The Feople That Walk
In Darkness
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Seward Gateway
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The words of the prophet
Isaiah apply with singular apt
ness to those engaged in the
world’s coal industry today.
In every coal-producing coun
try of importance, the coal
industry is facing, is in the midst
of, probably the worst condi
tion,in its history.
Great Britian, Germany, Bel
gium, France, India, Japan, Aus
tralia, Czechoslovakia, the Ne
therlands, all are confronted by
loss of trade and by threatened
labor troubles, and no one of
them seems to have any definite,
effective plan fcr improvement,
at least none that all parties are
in agreement with.
Even the government-subsi
dized Polish and Russian coal
trades are having difficulty in
selling their output, in spite of
prices below the actual cost of
prodcction.
In the United States, the bi
tuminous coal industry is almost
bankrupt, with forced property
sales and receiverships every
where, with coal selling at the
lowest price since the pre-war
days.
For instance, such high-grade
coals as the New River and Po
cahontas of West Virginia are
being sold for 50 or 75 cents per
ton F. O. B. mines; a few weeks
ago a large railroad closed a
contract for a good sized tonnage
at 83 cents per ton F. O. B. mines
and this for good Pennsylvania
locomotive fuel.
The coal industry in Canada,
notwithstanding the efforts of its
government to keep out our
coals by imposing tariffs and by
subsidized freight rates, is in no
better condition; production
during the first quarter of the
year amounted to about 25 per
cent less than during the cor
responding period of 1930.
Overproduction and too many
mines have generally been as
signed as the cause of the coal
industry’s ills, but they are nou
by any means the whole story.
Industrial and political condi
ticns are in no small measure
responsible, together with the
competition and inroads of sub
stitute fuels, fuel oil, and natural
gas, and last, but not least, the
remarkable economies in the use
of coal that have been brought
about in the last 10 years.
The Class 1 railroad of the
United States, for instance, have
just established a new record in
their consumption of coal on
locomotives, during the first six
months of 1931, when 122 pounds
were required to haul 1,000 tons
a distance of one mile; with a
corresponding record in pas -
senger service.
The National Electric Light
Association in the United States
has recently reported an average
consumption of 1.60 pounds of
coal per k. w. hour for all plants
in the country; less than 10
years ago the corresponding
figure was over three pounds.
The great by-product coke in
dustry, which normally uses
about 16 per cent of the coun
try’s entire bituminous coal out
put is now using about 36 per
cent less coal than it was con
suming a year ago.
With such depressed condi
tions in the coal industry else
where, what of Alaska’s coal and
coal trade? Hindered and upset
in the past by various factors,
which are well known and need
not be named here, is it not no\^
going through a phase which has
obtained elsewhere in the trades
infancy, in its efforts to create
and foster markets for Alaska
coal?
Alaska has untold millions,
probably billions of tons of a
vailable and usable coals (any
estimate of the amount would
be a wild guess) but markets
must be sought for and transpor
tation facilities secured. “If a
man wants to shoot game, he
goes after it—he doesn’t wait
for it to come to his back yard.”
Last year there were about
55,000 tons of coal brought into
Alaska from British Columbia
and Washington, none of it
better in heating value than the
Alaska product, when properly
prepared.
Can not such a movement of
outside coal be stopped? It can,
if the people of Alaska want to
stop it.
What the Alaska coal industry
needs most today and will always
need in the future, if it is to
increase in importance, is a
greater degree of cooperation—
cooperation between producer
and seller with the consumer; in
fact, between all who have the
best interests of Alaska at heart.
It is for the Alaskan people and
their true friends to bring about
such cooperation.
Alaskan coal for the Alaskans
and these doing business in
Alaska.
“The people that walked in
darkness have seen a great
light.”
Will that prophecy be fulfilled
in Alaska?
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The race is divided into two
classes: those who go ahead and
those who inquire: Why wasn’t
it done the other way?—Oliver
Wendell Holmes.
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Ring, a pet duck on a South
Jersey farm, has become swim
ming instructor to a flock of 400
chickens.
Last summer a group of little
chickens watched Ring swim.
Soon three or four tried the wa -
ter. Now the entire flock takes
a daily swim. Bullieve it or not*