From 50 Years Ago: Coal Price Revision.

The increase in the price of coal, announced last week, has not yet provoked angry reactions from the industry, but they are sure to come in due course. The long delay in announcing the decision has itself been a sore point with the industry. That the increase has not been given with retrospective effect, will be deeply, and justly, resented, considering that the costs have gone up – very substantially, according to the industry – since May, 1957, when the Coal Price Revision Committee was appointed. The price of coal has been revised many times in recent years and always upwards, with one single ex-ception, but most of these revisions were occa-sioned by wage increases given under various wage awards. The adjustments of following wage revisions had largely been completed when the present Committee commenced its work. It is the investigation of non-wage items of costs, in the light of “factors that have a bear-ing on the coal production programme envis-aged in the Second Five Year Plan” which gave special point to this inquiry. That is to say, the Committee had not only to recommend a fair price, but also a price which would enable the industry to carry out the programme of expan-sion assigned to it in the Second Plan.