From the Observer archive: this week in 1929 | From the Observer archive
There have been reports of late of increased activity in the coal trade. Those qualified to judge have rightly warned the public against facile optimism. The Continental orders are the result of the abnormal weather. They are not a sign that the old trade is coming back. It will never come back, because the conditions which created it have ceased to exist.
But the last few days have also brought two items of news really suggestive of a turn of the tide. If coal is to compete with oil it must do one or both of two things. It must alter its form so that it may rival oil in convenience of handling, or it must alter its substance so as to yield up the oil which it contains. Both aims have been assiduously pursued by experiment, and the results are at last beginning to admit of commercial exploitation.
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