The Ruhr Coal-Mining District

Abstract

MOST of the homes of Europe have been cold this winter. They lacked the X ;5 BERLIN coal needed for heating. Most of the % 7' .ONO RUHR factories have lain idle. They lacked coal X 4 , '^ ' :: ~< 'N ~ ' ..... for power. Public-utility plants suffered, ,;i-FT RAN A Nc '.? C s N and lights were dim in the houses and * PARIS ' l 'oo MILES . CD PARIS /~ *..OO, L -. on the streets. The coldness, idleness, FIG. I-Location of the Ruhr. and darkness of Europe are due to many causes, but the most important single factor is the breakdown of coal production in the vital Ruhr coal-mining district of northwest Germany. Reports indicate that in the months immediately after the cessation of hostilities the production of coal dropped to about a million tons a month, only a tenth of the normal production before the war. To a slight extent the breakdown of coal production in the Ruhr was the result of actual physical damage to the coal mines, but to a greater extent it reflected the general breakdown in the economic organization of the region-shortage of laborers, dearth of food, scarcity of livable housing, gradual deterioration of equipment, and, above all, difficulties of transportation. Canals were obstructed by broken bridges and temporary fills; railroads had been so intensely destroyed that they could carry only a fraction of their normal prewar capacity either within the Ruhr or from the Ruhr to other parts of the Continent. The breakdown of production, although tragic for the peoples of Europe, is temporary, at least in its severer aspects. Because ot the urgent need for fuel and power in Europe on the one hand and the richness and availability of the coal and the presence of established facilities in the Ruhr on the other hand, the Ruhr coal district is being resurrected and may become once again the greatest European center of coal mining and, perhaps, of heavy industry. This article will discuss, first, the resource background and history of the Ruhr coal-mining district and, second, its chief economic activities on the eve of the war. The Ruhr district is the most important coal field in Europe; among world centers it ranks second only to the Pittsburgh district of the United States. In 1937 it produced I27.8 million metric tons of coal-three times as much as all France and more than the entire Soviet Union. Its coal of