The Removal of the Tariff on Coal

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We wish to be distinctly understood as not advocating the removal of the tariff on coal because we believe its removal will affect the prices of coal in tho United States. The Nova Scotia coal cannot successfully compete in quality with the anthracite brought into this market. The reasons for our position are two : First, we maintain that combinations which ignore the public interest are not entitled to even a show of protection. Second, we would like to see the public convinced by an experiment that the great outcry that has been made against this tariff has been founded upon a false and exaggerated estimate of the power supposed to be put in the hands of coal monopolists by the tariff. There is in circulation a report that the Pennsylvania coal dealers have arranged to buy up the Nova Scotia mines so as to have the absolute control of the whole Eastern market. We do not credit this rumor, which is probably a sensational production of the correspondent of the Halifax Reporter, in whose columns the report first appeared. It is undoubtedly intended to highten public feeling in regard to the present status of affairs, and may accomplish that end, but before we believe it we must have better evidence than we have yet seen.

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