was to be seen in 1924.

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FIGURE 29.-Per cent of idle, part-time, and full-time mines in nine representative weeks, 1922-1924. This chart is based solely on mines reporting weekly to the U. S. Geological Survey, of which there are about 2,500. They represent about one-half the output of the country. Though not complete, the figures show the trend

ANTHRACITE TRADE IN 1923

Labor relations.-In the anthracite industry, on the contrary, the chief events of 1923 centered around labor relations. An appraisal of the merits of the controversy between operators and miners would be out of place in this report, and reference will be made only to those events which immediately affected the supply and demand for the product. The agreement of September, 1922, was felt to be in the nature of an armistice rather than a permanent settlement. It was to run for one year. Months before its expiration the miners presented demands for further increases in wages, the check off, and other modifications of the working conditions. Negotiations for a new contract were opened in the usual way, but little progress was made. On July 27 the joint conference at Atlantic City came to a deadlock, and the negotiations were broken off.

There followed a period of six weeks in which the market was unsettled by the uncertainties as to the possibility of another suspension and the terms on which an agreement would be ultimately reached.

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FIGURE 30.-Monthly prices of anthracite f. o. b. mines, 1913-1924, as quoted by Coal Age. The diagram shows in dollars per gross ton the average company prices and average "independent" spot quotations on stove and buckwheat sizes of Pennsylvania anthracite at the mines. Prices shown are averages of the range as quoted on the New York market. Reproduced from Coal Age, by permission

The United States Coal Commission, being without authority to prescribe the terms of settlement, called the two parties together and urged in the public interest that negotiations be resumed under some plan that would keep the mines in operation until an agreement had been reached, if necessary by arbitration. The suggestion of arbitration was accepted by the operators but rejected by the

miners.2

? See Reports by the Commission to the President concerning Negotiations for Renewal of the Anthracite Wage Agreement: U. S. Coal Comm. Rept., vol. 1, pp. 138-145.

The miners and operators still failing to agree, Governor Pinchot, of Pennsylvania, called them together at Harrisburg on August 27 and after conferring with them suggested a basis of settlement in which the principal points were (a) extension of the basic eight-hour

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FIGURE 31.-Production, calculated full-time capacity, men employed, mine price per ton, and average number of days lost at bituminous-coal mines, 1890-1923

day to the group of employees still working a longer day; (b) a uniform increase in wages of 10 per cent to all employees; (c) denial of the check off of union dues, but granting of the right of the union to have a representative present when the men are paid. Governor Pinchot's terms, with slight modifications, were accepted by the two parties on September 8, and on September 19 work was resumed at the mines after a suspension of 14 days.

The anthracite market in 1923.-The course of anthracite prices in 1923 (fig. 30) largely reflects the developments in labor relations. The year opened with independent stove coal selling at premiums of $2 to $3 a ton above the circular prices of the railroad coal companies, a sign of the shortage existing after the strike of 1922. Independent prices dropped in March and April, but by June apprehension over another stoppage caused the market to tighten and independent premiums again to increase. Company prices remained unchanged from September, 1922, to August, 1923, but advances of 75 to 90 cents were made after the wage increase of September 8. The settlement of the wage controversy without prolonged stoppage tended to calm the market, and independent prices were declining by December and were destined to drop still further in 1924.

In sharp contrast to the upward movement of the prices of domestic coal is the downward trend of the steam sizes. Heavy production of the domestic sizes created a surplus of the steam sizes at the same time that prices of bituminous steam coal were falling. Independent buckwheat was selling at a premium in January, but thereafter it plunged below the circular price, and three times during the year the circular itself declined.

GROWTH OF THE INDUSTRY

EARLY RECORDS OF PRODUCTION

The detailed statistics for the year 1923 which are presented in this report can best be understood if attention is first given to a summary of the historical growth of the industry, in which the year 1923 is seen in its relation to the past.

The earliest year of which the Geological Survey has a record of the quantity of coal produced is 1807. The Richmond Basin of Virginia was worked at a much earlier date, and it appears that some coal was dug near Pittsburgh and in the Georges Creek field of Maryland in the eighteenth century, but the statistical history of coal mining on a commercial scale begins in this country with the shipment of anthracite down Lehigh and Susquehanna rivers about 1807. The record by States is given in the table on page 545 for each year from 1807 to 1923.

Up to the Civil War the production of anthracite exceeded that of bituminous coal. Since then the extraordinary increase in the industrial consumption of the country has carried the output of bituminous coal far above that of anthracite. The peak of production of soft coal in 1918 was 5.8 times as great as that of anthracite.

BITUMINOUS-COAL INDUSTRY

The modern history of bituminous coal mining may conveniently be dated from 1890, when the Survey's more complete record of production, men employed, and days worked begins. From that year to 1923 the quantity produced increased fivefold, the value of the product fourteenfold, and the number of employees between three and fourfold. The principal statistical facts of the industry for each year of this 34-year period are shown in Table 4.

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