ABSTRACT
State of the mining industry after the turn of the century While the last years of the nineteenth century saw general expansion, consolidation and increasing productivity in the coal industry, the first two decades of the twentieth century were characterised by a combination of increasing output and an overall tendency toward declining productivity. New developments were undertaken and the workforce continued to swell. In Yorkshire there were over 60 per cent more workers in the coal industry in 1914 than in 1900. For the country as a whole the figure was 45 per cent. Domestic and international demand fluctuated, but with a decisive upward trend. While getting bigger, however, the British coal industry was not becoming mechanised or otherwise improved in a manner sufficient to counteract increasing costs, partly associated with the sinking of deeper pits.1
