There can be only one answer--the London supply is in the hands of the coal "ring" which has compelled all the London coal merchants to come into line. So extensive and powerful is the organisation of this ring, that the small men, unless they followed the lead of the big dealers, would be immediately faced with ruin: they would not only find it difficult to obtain coal at all, but would promptly be undersold--as the Standard Oil Company undersold thousands of small competitors--until they were compelled to put up their shutters. The big coal men, the men who make the profit--and with their ill-gotten gains will purchase Birthday honours later on--of course blame the war for everything. The railways, they say, cannot handle the coal; so much labour has been withdrawn for the Army that production has fallen below the demand. But I am assured, on good authority, that coal bought before the war, and delivered to London depots at 16_s._ or 17_s._ per ton, is being retailed to-day at between 36_s._ and 40_s._ per ton. The big dealers know that, cost what it may, the public must have coal, and they are taking advantage of every plausible excuse the war offers them to wring from the public the very highest prices possible. "The right to exploit," in fact, is being pushed to its logical extreme in the face of the country's distress, and the worst sufferers, as usual, are the very poor, who for their pitiful half-hundred-weights of inferior rubbish pay at a rate which would be ample for the finest coal that could grace the grate of a West-End drawing-room. Can we shut our eyes to the fact that in this shameful exploiting of the very poor by the unpatriotic lie all the elements of a very serious danger? Let us not forget the noble services the working-classes of Britain are rendering to our beloved country. They have given the best and dearest of their manhood in the cause of the Empire, and it is indeed a pitiful confession of weakness, and an ironic commentary on the grandiose schemes of "social reform" with which they have been tempted of late years, if the Government cannot or will not protect them from the human leeches--the Birthday knights in the making--who suck their ill-gotten gains from those least able to protect themselves.