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dispensing medicines and healing diseases, can do a great deal toward enlisting the good-will and sympathy of the natives. If this is impracticable, I should like to see the non-medical missionaries establish schools and libraries for the advancement of Western learning and knowledge and of Western arts and sciences. This would be a means of getting the educated class on their side.

In conclusion, foreigners in China should not judge us according to their own standards. They should take account of both our good and our bad points, and give us credit for the former while making due allowance for the latter. Above all, they should assume a more conciliatory attitude in their intercourse with the natives, so as to overcome their distrust and hostility. It is unpleasant to be compelled to criticise other people. I do so now not in a carping spirit. My aim is to remove difficulties, create harmony, and increase the friendliness between China and other nations. The history of China's intercourse with Western nations has been a continuous chapter of misunderstanding. Mistakes have been committed on both sides. What has been done cannot be undone. But let us profit by our past experience and avoid similar mistakes in the future. My earnest hope is that there will be less friction and more cordiality and friendliness between the natives and foreigners. If what I have said will contribute, in any measure, however small, to that desired end, I shall feel amply repaid.

Chinese Embassy, Washington.

WU TING-FANG.

THE ANTHRACITE COAL STRIKE.

The mine workers in the anthracite coal fields of Eastern Pennsylvania were ordered out on strike by President John Mitchell, of the United Mine Workers of America, Wednesday, September 12, the strike to be inaugurated the following Monday, September 17. On the latter date, at the lowest estimate, 80,000 men and boys (the United Mine Workers claimed 100,000) laid down their tools and quit their accustomed tasks. Before the week closed 125,000 of the 140,000 anthracite mine employees in Pennsylvania were idle. The men remained away from their collieries fortytwo days, their number increasing gradually until over 130,000 were involved. They resumed work in a body on Monday, October 29, after nearly every operator had conceded their more important demands and had promised to remedy the other grievances complained of. From less than 8,000 members from among the anthracite coal workers at the opening of the struggle, the United Mine Workers had increased its membership to over 100,000 before the strike was declared at an end. During the progress of the strike the production of anthracite coal was almost entirely suspended, the daily output being estimated at 10,000 tons. The price per ton, as quoted by the big companies at Philadelphia, rose from $5.50, on the day the strike went into effect, to $6.75, the day the strikers went back to work.

The importance and far-reaching effects of this great struggle between capital and labor were, of course, connected with the fact that practically all the hard coal mined in the United States and used as fuel by thousands of industries in the Eastern, Middle Western and Southern Atlantic States comes from the territory over which it extended. This great industry, involving the operation of 366 collieries and giving direct employment to 140,583

men and boys' is concentrated within an area of less than 490 square miles. In 1890 the capital invested in anthracite mining aggregated $161,784,473. During the same year $39,278,355 was paid in wages. The production of anthracite coal has increased, in half a century, from 3,358,899 long tons in 1850 to 54,034,224 long tons (valued at $104,000,000) in 1899. According to the report of the State Bureau of Mines for 1899 this latter amount was mined in the ten counties of Carbon, Columbia, Dauphin, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Northumberland, Schuylkill, Sullivan, Susquehanna and Wayne. Luzerne, Lackawanna, Schuylkill, Northumberland and Carbon produced by far the largest amount. All these counties lie in the hills and valleys of the Blue Ridge Mountains, extending from the headwaters of the Schuylkill and the Lehigh rivers northward and westward to the Susquehanna River. The deposits of coal they contain differ so greatly from one another the formation of the coal and the conditions of mining in each vary so widely-that in trade circles the entire region has become divided into three distinct fields or districts, the Northern or Wyoming and Lackawanna, the Middle or Lehigh and the Southern or Schuylkill.

