Later I asked Willie what the difference was between the seven and the twelve-cent prune pie, and he told me that the stones were taken out of the twelve and put into the seven-cent lot. I counted the stones or pits in the pie that the angry woman returned. There were forty-three. COMMUNICATIONS THE WEST VIRGINIA COAL STRIKE TO THE EDITOR: I read with much interest the article by Mr. West in the April 5 number of THE SURVEY and I must raise my voice in protest against taking Mr. West too seriously. I have lived with the miners of West Virginia for the past four years and have made a pretty thorough study of the entire situation. It is perhaps hardly to be expected that a newspaper reporter visiting the field during the struggle would get an unbiased view of the situation. No one who is conversant with the situation would deny that there are two sides to the fight and that both have made their mistakes. The question of union or non-union has little to do with it. The worst living and working conditions are to be found in some of the union settlements along the Kanawha river; perhaps there are some equally bad ones in non-union fields. The best working and living conditions of West Virginia are found in non-union fields. Yet, I do not wish to be understood as arguing against unions, as I do not believe that the union question has much bearing on the real conditions. It is simply the character of the operators and the men themselves that determines the conditions of any mining settlement. There is much mis-understanding and mis-information among the men themselves. Mr. West mentions the company stores as being a source of contention. Now, it is true that in some of the stores some articles are priced too high, but, on the other hand, men are often mis-informed as to prices in other places. To illustrate, in the early days of the strike a miner on Cabin Creek told me he was paying $1.20 per bushel for potatoes at the company store that could be bought in Charleston for $.60. The next day I was in Charleston and meeting a farmer on the street, selling his own product, I learned that the price was $.30 per peck. My miner friend therefore had jumped at a conclusion that the facts would not justify, and yet that same man could, by this mis-information, stir up much dissatisfaction. When I lived in Charleston, I used frequently to buy meat at the company store and take it home, a distance of thirty miles, because I could buy it from three to five cents per pound cheaper than in Charleston. On the other hand, I saw in two different stores in another district, bedsteads marked $7, the exact counterpart of which I have bought myself in Charleston for $4.50. Such a profit as this certainly is not justifiable. Taken all in all, the prices on necessities do not vary to any great extent between the company and the independent stores when one considers the additional cost of transportation.