On This Day
On This Day, 28 July 1917
On 28, Jul 2017 | In On This Day | By Nicola Gauld
Birmingham Daily Gazette
Saturday 28 July 1917
CHEAPER COAL
GOVERNMENT REDUCE PRICES AT MIDLAND PITS
The Coal Controller has issued a circular fixing the wholesale price of the output of four well-known Midland collieries.
As the prices fixed are about 3s. per ton lower than coal merchants have been charged, and as the reduction is to take place as from 30 April last, some merchants will have a nice windfall to receive from the collieries affected in the last two months’ deliveries.
A prominent Birmingham coal merchant informed a Gazette representative that the prices now fixed would be those laid down by the Coal Prices Limitation Act, subject to certain modifications to meet the increased cost of labour, etc. Put in a nutshell, the action of the Coal Controller was a punishment for colliery proprietors whose books showed, upon examination, that the prices fixed by the Act had been exceeded.