Into this small territory nine railroads have extended their lines and compete for the transportation of the coal. The intensity of this competition was what first induced the railThere are now three general

roads to become mine owners.

classes of operators engaged in the production of anthracite coal-the railroad mine-owning companies, corporations not identified with the transportation system, and the "independent" or individual mine owners. Thirty years ago the

1 Of the 140,583 employees, about 90,000 work inside the mines and 50,000 outside. Of the former 36,000 are miners, 24,000 laborers, 10,000 drivers, 3,000 door boys, 800 fire bosses, 500 foremen and 15,812 all others. Of the outside employees, 24,000 are slate pickers, 4,500 engineers and firemen, 2,000 blacksmiths and carpenters,

422 superintendents, 375 foremen and 18,703 all others.

kill, 12,000,000; Northumberland, 4,000,000, and Carbon, 1,000,000,-these five coun2 In 1899 Luzerne produced over 21,000,000 tons; Lackawanna, 13,000,000; Schuylties thus produced 51,000,000 of the total of 54,000,000 tons.

latter were practically the only operators in the anthracite fields. They now number less than one hundred, and for their own protection have organized themselves into the Anthracite Coal Operators' Association.

The tendency of the railroads to become operators first became marked in 1871. Repeated strikes resulting in the withdrawal of the coal shipments, upon which the earnings of the companies largely depended, coupled with the danger that still other transportation companies would invade the territory, induced the Reading Railroad and the other roads then in the region, at the close of the strike begun January 10, 1871, to take steps toward securing coal lands and opening mines. The first move of the roads was to raise freight charges, most of them doubling and one of them, the Reading, trebling their rates. These rates, as was intended, proved prohibitive; the operators who had resumed, at once closed their mines, and in a short time many of them had sold out to the railroads at what might be called forced sales. The tendency toward a close consolidation of interests on the side of the railroads began about the same period and still continues.' These companies now control

In 1898 "the controlling interest in the New York, Susquehanna & Western Company was acquired by the Erie Railroad Company largely increasing the latter's interest in the anthracite trade. The Delaware & Hudson Canal Company finally decided to abandon shipments by its canal from Honesdale to Rondout and made a closer contract with the Erie for its northern trade" (The Mineral Industry, Vol. VIII, page 169). In 1899 "purchasers of coal lands were unusually active. The steel and iron companies have acquired reserves of fuel supplies and have bought many thousand acres of coal lands." In March, 1899, "the Temple Iron Company was formed and some extensive purchases of coal lands were made by the New York, Ontario & Western" (The Mineral Industry, Volume VIII).

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This tendency among the railroads is having more far-reaching effects than that of merely driving out individual operators. The roads are rapidly overcoming the competition of the waterways in the transportation of the hard coal product. "Formerly a considerable share of the anthracite coal went to Buffalo by canal, but in recent years this traffic has somewhat decreased, and nearly all the anthracite delivered in Buffalo, either for consumption or shipment, is received over the railroad lines" (Page 144, Vol. III, The Mineral Industry). “The steady advances made by the (anthracite coal) combine have almost ruined the Missouri River trade" (Page 91, Vol. I, The Mineral Industry). The purchase of docks and yards in the large cities by the railroad companies some think also threatens the elimination of the small dealer.

approximately 75 per cent of the output of anthracite coal, over 60 per cent, according to reliable estimates, being controlled by the Morgan roads alone. As the sole carriers to tidewater, they easily regulate the production of the entire region, operating as they do in all three districts. The railroad mine-owning companies are the Philadelphia & Reading, the Lehigh Valley, the Central of New Jersey, the Pennsylvania, the Delaware & Hudson, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, the Erie and the New York, Susquehanna & Western, the Delaware, Susquehanna & Schuylkill, and the New York, Ontario & Western.'

These companies not only fix the price of coal upon which depends the wages of the miners, but they are able to determine to what extent freight rates shall enter into that price at tidewater and at other points. The rates to tidewater, for operators not identified with the transportation systems, range from 40 to 68 per cent of the selling prices of the coal at tidewater, the rate depending on the coarseness of the product. The roads thus get on an average 40 per cent of the prices paid at tidewater points, leaving to the operator only 60 per cent. This proportion is now practically universal. Under this arrangement the roads virtually buy the coal at the mine and are then at liberty to sell it for a higher price at non-competitive points. At competitive points, on the contrary, the companies may cut the tidewater price. In this way the individual producer is prevented from being a factor in the market. Tidewater prices may be at one figure and prices at intermediate points at another. Very few, if any, of the individual operators are able to hold the

1 In 1899 the production and shipments of anthracite coal for these roads was as follows:

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