ABSTRACT
As in the case of the mineworkers’ organizations many early efforts were made to combine the owners in voluntary association for the furtherance of their common interest, and, like them, the bodies so formed were purely local ones. For the most part they were created for the purpose of maintaining or regulating the price of coal, and in most cases the organizations, such as they were, being formed for a specific and very often a temporary purpose, had only a very short existence.
