But it is not only rates and similar charges which the Engineering
Industry cannot itself control. It cannot directly control the cost
of its own raw materials such as coal and iron, or the cost of trans-
port of its products. Nor can it spread these charges over a greater
output as in the case of rates because the more it produces the
more it has to pay for materials and transport.
These considerations, elementary though they are, are set out
in order to explain why, in what follows, the conditions of depression
external to the Industry itself are examined, that is to say, the
conditions bevond the control of those engaged in the Industry.
For this purpose we shall first look briefly at conditions pre-
vailing in certain other industries which supply materials to the
Engineering Industry, or use engineering products, or both.
COAL.
The Coal Industry is a very obvious example. It will be clear
that the Engineering Industry itself uses coal in many ways,
directly or indirectly, and also causes its employment in transport.
On the other hand, the Coal Industry itself employs products
of the Engineering Industry.
Fach therefore affects the other. If the coal supplied to
Engineers is dearer, the machinery supplied to the coal mines is
dearer, and both the coal and the machinery supplied to the Trans-
port Industry are dearer. If the Transport Industry puts up its
charges for carrying coal to the Engineering Industry and machinery
to the mines the prices of coal and machinery again go up.
Having shown that there is a direct connection between
coal mining and engineering it will be useful to set out the
facts regarding the Mining Industry.
In this industry the present Government has recently passed
legislation which can hardly avoid raising the cost of producing
British coal and therefore the cost of British coal to all British
industries using it.
The intended result of the Coal Marketing Scheme is briefly
that coal consumed at home shall be dearer so as to enable coal
to be sold cheaper to our competitors abroad.
