Now an article can become scarce in several ways. One is by reducing the quantity in the market by slackening or ceasing to manufacture. Another is to increase the number of people who want to buy the article and have money enough to pay for it. Yet another is to find out new uses for it. A scarcity of coal can be produced not only by the increase of the population, but by the people who formerly wanted only a scuttle of coals for the kitchen fire wanting thousands of tons for blast furnaces and ocean steamers. It is the scarcity produced in these ways that has raised the price of coal to such a point that it is now worth while to tunnel out mines under the sea. The cost of such mines is heavy; but it is not incurred until the price of coal has gone up sufficiently to cover it with a profit. If the price falls enough to cut off that profit the mine stops working and is abandoned. And what is the consequence of that? The stopping of the mine cuts off the supply of coals it used to send to the market; and the scarcity produced by the stoppage sends the price up again until it is high enough to restart the mine without losing money by it. In this way the Intelligent Woman (and also the unintelligent one) finds herself condemned always to pay for her coals the full cost of getting them from the very dearest mines in use, though she may know that only the fag end of the supply comes from these mines, the rest coming from mines where the cost is much lower. She will be assured, if she remonstrates, that the price is barely sufficient to enable some of the collieries to continue working; and this will be quite true. What she will not be told, though it also is quite true, is that the better mines are making excessive profits at her expense, to say nothing of landlord’s royalties. And here comes in another complication. The miners who hew out the coal for wages in the better mines are paid no more than those in the worse ones which can barely afford to keep going, because the men, unlike the coal, can go from one mine to another, and what the poorest miner must accept all must accept. Thus the wages of all the miners are kept down to the poverty of the worst mines, just as the coal bills of all the housekeepers are kept up to their high cost. The dissatisfied miners strike, making coals scarcer and dearer than ever. The housekeepers grumble, but cannot bring down prices, and blame “the middleman”. Nobody is satisfied except the owners of the better mines.