Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/273

 Rh old mines and the employment of additional hands; but, as considerable time is required to sink a shaft and start a new mine, it is not probable that any large part of the increase arises from the development of new fields. During the coal famine of 1873 the high wages paid and the large profits realized induced the lessees to send down into the mines a considerable number of those engaged on the surface: in other words, the number of surface men was decreased, and the number of hewers increased. The same process may have been going on during the last twelve months, and the miners may have been working for a greater number of days in the year. But, whatever be the cause, it is clear that there is no difficulty under the stimulus of higher prices of increasing the production of coal in a single year by seven millions of tons, or over four per cent.

That industrial pressure leads to increased efficiency in production is a principle constantly exemplified, but often overlooked. It is true that many of the inventions that have benefited the race can be traced to a happy discovery or to a series of laborious experiments; but, on the other hand, many discoveries and inventions are due solely to necessity. The lead taken by the United States in the construction of labour-saving appliances is due mainly to the disadvantage the producer is under owing to the scarcity of labour. The depressed state of the cotton industry has resulted in so many improvements that the worker is now able to gain a higher weekly wage than he formerly did in prosperous times. It can no longer be assumed that an interference of the legislature with industry will increase the cost of production. The coal trade is a singular instance of this. No industry is surrounded with a greater number of legal checks, yet these checks have only paved the way for economies that leave the cost of production practically where it was before.

If we turn from the causes affecting the productiveness of the mines open at the present time to consider the causes tending to the development of new coal-fields, it is evident that they are by no means exhausted. Apart from the clauses and stipulations usually inserted in mining leases, the leading factor in the development of a coal-field is a ready access to markets. It might be thought that there was no room for any further development of means of communication in England, but at the present time not less than three important schemes are on foot that have for their object, amongst other things, the cheaper transit of coal to the consumer. The projected line through Derbyshire to