Where would English industry have been without its king?  In 1780 (in round figures) 5,000,000 tons of coal were raised in the United Kingdom:  in 1800, 10,000,000; in 1865, 100,000,000; and in 1897, 200,000,000.  Coal enticed the cotton factories from the dales of the Pennines to the moist lowlands of West Lancashire.  At every stage of their work the iron-makers depended on coal; and the great inventions in the iron and steel industry are land-marks in the expansion of the demand for coal—­Cort’s puddling process 1783, Watt’s steam-engine 1785, Neilson’s hot blast 1824, Naysmith’s steam-hammer 1835, Bessemer’s steel-converter 1855, Siemen’s open hearth 1870, Thomas’ basic process for the treatment of highly phosphoric ores 1878.  The steamship, a novelty in 1820, ruled the seas in 1870; and ironclads followed steamships.  The smokeless steam-coal of South Wales guarded the heritage of Trafalgar.  By the end of the nineteenth century, coaling stations were an important item in international politics.

Meanwhile, the people of England, heedless of Malthusian forebodings, multiplied exceedingly.  They lighted their streets and buildings with coal-gas, and burnt coal in their grates.  With coal they paid for the food and raw materials from other lands.  Imports of food and raw materials were offset by exports of coal and of textiles and hardware produced by coal.  The spirit of invention has pushed on to electricity and oil, but coal is still the pivot of English industry and commerce.  And therefore, seeing that coal has meant all this to England, let us look at the men who raised the coal.  How did they live, what did they think about, what did they count for then, what do they count for now?

2.  In 1800 the miners stood for nothing in the nation’s life.  In Scotland they had just been emancipated from the status of villeinage.  In Northumberland and Durham they were tied by yearly bonds.  Elsewhere they were weak and isolated.  In 1825 a ’Voice from the coal mines of the Tyne and Wear’ cried:  ’While working men in general are making 20_s._ to 30_s._ per week (sic) the pitmen here are only making 13_s._ 6_d._ and from this miserable pittance deductions are made.’[45]

In 1839, during the Chartist disturbances, a Welsh M.P. wrote to the Home Secretary begging for barracks and troops:  ’A more lawless set of men than the colliers and miners do not exist ... it requires some courage to live among such a set of savages.’[46] When the miners came out in 1844, there were thousands of cottages tenantless in Northumberland and Durham.  For the colliery proprietors owned the cottages, and when the miners struck evicted them.  So the miners set up house in the streets.  ’In one lane ... a complete new village was built, chests-of-drawers, deck beds, etc., formed the walls of the new dwelling; and the top covered with canvas or bedclothes as the case might be.’[47] Yet, for all their griminess, they had human hearts and voices.  During the