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The Coal Question: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of our Coal Mines.

The Coal Question: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion... Review Author(s): D. A. T. Review by: D. A. T. Source: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol. 69, No. 4 (Dec., 1906), pp. 770-772 Published by: Wiley for the Royal Statistical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2339280 Accessed: 18-04-2016 04:26 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Royal Statistical Society, Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Royal Statistical Society This content downloaded from 140.130.42.12 on Mon, 18 Apr 2016 04:26:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 140.130.42.12 on Mon, 18 Apr 2016 04:26:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1906.] Notes on Economic and Statistictl Workcs. 771 exhaust our coal in about one hundred years, could not last. On the first page of his book is a diagram " showing the impossibility of a long continuance of progress " at the rates then existing, and on page 274 (in italics) he says, " I am far from asserting from these figures that our coalJelds will be urrought to a depth of 4,000 feet in little mwre than a century. I draw the conclusion that I think anyone would draw that we cannot long maintain our present rate of increase of consumption; that we can itever advance to the higher amounts of con- sumption supposed. But this only means that the check to our progress must become perceptible withtin a century from the present time." That is a widely different prediction to that usually attributed to Jevons. So far from his having proved a false prophet, the prediction has been verified, and well within the time he named. The average annual percentage rate of growth (geometric) of output during the decade ending 1860 was 3-63, in the decade ending 1900 it had fallen to 2-I7. Jevons regarded the coal question as one of " almost religious importance, which needs the separate study and determination of every intelligent person." The propositions he laid down are as truie to-day as when he first established them. They are indeed incontrovertible. Some of the principal ones may be briefly summarised thus :-The growth of this country, measured by the increase of population, has been five-fold during the last century and a half. In 1850 the population of England and Wales was a little over 6,ooo,ooo, in 1901 it amounted to 32,5OO,OOO. The natural principle of population is to multiply itself at a constant rate. But this principle can only be freely operative when the means of sub- sistance increases in something like an equal ratio. The increase in population and the great strides in industrial and commercial progress are coincident with the rapid development of our coal resources, which began towards the middle of the eighteenth century, and are the direct consequences of it. From that time a complete change has occurred in the character of British industry. " Instead of learners we have become teachers; instead of exporters of raw nmaterials, we became importers; instead of importers of manufactured articles, we became exporters. What we had exported we began by degrees to import, and what we had imported we began to export." The proud place we hold in the Council of Nations is due largely to our commercial supremacy, which again in its turn depends upon our supply of fuel. When that supply begins to fail, the sun of our -prosperity and greatness will have begun to set. No substitute for coal has yet appeared; there is little hope for us in that direction, and were such a substitute found there is no reason for any fond belief that we should enjoy in regard to it the very exceptional advantages we possess in the superior excellence and position of our present coal supply. A salient factor in our foreign trade is the enormous advantage we derive in over-sea commerce from the circumstance that coal supplies us with a bulky article of export-six-sevenths of our total exports by weight consist of coal- to balance our imports of wool, timber, grain and other bulky com- modities. Were it not for coal, vessels would be compelled to leave This content downloaded from 140.130.42.12 on Mon, 18 Apr 2016 04:26:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 772 Notes on Economic and Statistical Wmorks. [Dec. British ports in ballast, and imported goods would have to earn freight to provide profits for the double voyage, homeward and outward. In the circumstances of our trade, when the coal supply of this country gives out, to maintain our industries on imported fuel would be a commercial impossibility-as well attempt to make water run up hill. Nor can we look for an alleviation of the position or post- ponement of the evil day from any economy that may be effected in consumption, whether through invention or other means whereby the useful result from coal may be made to approach more nearly its theoretic efficiency, for such economy so far from diminishing demand would, by extending the field of its industrial utility, only tend to increase the consumption of coal. This very imperfect rgsumA of a few of his propositions gives but a poor idea of the mine of wealth to be found in Jevons' masterly treatise. It is hardly too much to say that the book is not merely the best, but, from the view of the political economist, the only one worth reading on the coal question, and it is most certainly one that no student of the subject should fail to read and master. Its perusal, as indeed that of any one of the other works of the same author, makes one profoundly deplore the loss humanity sustained in the untimely fate that befel Jevons while yet in his early prime. His genius ranks with that of Mill and Ricardo, and will live in economic history. In revising the work the Editor has endeavoured to preserve the text of the author unaltered as far as possible, while at the same time bringing the matter up-to-date, and in this he has admirably succeeded. D.A.T. 9.-Imports and Exports at Prices of 1900. Cd-2894. 1906. This publication is a welcome aid to those statisticians who interest themselves in the relation of the quantity of foreign trade to its value; for we are given for the years 1900-05 an official estimate of the values of aggregate imports and exports at un- changed prices, and are promised similar calculations in the future. It is unfortunate that a year so exceptional as 1900 is chosen as the starting point. The table given below shows that this year was one of inflated prices, especially for exports, and future comparisons made on this basis will start with misleading premises as to the state of trade at the beginning of this century. If the calculation on the new basis cannot be carried further back, it would be sufficient to summarize the existing Economist's calculations for the years since 1880 or 1870, and show the relation between the two series in the introduction. As it is, a considerable fall of prices in exports is shown (8 per cent. since 1900), while the price of imports has varied little. The following table shows that this phenomenon depends on the choice of 1900 as the base year. In it are reproduced statistics from the table comparing the prices of imports and exports, printed in the Economic Journal, 1903, p. 629. The middle column shows the relation between the changes of prices of imports and exports; a fall in the numbers in this column means that This content downloaded from 140.130.42.12 on Mon, 18 Apr 2016 04:26:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal Of The Royal Statistical Society Unpaywall

The Coal Question: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of our Coal Mines.

