Chapter II: The Emancipation of the Diamond

Before a cargo of coals could be discharged from a collier, it was necessary to get the permission of the Lord Mayor to land them. And how was this to be obtained? By what sort of dulcet persuasion, we are left in no difficulty to conjecture; but as to the amount of the sum, a modest official veil of darkness enshrouds the record. The perquisites, however, granted to the aldermen, are fortunately within reach of knowledge; and accordingly we find it set down that the corporation were empowered to measure and weigh coals, either in person, and in their gowns, or by proxy, if they preferred that course, and to charge the sum of 8_d._ per ton for their labour. This was confirmed by a charter in 1613. By this tax the City made some 50,000_l._ a year, and rejoiced exceedingly.

This system of protection, under several forms and pleasant variations, long continued, and was extended all over England, the pressure falling most unequally, to the injury of the least wealthy and the poor, according to the immemorial custom of Governments. Some of the people of London were audacious enough to complain that they did not need to be protected from the Newcastle coals, but all on the contrary, would give any fair sum to obtain them; and that, indeed, what they really needed was to be protected from the Lord Mayor and Corporation, and other taxes and duties. But these people were reproved as ignorant and froward, and told that they understood nothing at all:—what they had to do, was simply—to pay, first for the protection, and then for the coals. So they paid. But the importance of the article being found to exceed even the greediness of the impost, the use of coals became general during the reign of Charles the First; the same, with other taxes, being demanded, from the reign of William the Third downwards.

In 1830, and not before, the heaviest of the above duties were abolished; those, however, which were collected from the Londoners being excepted—for their old impertinence—together with two or three sea-ports, who had also spoken.

Who shall repress a truth? Coals were excellent good things—there was no reason in denying it. But any foolish people, and there will always be more than enough found to do it, _can_ repress a truth for an abominably long period, denying it without reason, yet very effectually. Or, when they admit it, then comes the tax and penalty to be paid for the fact. Thus was the free introduction and use of coals repressed throughout England until 1830; from which date, its grand rise from the bowels of the earth into a new and most extensive importance may be dated.

Yet, as extremes meet, and as human nature delights in opposites, if only by way of reaction or relaxation, so the long-continued obstinate slowness of past ages bids fair, in our own day, to enter upon an extreme change to flighty prematurities, and the over-leaping of all intermediate and necessary knowledge. But the reign of the fast-ones is now approaching its height; which having once reached, it will then have a rapid decline into contempt, and so give place to regular and steady advances upon solid ground.

Still, we are not to infer from the present flourishing state of things, that the great black-diamond millionaires are very numerous, or that fortunes are readily accumulated in the trade. Coal mines are hazardous speculations: costly is the sinking of shafts—precarious the lives of men and property from constant dangers of explosion or inundation; whereof it comes that no Insurance Office will guarantee such property against these or any other accidents. True may it be that the large coal owners on the Tyne and the Wear rejoice in a sort of monopoly; as do other owners; but herein shall we not find the cause of coals being sold in London at nearly three times the price they cost at the pit’s mouth. The cause is to be sought in the expenses of transit (which, alone, are often equal to, and not unfrequently exceed, the cost price); in the loss of screening; the expenses of lighters and lightermen wharfs, officers, and wharfingers, coal-heavers, carmen, horses, waggons, sacks—to say nothing of long credit, or bad debts;—and the profits of the various middle-men, among the most numerous of whom are the brass-plate coal merchants (whose establishments simply consist of an order-book, wherein it appeareth that they get a little more than they give); and the retailers of various gradations.

All these difficulties, and all these reductions and dues, notwithstanding, and in spite of,—the coal trade has risen during the last twenty years to a magnitude in quantity and influence which may be regarded as one of the greatest commercial triumphs of this our England.

The coal-fields of the United States of America are upwards of fourteen times larger extent than ours; yet, in 1845, while the American coal mines produced 4,400,000 of tons, the coal mines of England produced upwards of 32,000,000 of tons. In the same year, our production of iron was more than four times the American amount. Moreover,—and here may the gravest historian exalt his pen, and yet be accounted no flourisher,—we have for some years past been able to supply coals to all the great powers of the globe. In 1842, England exported 60,000 tons of coals to the United States of America; 88,000 tons to Russia; 111,000 tons to Prussia; 515,900 tons to France;—not to speak of the hundreds of thousands of tons exported in the same year to Germany collectively, to Holland, to Denmark, Sweden, the East Indies and China, &c., &c.

The use of coals has now extended, not only over the civilised world, but in its potent form of steam has reached most of the remoter regions. From Suez to Singapore are steam vessels already in course of passage, and the line will soon be carried to Australia. When the American locomotives have made their way to the shores of the Pacific, their vessels will be ready to carry onward the traffic to China and the Indian Islands from the east; “and thus,” as writes a learned critic, discoursing of the virtues of steam-coal, “complete the circuit of the globe.” Whereby, “a steam voyage round the world will in a few years, be so practicable, that the merchant and tourist may make the circuit within a year, and yet have time enough to see and learn much at many of the principal ‘stations’ on his way.”

All rightful honour, then, to these priceless Diamonds—whether they be black spirits or furnace-white, flame-red spirits, or ashy-grey—whether cannel coal and caking coal—cherry coal and stone coal—whether any of the forty kinds of Newcastle coal, or any of the seventy species of the great family, from the highest class of the bituminous, down to the one degree above old coke.