there would be general strikes in the unionized mines of both the bituminous and anthracite coal fields. The anthracite miners have been demanding an increase of 20 per cent. in wages, with one dollar added to the pay of day workers, time-and-a-half for overtime, and double pay for Sundays and holidays. The bituminous coal miners are not asking an increase in wages, but have given notice of their intention to refuse the wage reductions which have been announced or which are about to be announced by the operators. The anthracite mine owners have given public notice that the price of coal to the consumer would be increased about $1.30 a ton if the increased wages are granted.

A Bad Outlook for the Householder

The spokesmen for the unions have denied that the 20 per cent. increase in wages demanded should result in any such increase in the price of coal as $1.30 per ton, and have given figures to show that such an increase in price is out of proportion to former calculations and statements of the operators themselves. The latter explain, however, that only 60 per cent. of the shipments of anthracite are of the prepared domestic sizes, and that the balance consists of so-called "steam sizes" which sell customarily below production cost and which are now in such hopeless competition with an overproduction of bituminous coal that they cannot bear any part of the suggested increase in wage costs. This must all be piled onto the 60 per cent. of anthracite production, consisting of coal for domestic uses. In this way, an actual increase in labor cost on the whole production of hard coal amounting to 78.4 cents a ton, when applied to the prepared sizes alone, would bring the increase to $1.30. The average total mine cost per ton of anthracite is given as $5.55 (of which $3.92 is labor) and the luckless consumer is paying in New England and nearby States between $15 and $18, or nearly three times pre-war prices.

age, fewer and fewer days out of a year, so that even with the present rates of wages looking very high indeed, as compared with pre-war rates and high as compared with any increased cost of living-the workers in the mines are individually earning each year much less than they should have on any basis of reasonably continuous employment. Feeling the pinch of their inadequate incomes, they insist on still higher wages, which tend to give a further push to retail prices of coal and, perhaps, by a new cut in consumption, make the miner's yearly income still more meager. There is no doubt of real suffering of the workers in many of the coal fields to-day. In some, the miners are averaging less than two days' work a week.

Will Industry Be

Held Up?

If no way is found to reconcile the differences between the operators and the miners, the country may then look forward to a cessation of work by all union coal miners on April 1. This does not mean that the wheels of industry must, beginning with that date, stand still, or even after the supplies laid up by manufacturing concerns in anticipation of this event are used up. The present normal consumption of bituminous coal in the United States is about 7,000,000 tons weekly. Under the drive of war-time needs this production was increased for a short time to 15,000,000 tons weekly. About 30 per cent. of the bituminous miners are non-unionized, and it is expected that they will keep at work even in the event of a general strike and that they may produce as much as 4,000,000 tons per week. Such an amount of new production, when reinforced by the enormous accumulations of coal already mined—a result of the past year of acute industrial depression should keep the wheels of industry moving fairly well, although there will be vast waste and confusion in the redistribution of transportation facilities following the closing down of more than half of the mines. It has been announced that the American Federation of Labor will support the coal miners in their strike, and in February they were attempting to make an active alliance with the railway labor unions.

the miners, the real and great trouble will be untouched until there is a complete revolution in the industry of coal-mining in America. At present the productive capacity of our coal mines and their equipment is much greater than the normal consumption of the country. The multitude of operators, large and small, are attempting to make money in spite of that fact by digging out the richest and most accessible seams, with all the waste inherent in such a system or lack of system; the miners are only averaging from two to four days a week, and the plan of distribution and transportation is hopelessly confused. The industry is in position to follow the experience of Great Britain's coal mines. There the rich seams near the surface have been exhausted, and the deeper and poorer workings now reached are producing scarcely one-half as much coal as was produced ten years ago with a cost per ton several times as great.

