Business: Coal

A reconsideration of the Jacksonville union wage scale for bituminous coal districts is to come up shortly, and as the result, foreboding consumers, fearing a possible strike, are buying supplies in huge quantities. Current shipments of bituminous are exceeding those of like periods of recent years. In Pittsburgh the retail price of bituminous, delivered to homes, rose to nine dollars a ton last week.

One factor in this demand for soft coal is the continuing British coal strike. Four million tons of U. S. coal have been going to Great Britain.* But equally important is the domestic fear of a strike. Because of this nervous demand employers of non-union miners are finding some trouble in getting sufficient labor. Thus last week the open shop Pittsburgh Coal Co., a Mellon family holding company, offered increased wages. Higher wage scales were posted at many another mine.

*Last week Sir Alfred Moritz Mond, chief of a great British chemical group, threatened if the British strike was not settled, to place long-time coal contracts with foreign countries. He is an official of various British coal mining corporations.