CONDITIONS IN PARTICULAR INDUSTRIES. vo 845

Every year, in a meeting known as the London Conference, the
sunker agents fix the contract prices for a year for bunkering vessels
at stations all over the world. Such fixed prices must be established
tn order that vessel owners may know what their coal will cost them
at any particular port and can name charter rates accordingly. At
this conference the yearly contract prices for bunkering vessels at
Hampton Roads are fixed, as noted above. In former years an association
 of the West Virginia smokeless operators acted as a unit
in their negotiations with the bunkering agents, but last year certain
 important companies withdrew from the association; as a result
 the contract price was reduced from $3.30 to $3.10 per ton, a cut
of 20 cents in the face of increased production costs in the Pocahontas
 and New River fields, which should have forced an increase.
Later the price was restored to $3.30 per ton, but not till most of
the year’s contracts had been made at the lower rate.
It is stated that after the freight to tide water was deducted and
after the captain’s gratuities, the cost of running lines, etc., at the
docks were paid, the price of $3.10 ‘generally netted the operators
less than the f. o. b. price at the mines for domestic business. In
other words, the American operators, because they lacked organization,
 received less f. 0. b. the mines for bunker coal than for domestic
coal.

COOPERATION AMONG AMERICAN PRODUCERS FOR BUNKER AND EXPORT
RBRUSINESQSS.

Under the competitive conditions now existing in the coal trade
the high quality of American coals, the unrivaled railroad and dock
facilities in this country, and the lower prices will plainly be of little
or no avail in securing a share in the world’s bunker and export
trade unless American producers supply themselves with their own
fleets of colliers and their own coaling depots, unloading facilities,
distributing yards, and agents in foreign markets. But to provide
these and to undertake the work of advertising American coal
abroad, of educating foreign consumers to the advantages of using
it, of employing fuel engineers to teach them how to burn it, and
of persuading them to alter their equipment to suit its characteristics,
 means a long and expensive effort. Obviously it can be begun
only by a few of the larger American producing companies if they
act as individuals, but, if they cooperate for such business, scores
of smaller producers may be able to share profitably in the upbuilding
 of an advantageous trade.
The activities of an association of coal operators in the bunkering
trade at Hampton Roads have just been referred to, but an effort