A New System

Something must be done to Absolutely change the whole system. No Necessary more tremendous and worthy task could be imagined for a man like Mr. Hoover. One set of men looks to an extension of government control, or even to government ownership, for a solution of the problem. A greater number, mindful of our experience in government operation of the railroads and government operation of its shipping industry, feel that this would be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, and believe that the only hope for the American nation to get plenty of reasonably cheap coal, with scientific conservation of this great natural resource, lies in the control and operation of the industry by a small number of well-financed and more or less monopolistic corporations. They see the obvious dangers from such a development, but believe they are less to be feared than the almost certain disaster of government ownership with its killing of initiative, morale, and centralized responsibility. They point to the oil, steel, and other basic industries which have been developed more or less monopolistically, and show that the genius and ambition of the American captains of industry have in these fields measurably solved the problems as yet unsolved in coal mines, and that, in all, the dangers of monopoly have been endured and American people are furnished with good steel and good oil at prices which tend to decrease rather than to grow out of all reason.

Oil for Only Twenty

Years

The chief competitor of coal in industrial development-petroleum-may within the generation immediately ahead of us become less of a competitor. The recently completed estimate of the oil reserves of the United States made by the United States Geological Survey gives the available supply as 9,150,000,000 barrels, sufficient to meet the requirements of the country, at the present rate of consumption, for only twenty years. It is true, of course, that the oil cannot be taken out of the ground so fast as this, and that there will be producing oil wells long after the twenty years have elapsed, not to speak of the new supplies from shale deposits, when processes for extracting these have been further perfected. But what this does mean is that an increasing proportion of oil needed for American industry must be brought in from other countries, and with the rapid exhaustion of the enormous Mexican wells, through the inrush of salt water, it is not at present demonstrable just where we will get all the oil needed, at the present rate of increase in demand, twenty years from now.

Distribution of Oil Reserves

The United States is already using over 500,000,000 barrels. a year and has an annual production of nearly 500,000,000 barrels. Petroleum engineers hope for a much less wasteful utilization of our oil reserves through new and improved methods of recovery, and their figures show very conclusively the overwhelming need of such methods of conservation. Of the estimated reserves of oil at present existing, it is striking to find the great petroleum producing State of Pennsylvania down to 260,000,000 million barrels as compared, for instance, with 1,850,000,000 barrels in California, 1,340,000,000 in Oklahoma, and 2,100,000,000 in the Gulf Coast region of Texas and Louisiana. The Geological Survey divides the reserves into oil "in sight," estimated at 5,000,000,000 barrels, and "prospective and possible" oil something like 4,000,000,000 barrels.

mine, the cost of production. To cope with this situation, the copper mines simply stopped producing. The output in March, 1921, was 91,000,000 pounds and in April it was only 47,000,000. The remaining months of the year saw production come down to amounts ranging between 22,000,000 and 28,000,000 pounds. Now there are intimations that the mines will soon begin work again. The huge Anaconda Copper Mining Company has begun preliminary operations and the Calumet and Hecla has announced that some of its mines will begin work on April 1. During the shut-down period, the supply on hand had been reduced from 1,124,000,000 to 793,000,000 pounds of crude copper while the refined metal has been brought from 659,000,000 to 496,000,000 pounds. In order to take care of the situation facing them at the beginning of 1921, with this enormous stock of metal on hand and no current earnings in sight, the producers formed an Export Association and borrowed $40,000,000 against 400,000,000 pounds of refined copper on hand, issuing 8 per cent. gold notes which were redeemed as the stock of copper was marketed abroad. At the beginning of the present year, something more than onequarter of this export copper had actually been sold in Europe. Another incident

which has helped to instil some life in the industry was the recent novel merger of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company with the American Brass Company, through the purchase of the stock of the brass company by Anaconda. Copper produced by the Anaconda Company will thus be manufactured and sold in finished form by its own factories. The American Brass Company was the largest consumer of the metal in the world.

