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high grade soft coal in this country. The principal one is the one in the West Virginia “smokeless belt.” That's magnificent coal. However, that company more or less controls the industries that buy from it. The steel companies did not wish to be controlled so they bought, as captive mines, middle grade ones and then put a great deal of modern managerial science and modern geological advice and technical advice into properly operating and properly handling those mines.

What they have done has been to close down the less profitable of the mines, put all their machinery and all their skill into the mines that get out the most good grade coal, expecting to exhaust that mine in a specific period of time - ten years or twenty years - and then to move their machinery and skill over to some other mine, but not to operate them all at once and therefore get an oversupply of coal. They just produce enough coal to meet their own market. The captive mines, in other words, are very scientifically operated for the most part.

However, that had left the rest of the coal industry which was not operated by the steel companies in a terribly chaotic despairing situation. Of course a great deal of capital was invested and there were a great many stockholders who, having capital and owning stocks in various mining