—The British Isles have only one-fortieth of the total world’s supply of coal, but this is of better than average quality. High-grade steam coal is abundant and there is a fair supply of coking coal. The annual production, 300 million tons, is about one-fifth the world’s production, and is second only to that of the United States. England before the war exported about one-fourth of the production, overseas exports from England being six times as much as from any other country in the world. Coal has constituted about three-fourths of all English exports. The coal mines are near seaports, and ocean freight rates are low, because the demand for imports gives return cargoes to England from all parts of the world. There are large supplies of coal also in the colonies, especially India, Australia and South Africa.
The coal business and shipping of Great Britain grew up together. About one-fourth of the coal shipped goes for bunkering. In 1916 England owned 40 per cent. of the world’s shipping and exported nearly 70 per cent. of the world’s sea-borne coal. The maintenance of the shipping requires bunkering ports all around the world. Coal from Wales and British colonies was sufficient to supply them all, and they constitute by far the most strategic system that any country possesses.
England, Gibraltar, Greece, Malta, Suez, Port Said, Aden, Maskat, Colombo, Singapore, Bombay, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Fiji Islands, Vancouver, Valparaiso, St. Lucia, Jamaica, Halifax, Newfoundland, St. Helena, Bermuda, Cape Town and Durban, and others encircle the globe. France, Japan, Holland and the United States have each a few stations, but no such comprehensive system. The German proposals of terms of peace (during the war) recognized the importance of these stations by specifying that England should give up Aden, Malta and similar ports.
Trade arrangements between Great Britain and other countries have been such as to grant “most favored nation” treatment to both parties, even with Germany, where no formal treaty was in force. The free-trade policy of England is well established, and on that basis England’s commercial growth has been very great. Studies since the war began show that Germany took advantage of the freedom in British countries and the protection at home. For example, German capital controlled some collieries in South Yorkshire, through Mr. Stinnes, one of the largest components of the German Kohlen Kontor. This organization had branches in Newcastle, Cardiff, Glasgow, Hull, and many foreign ports. The French also had purchased an English colliery before the war, the Stonehall colliery, at Lydden, near Dover.
The Australian colonies and probably others found that German financiers owned and controlled most of the mines when war broke out. It took some time to destroy this influence. Early in the war, British sentiment seemed to call for action against all such German commercial aggression, and at an Allied Economic Conference at Paris in June, 1916, plans were suggested for protection by tariff and exclusion of alien ownership in allied countries. More recently it seems that the British plan is to keep British certain key industries at all hazards and at any expense, but not to abandon free trade or in any way decrease the amount of trading done.
Commercial control of the Welsh steam-coal export trade is largely in the hands of the Cambria Coal Combine, but in the trade there are several other large combinations. The anthracite industry of England is not as well organized as that of America.
Commercial control of coal exported from Wales is largely in the hands of the large combinations of British shippers, in agreement with the Cambria. Even when the war interfered with shipping, it is estimated that two-thirds of the South American coal trade was in British control.
Many instances of British financial control of coal in countries other than British colonies have not been noted. British capital is invested in a few mines in Siberia and there are extensive holdings in China.
Germany.
—The reserves of coal in Germany before the war were greater than those in England, counting possible reserves, and of fair quality. Germany formerly controlled 70 per cent. of the coal on the Continent. Austrian coal was controlled, and the coal of Spitzbergen has been claimed, though now in British and Norwegian control.