An important feature of the coal industry, which
recent events have brought into sharp prominence,
is the great diversity of conditions between different
coalfields and different collieries. We speak of rich
seams and poor seams, of fertile and unfertile mines,
and we are aware that the costs of raising coal to the
surface differ very widely in accordance with these
diverse natural conditions. Nor must we confine our
attention to the cost price at the pit-head. If we wish
to speak of cost of production as a factor determining
price, we must use the term in a broad sense to include
the transport and other charges necessary to bring
the coal to market.

In this respect also one coalfield differs greatly from
another. Some are well situated close to a large market,
or within easy reach of the seaboard; others must
incur very heavy transport charges to bring their coal
to any considerable centre of consumption. These
varying conditions lead, as we well know, to great
variations in the financial prosperity of different colliery
concerns. In Great Britain, under the abnormal
conditions which prevailed during the war, and sub-
sequently, these variations were so huge as to constitute
a most formidable embarrassment and to contribute,
more perhaps than any other single factor, to the
unrest and instability by which the industry has been
afflicted. But they are always with us, if usually upon
a more modest scale.

What, then, is the normal relation between price and
cost in the case of coal? Should we direct our attention
to the average costs over the whole industry, or the
costs incurred by the richer and better situated mines,

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