Huge

The reports for the year 1921 Business Losses of the great industrial units of of 1921 America are being published in the first quarter of this year. They reveal the full meaning of the depression we have been passing through. The losses suffered by the great packing, sugar, leather, and mail-order houses are measured by the tens of millions for single concerns. Armour & Co., the largest food products business, reports a deficit of $31,000,000-more than the net earnings of its most profitable year. Sears, Roebuck & Co., the leading mail-order business in the world, had a deficit in 1921 of $16,000,000, and was only saved from an

impairment of its capital by a huge outright. present to the corporation from its president, Julius Rosenwald. Montgomery, Ward & Co., the second largest concern in this business of selling direct to the farmers and other rural and small-town dwellers, was in even worse case; in February it was proposing to save its capital position by valuing its stock liability at $10 per share instead of $30, the figure used before. The banks have had a hard time tiding over their customers, and most of the State systems for guaranteeing bank deposits have gone out of business for the time. In the State of Washington, every bank has left the guarantee system. A business that closed the year with no profit at all, but no loss, was considered fortunate. There is scarcely a doubt that the year was the most difficult, financially, of our generation. Naturally the almost fantastic losses of the larger concerns were caused chiefly by the sudden drop in the value of inventories.

The Turn of the Tide

There has been a wholesome disposition on the part of American business men to face the music, to acknowledge that their stocks of goods and supplies were worth only one-half or two-thirds of their cost, to mark them down in spite of the startlingly bad results on their balance sheets, and to start out afresh with confidence that the tide would turn. While in some lines of business it is probable that the low point has not even yet been reached, in most fields it certainly has been reached and a slow and hesitant movement for the better has started in. This is indicated strongly by the stock market, which has been rising, not rapidly, but with fair consistency, with the leading industrial securities quoted now fifteen to twenty points higher, on the average, than the low levels of June and August of last year. In the meantime, the underlying healthy state of American finance has been strikingly shown by a very strong demand for bonds and other of the best classes of investment securities. Not only have the old issues been rising rapidly in price; new issues of very large amounts have been easily and even eagerly absorbed. In December last, more than half a billion of new securities were floated by the industrial companies and the railroads with no difficulty whatever, the largest month's output of investment securities, save two, in history, if Liberty Bond flotations be disregarded.

World Figures Passed Away

Harris & Ewing

E. H. SHAUGHNESSY

Besides the name of Pope BeneWho Have dict, our obituary record contains the name of another world figure, Lord Bryce of England. We are publishing some reminiscences of James Bryce elsewhere in this issue. He belonged almost as truly to this country as to Great Britain. If he had been associated with several Prime Ministers, he had also known almost equally well several American Presidents, and a host of our Cabinet officers, judges, and members of both houses of Congress. He had known the United States well in the periods of Garfield and Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson, and he had met Mr. Harding both as Senator and as President. Another Briton of world fame was Sir Ernest Shackleton. This intrepid explorer died at sea on January 5 in Antarctic waters while upon another of his voyages which was intended to add to our scientific knowledge of the regions about the South Pole. A statesman and soldier alike eminent in Orient and Occident was Field Marshal Prince Yamagata, who had outlived most of his famous associates of the "Genro" or Elder Statesmen of Japan. He had always been a warm friend of the United States. He and Lord Bryce were born in 1838.

JOHN KENDRICK BANGS

A. BARTON HEPBURN

Some

Worth

Mr. A. Barton Hepburn of Americans of New York was a citizen of public spirit and a banker of great knowledge and wide influence. Mrs. George Foster Peabody (known throughout the country as Katrina Trask) had contributed much by her pen and her influence to elevate American sentiment and give true direction to social effort and sympathy. Her writings both in prose and verse were exquisite in form and spirit. Her beautiful estate at Saratoga has been bequeathed for public uses, and will benefit American art and letters. Mr. John Kendrick Bangs, so widely popular as a genial humorist, was a typical Ameri

can of the sturdiest principles. He had in recent years lectured in every part of the country, and in his death we lose a true leader and teacher. Colonel Edward H. Shaughnessy, who was Second Assistant Postmaster General, was one of the victims of a disaster at Washington at the end of January which resulted in the death of about a hundred people and the injury of many more. Mr. Shaughnessy was doing conspicuously good work in the PostOffice Department. He had served with similar energy and ability with our troops in France in the transportation department. He was not yet forty years of age.

