British Coal for the Winter of 1939
In the autumn of 1939, a Britain at war depends on coal for its factories, its homes, its railways and its fleet. But mobilisation has called up many experienced miners, while others have left for better-paid industries: production is faltering at the very moment when wartime demand is surging. The "Phoney War" has not yet brought any large-scale bombing, but winter is approaching.
The Mines Department, attached to the Board of Trade, had drawn up pre-war plans for controlling the distribution and pricing of coal. Allied France, a major customer for British coal, is demanding massive deliveries at the very moment when domestic needs are tightening.
The official handling the matter must arbitrate the allocation of a scarce resource. Should a strict system of state control be introduced, allocating coal first to the war industries through the existing marketing channels? Should the export programme to France be honoured first, at the risk of straining the domestic supply? Or should the market and prices be left to distribute the shortage? The choice bears at once on the war effort, the alliance, and the comfort of households through the winter.
British Mines Department, October 1939: how to allocate the now-scarce coal?
The British government placed the distribution and pricing of coal under control, relying on the existing marketing channels and on the Mines Department, and established a system of priorities favouring the industries essential to the war, while seeking to honour deliveries to France. The status of coal mining was written into the Schedule of Reserved Occupations, but the labour shortage persisted throughout the conflict — it would lead, in late 1943, to the forced conscription of men into the mines, the "Bevin Boys." General domestic fuel rationing, by contrast, would only be proposed in 1942 (the Beveridge plan, based on a ration per household and per person) before being abandoned in the face of public opposition. The episode illustrates how the "Phoney War" was a period of learning the ways of restrictions and the managed economy.
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