COAL OR OIL?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 222, 18 March 1912, Page 6

COAL OR OIL?

The London Spectator lays stress on what it regards as a very likely happening should the big coal strike at Home be unduly prolonged. "The coal mining industry," it says, "is in a sense threatened_ at the present .juncture from many points of view. In the first place, there is the competition of oil fuel ', and oil engines for a great number of purposes. Where twenty years ago a man who wanted power would certainly have installed an ordinary steam engine, worked by coal, he now is very likely to use an engine operated by mineral oil. Even in the case of marine engines there is a steady tendency to. abandon coal for oil. Unquestionably theSe tendencies will be greatly stimulated by a strike. In many instances the strike will prove the turning point, and will make men who now have recourse to coal come to the conclusion that as soon as possible they will resort to the use of oil engines. By those who are contemplating new installations of machinery, the coal strike and the consequent famine price ot coal and the difficulties of obtaining it even after the strike is ovpr—remember that the dislocation of trade will la»t many months after the strike—will be taken as a. warning, and will , turn the balance in favoj- of oil. This means that there will be a perceptible • decrease in the consumption of, and so in the demand for, coal for commercial purposes. It is also interesting to note that'despite the fact that it knows that it will be told by the leaders of the men that 'it is up to the old capitalistic dodge,' the Spectator holds that if there be a lengthy strike the result will ;be found to be that "when the battle is over and thingg have resumed their normal condition there will be a smaller number of men employed in the British coalfields, and not at higher but lower wages than now."