The Immigration Commission states that in every section of the country a period in the development of the coalmining industry was reached when the supply of labor, first, of native Americans, and later of English-speaking immigrants, became inadequate "to satisfy the demand and recourse was necessarily had by the mining operators to immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Without the employment of mine workers drawn from this class of immigrants, the growth in the bituminous mining industry would have been impossible." At the same time the Immigration Commission believes that one of the effects of recent immigration, "which seems to be well established, is the decrease of the average number of working days annually available to the older employee. The inconsistency of the two statements has apparently escaped the attention of the Commission. The evidence by which the last-quoted statement is "established" is not given in the report of the Commission, beyond the bare "allegation" of "the older miners" of Illinois that "even under normal industrial conditions there are two miners for every place that offers steady work for one miner. "‡

112

The fact is, as noted by the Commission, that coal mining is a seasonal trade.3 The demand is greatest in the fall and winter, and declines with warm weather. The mine operators run their mines in accordance with market conditions, as can be seen from Diagram XXIV. In this

1 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 6, p. 423. See also pp. 23, 24, 260, 661; vol. 7. pp. 216-217; in the South "the demand for labor has outgrown the supply"; vol. 16, pp. 592, 655.

3 Ibid., vol. 6, pp. 97, 668.

2 Ibid., vol. 6, p. 668. 4 Based on Thirteenth Annual Coal Report, Illinois, 1911, pp. 54-55. The Commission quotes, in the same connection (vol vi., p. 669), "the conviction on the part of natives that a preference is shown for the immigrants in the distribution of work." If the statistics of the Immigration Commission may be trusted, they disprove this conviction on the part of the natives. The figures which are given in Table 343 (p. 649) of the same volume, relate to the Middle West, where that "conviction" is said to prevail. The native and Southern and Eastern

JULY AUG. SEP. ост. NOV. DEC. JAN. FEB. MAR. APR. MAY JUNE XXIV. Coal production by months in Illinois, 1906-1910.

European miners were distributed by the number of months worked in 1907 as follows:

It must be understood, however, that these statistics are of as little value as the opinions of the few "old miners" quoted by the Immigration Commission. The total number of native miners included in its "study of households" was only 371 for all bituminous mines in the United States and 79 for all anthracite mines. (Ibid., vol. 6, p. 97; vol. 16, p. 619.) The number is too small to serve as a basis for any

respect the mine operators do not differ from other entrepreneurs. There is nothing to prevent a manufacturer of awnings from distributing the work of his establishment. evenly over the whole year; yet he prefers to manufacture them when there is an immediate demand for them. An even distribution of mining operations over the whole year would necessitate an outlay for wages and supplies, and a permanent investment for additional storage facilities. Such an additional investment would be prohibitive for many of the smaller operators, while the larger ones could gain no advantage from it, since competition would not permit them to shift the interest to the consumer.

So long as the mines run full time at one season and part time at others, unemployment is inevitable. The difference between coal mining and other industries is only that, instead of discharging a portion of the force and keeping the rest fully employed, the coal operator retains the full force in his employ, but keeps them all on part time. There are several economic reasons for this system. In the first place the operator wants to keep his full force always ready on call. Coal mines are, as a rule, not located in great urban centres where there is at all times an available supply of men seeking employment. Chief among the contributory causes is the real estate interest of the mining company. Every operator who opens a new mine in an unsettled locality must provide houses for his employees. After having invested in workmen's dwellings, the mine operator is interested in keeping them occupied. To lay off a part of his employees during the summer months would involve a loss of rent, as they would leave in order to seek employment elsewhere. Where the mining company is also running a general store for its employees, it wants to retain

conclusions. The greatest variation between the native and foreignborn appears in the percentage of bituminous coal miners employed six months and over, viz., 82.2 for the native and 88.8 for the foreignborn (ibid., vol. 6, p. 97). The difference of 6.6 per cent represents only twenty-three native workers scattered all over the United States.

them as customers. While the mine operators are guided in their policy by business considerations, rather than by philanthropy, the mine workers as a class have no ground for complaint against this policy, so long as coal mining remains a seasonal trade. The other alternative would be full employment for some and complete idleness and want for the others.

Inasmuch as the demand for coal fluctuates from year to year, it is inevitable that when the demand suffers a temporary decline, there should not be enough work to give full time employment to all the men who were needed during the previous season of maximum activity. An illustration of these fluctuations can be seen in Diagram XXIV. This is the basis of the complaint of the miners that too rapid a pace of development eventually leads to under-employment. These cyclical variations, however, are not peculiar to coal mining alone, but are incidents of the modern industrial development in all lines of production. In fact the fluctuations in the demand for coal are merely the reflections of the fluctuations in the industrial field as a whole. That they are not the product of immigration, but, on the contrary, they run parallel with the fluctuations of immigration, has been shown in Chapter VI. (See Diagram X.)

The fluctuating character of the coal-mining industry produces a migratory type of mine worker. To the old employee, however, who is permanently working at one mine, these migratory applicants for work naturally appear as one of the causes of fluctuation in the opportunities for employment. The Immigration Commission is voicing the complaint of "the older employee to the effect that the recent immigrants being largely unmarried and at the same time, migratory in their habits, move readily from one locality to another, always seeking the community where there is a demand for labor and thus cause, in numerous instances, an oversupply of labor, which reacts to the injury

Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 6, p. 669.

of the employees permanently working and living in the locality affected." The recent immigrants accordingly cause an oversupply of labor by seeking a place "where there is a demand for labor," whereas if they stayed where there is no demand for their labor there would supposedly be no oversupply of labor. But what of "the older employees" who are permanently living in the communities where there is no demand for the labor of the migratory immigrants? Might they not regard it as an "injury" to themselves if the immigrants resolved to abandon their migratory habits and stay where there is no demand for them? The oldest inhabitants of a mining town are naturally inclined to view every question from the angle of their local interests. But their criterion need not be generally accepted as representative of the interests of labor at large.

Complaints have often been made that, apart from the fluctuations in the demand for coal, under-employment in the anthracite mines is the result of a deliberate policy on the part of the operators to employ a larger force than might be required when the mines run at full capacity.2 There was a good foundation for this complaint in the past. In the '70's, after the breakdown of the union of anthracite coal miners, the coal companies engaged a larger force which resulted in the curtailment of the average production. per man. This was, however, in the days of British, Irish, and German immigration. During the last ten years, i. e., since the beginning of the new immigration, the average annual production per man has been fast increasing.

The following table shows an increase of the average annual number employed from 44,000 in 1870-1874 to 68,000 in 1875-1879, while the average annual output increased only 10 per cent. The expansion of the business obviously did not call for an increase of 55 per cent

• Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 6, p. 669.

2

Reports of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., p. 405. Peter Roberts, The Anthracite Coal Industry, pp. 126-127.