THE CONFERENCE AT WASHINGTON [The Conference had held its first plenary session on November 12, after acceptance of invitations issued by President Harding on August II, 1921, with delegates from the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, China, Holland, Belgium, and Portugal. Mr. Hughes had made his famous 5-5-3 naval reduction proposal immediately after being chosen presiding officer (see p. 646, December, 1921). By December 10, the old Anglo-Japanese Alliance had been superseded by the new Four Power Treaty on the Pacific; and on December 12 Secretary Hughes had announced settlement of the Yap controversy with Japan by treaty. The 5-5-3 naval ratio had been accepted December 15 by the United States, Great Britain, and Japan, contingent on fixing ratios for France and Italy.]

January 16.-The Committee on Far Eastern questions agrees to table discussion of the "Twenty-one Demands"-which Japan forced upon China-until the Shantung issue is settled.

January 18.-The Committee on Far Eastern Questions adopts Mr. Hughes' resolution designed to make China's "open door" a fact, but it eliminates at Japan's request a retroactive provision permitting either party to existing concessions to submit them to a board of reference when inconsistent with other concessions or the principles of the open door resolution; the powers agree to apply jointly the open door and provide a board of reference to determine practical methods.

January 21.-The Far Eastern Committee adopts the Hughes resolution for publishing Chinese concession agreements, Japan amending it to require China to publish agreements with foreign nationals on other than public-utility

matters.

January 23.-Baron Shidehara, Japanese Ambassador, declares a policy of non-intervention in Russia and respect for her territorial integrity, not however, announcing the date for withdrawal of troops.

January 25.-President Harding and Mr. Hughes confer with Dr. Sze of China on a Shantung settlement; 10,000 students at Peking parade in protest against direct negotiations with Japan on Shantung.

January 30.-The Shantung deadlock, after two months of discussion, ends with a settlement in which China agrees to pay 53,000,000 gold marks for the railway in notes redeemable in five years and expiring in fifteen.

February 1.-The Conference in its fifth plenary session formally ratifies agreements shaped by its committees-the Five Power (United States, Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy) Naval Treaty, limiting the numbers of capital ships, the Five Power treaty prohibiting submarines as

commerce destroyers, and resolutions regarding China as follows: Removal of foreign post offices before January 1, 1923, diplomatic inquiry to fix date for troop withdrawals, the radio agreement, the promise to file lists of all treaties with China, the "earnest hope" that China will reduce her military forces, and China's agreement not to discriminate in rates on railroads operated by Chinese.

February 2.-Japan withdraws Group 5 of her Twenty-one Demands, which were alleged to deprive China of her own Government.

February 4.-The Shantung treaty is signed by which Japan returns the former German leasehold on the province to China; China regains complete control over the province and the Shantung railroad.

The sixth plenary session adopts the "open door" treaty with China, including the Root resolutions pledging the powers to give China a chance to get on her feet, and the treaty on Chinese tariff providing a commission to revise the rates and abolish the likin (a sort of interstate tax or duty).

Conference

February 6.-The Washington comes to an end with the signing of five treaties and a laudatory address by President Harding on the work of the delegates.

A five power conference is to be held after eight years on naval armament, and a five power I commission is to revise rules of warfare; as to China, the tariff will be revised by a separate commission, an international commission will study extraterritorial rights, and a board of reference will consider questions relating to railways and economics.

PROCEEDINGS IN CONGRESS

January 16.-The Senate Finance Committee, after five months consideration, reports the Foreign Debt Refunding bill; the features of the House bill objected to by Secretary Mellon are removed.

January 17.-The Senate, voting 63 to 9, passes a bill increasing the Federal Reserve Board membership to six instead of five to permit appointment of a farmer member.

January 18.-The Senate passes a bill extending time to build the proposed Hudson River Bridge another fifteen years; construction must begin within five years.

The Senate agrees to House changes in the joint resolution authorizing the President to prohibit arms exports to any American country, or any country in which domestic violence exists where the United States exercises extraterritorial jurisdiction.

The House Military Committee hears General Pershing recommend retention of nine main army training posts, and seven additional guard and reserve camps, and the reduction of personnel to 14,000 efficient officers.