The National Coal Board's chairman, Lord Hyndley, concluded after almost four years of nationalization that mining coal in Britain was "like running up a down escalator. You have got to run hard to stay where you are. You have got to make superhuman efforts to advance."
Last week, he announced plans for the N.C.B.'s most strenuous effort to date: it wanted to spend $1,778,000,000 in 15 years to raise coal output 40 million tons, using 80,000 fewer miners. The alternative: continuing decline of Britain's key industry.
Centuries of British mining have exhausted promising seams, extended tortuous runways miles underground, forced workers away from...
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