T., D. A.; Jevons, W. Stanley; Flux, A. W.
Journal Of The Royal Statistical Society – Dec 1, 1906
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Review Author(s): D. A. T. Review by: D. A. T. Source: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol. 69, No. 4 (Dec., 1906), pp. 770-772 Published by: Wiley for the Royal Statistical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2339280 Accessed: 18-04-2016 04:26 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Royal Statistical Society, Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Royal Statistical Society This content downloaded from 140.130.42.12 on Mon, 18 Apr 2016 04:26:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 140.130.42.12 on Mon, 18 Apr 2016 04:26:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1906.] Notes on Economic and Statistictl Workcs. 771 exhaust our coal in about one hundred years, could not last. On the first page of his book is a diagram " showing the impossibility of a long continuance of progress " at the rates then existing, and on page 274 (in italics) he says, " I am far from asserting from these figures that our coalJelds will be urrought to a depth of 4,000 feet in little mwre than a century. I draw the conclusion that I think anyone would draw that we cannot long maintain our present rate of increase of consumption; that we can itever advance to the higher amounts of con- sumption supposed. But this only means that the check to our progress must become perceptible withtin a century from the present time." That is a widely different prediction to that usually attributed to Jevons. So far from his having proved a false prophet, the prediction has been verified, and well within the time he named. The average annual percentage rate of growth (geometric) of output during the decade ending 1860 was 3-63, in the decade ending 1900 it had fallen to 2-I7. Jevons regarded the coal question as one of " almost religious importance, which needs the separate study and determination of every intelligent person." The propositions he laid down are as truie to-day as when he first established them. They are indeed incontrovertible. Some of the principal ones may be briefly summarised thus :-The growth of this country, measured by the increase of population, has been five-fold during the last century and a half. In 1850 the population of England and Wales was a little over 6,ooo,ooo, in 1901 it amounted to 32,5OO,OOO. The natural principle of population is to multiply itself at a constant rate. But this principle can only be freely operative when the means of sub- sistance increases in something like an equal ratio. The increase in population and the great strides in industrial and commercial progress are coincident with the rapid development of our coal resources, which began towards the middle of the eighteenth century, and are the direct consequences of it. From that time a complete change has occurred in the character of British industry. " Instead of learners we have become teachers; instead of exporters of raw nmaterials, we became importers; instead of importers of manufactured articles, we became exporters. What we had exported we began by degrees to import, and what we had imported we began to export." The proud place we hold in the Council of Nations is due largely to our commercial supremacy, which again in its turn depends upon our supply of fuel. When that supply begins to fail, the sun of our -prosperity and greatness will have begun to set. No substitute for coal has yet appeared; there is little hope for us in that direction, and were such a substitute found there is no reason for any fond belief that we should enjoy in regard to it the very exceptional advantages we possess in the superior excellence and position of our present coal supply. A salient factor in our foreign trade is the enormous advantage we derive in over-sea commerce from the circumstance that coal supplies us with a bulky article of export-six-sevenths of our total exports by weight consist of coal- to balance our imports of wool, timber, grain and other bulky com- modities. Were it not for coal, vessels would be compelled to leave This content downloaded from 140.130.42.12 on Mon, 18 Apr 2016 04:26:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 772 Notes on Economic and Statistical Wmorks. [Dec. British ports in ballast, and imported goods would have to earn freight to provide profits for the double voyage, homeward and outward. In the circumstances of our trade, when the coal supply of this country gives out, to maintain our industries on imported fuel would be a commercial impossibility-as well attempt to make water run up hill. Nor can we look for an alleviation of the position or post- ponement of the evil day from any economy that may be effected in consumption, whether through invention or other means whereby the useful result from coal may be made to approach more nearly its theoretic efficiency, for such economy so far from diminishing demand would, by extending the field of its industrial utility, only tend to increase the consumption of coal. This very imperfect rgsumA of a few of his propositions gives but a poor idea of the mine of wealth to be found in Jevons' masterly treatise. It is hardly too much to say that the book is not merely the best, but, from the view of the political economist, the only one worth reading on the coal question, and it is most certainly one that no student of the subject should fail to read and master. Its perusal, as indeed that of any one of the other works of the same author, makes one profoundly deplore the loss humanity sustained in the untimely fate that befel Jevons while yet in his early prime. His genius ranks with that of Mill and Ricardo, and will live in economic history. In revising the work the Editor has endeavoured to preserve the text of the author unaltered as far as possible, while at the same time bringing the matter up-to-date, and in this he has admirably succeeded. D.A.T. 9.-Imports and Exports at Prices of 1900. Cd-2894. 1906. This publication is a welcome aid to those statisticians who interest themselves in the relation of the quantity of foreign trade to its value; for we are given for the years 1900-05 an official estimate of the values of aggregate imports and exports at un- changed prices, and are promised similar calculations in the future. It is unfortunate that a year so exceptional as 1900 is chosen as the starting point. The table given below shows that this year was one of inflated prices, especially for exports, and future comparisons made on this basis will start with misleading premises as to the state of trade at the beginning of this century. If the calculation on the new basis cannot be carried further back, it would be sufficient to summarize the existing Economist's calculations for the years since 1880 or 1870, and show the relation between the two series in the introduction. As it is, a considerable fall of prices in exports is shown (8 per cent. since 1900), while the price of imports has varied little. The following table shows that this phenomenon depends on the choice of 1900 as the base year. In it are reproduced statistics from the table comparing the prices of imports and exports, printed in the Economic Journal, 1903, p. 629. The middle column shows the relation between the changes of prices of imports and exports; a fall in the numbers in this column means that This content downloaded from 140.130.42.12 on Mon, 18 Apr 2016 04:26:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

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Journal Of The Royal Statistical Society – Unpaywall

Published: Dec 1, 1906

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