The public must accept responsibility for the coal industry and pay for carrying it on the year round. Mine operators and mine workers of whatever mines are necessary to meet the needs of the country must be paid for a year's work. The shorter the working year the less coal is mined per man and per dollar invested in plant, and eventually the higher priced must be the coal. It is obvious that the 264 short tons of coal mined by the average British miner last year could not be as cheap per ton as the 942 tons mined by the average American mine worker, backed up as he was with more efficient plant. (A proud contrast!) It would clearly appear that the coal business may be stabilized, not wholly, but in a very large measure, in some of the western fields,[3] if the public does not regard its supply of coal as it does its supply of domestic water, which requires only that the faucet shall be opened to bring forth a gushing supply. Coal does not have pressure behind it which forces it out of the mine and into the coal yard. It rather must be drawn out by the suction of demand. And herein the public must play its part by keeping that demand as steady and uniform as possible. HAVE WE TOO MANY MINES AND MINERS? The problem of the miner and his industry may be stated in another way. We consume all the coal we produce. We produce it with labor that upon social and economic grounds works as a rule too few days in the year. We therefore must have a longer miners' year and fewer miners or a longer miners' year and additional markets. One or the other is inevitable unless we are to carry on the industry as a whole as an emergency industry, holding men ready for work when they are not needed in order that they may be ready for duty when the need arises. There are too many mines to keep all the miners employed all of the time or to give them a reasonable year's work. This conclusion is based on the assumption that we now produce only enough coal from all the mines to meet the country's demand, which is the fact. More coal produced would not sell more coal, but more coal demanded would result in greater coal production. With the full demand met by men working two-thirds or less of the time in the year there can not be a longer year given to all the miners without more demand for coal. This seems to be manifest. Therefore the miners must remain working but part time as now, or fewer miners must work more days, or market must be found for more coal and thus all the miners given a longer year. If we worked all of our miners in all of our mines a reasonable year, we would have a great overproduction. And to have all our mines work a longer period means that we must find some place in which to sell more coal, either at home or abroad.