In the year before the last great coal strike 300,000 miners were paid L15,000,000, and in the same time L6,000,000 were paid in royalties. Sir G. Elliot's estimate of coal owners' _profits_ for the same year was L11,000,000. This, with the L6,000,000 paid in royalties, made L17,000,000 taken by royalty owners and mine owners out of the coal trade in one year. So there are other items in the price of coal besides the wages of the colliers. What are they? They may be divided into nine parts, thus-- 1. Rent. 2. Royalties. 3. Coal masters' profits. 4. Profits of railway companies and other carriers. 5. Wages of railway servants and other carriers' labourers. 6. Profits of merchants and other "middlemen." 7. Profits of retailers. 8. Wages of agents, travellers, and other salesmen. 9. The wages of the colliers. The prices of coal fluctuate (vary), and the changes in the prices of coal cause now a rise and now a fall in the wages and profits of coal masters, railway shareholders, merchants, and retailers. But the fluctuations in the prices of coal cause very little fluctuation in rent and _none_ in royalties. Again, no matter how low the price of coal may be, the agents, travellers, and other salesmen always get a living wage, and the coal owners, railway shareholders, merchants, landlords, and royalty owners always get a great deal more than a living wage. But what about the colliers and the carriers' labourers, such as railway men, dischargers, and carters? These men perform nearly all the work of production and of distribution. They get the coal, and they carry the coal. Their wages are lower than those of any of the other seven classes engaged in the coal trade. They work harder, they work longer hours, and they run more risk to life and limb than any other class in the trade; and yet!---- And yet the only means of reducing the price of coal is said to be _a reduction in the collier's wage_. Now, I say that in reducing the price of coal the _last_ thing we should touch is the collier's wage. If we _must_ reduce the price of coal, we should begin with the owners of royalties. As to the "right" of the royalty owner to exact a fine from labour, I will content myself with making two claims-- 1. That even if the royalty owner has a "right" to _a_ royalty, yet there is no reason why he, of all the nine classes engaged in the coal trade, should be the only one whose receipts from the sale of coal shall never be lessened, no matter how the price of coal may fall. 2. Since the royalty owner and the landlord are the only persons engaged in the trade who cannot make even a pretence of doing anything for their money, and since the price of coal must be lowered, they should be the first to bear a reduction in the amount they charge on the sale of it.