Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 February 1888 — Cost of Coal in Foreign Countries. [ARTICLE]

Cost of Coal in Foreign Countries.

Reducing British money into terms of United States currency, the averagecoet of bituminous coal production throughout each of these countries named, as a whole, is $1.16 in Great Britain, $1.24 in Germany, and $1.46 in the United States. The cost of production in Belgium is nearly as great as it is in the United States, while in France it exceeds the United States figures by about 50 par cent. As coal is the basis of nearly every importantmanufacturingindustry and of most of the great productive enterprises except agriculture, its relative cheapness in Great Britain exercises an important influence as a factor in the material greatness of that country. It,, indeed, furnishes employment in Great Britain to 519,970 persons at the mines alone.