Birmingham Daily Post – Saturday 23 March 1878

Barnsley, Friday.

The whole district is in a very unsettled state, whilst trade was scarcely ever more depressed. Many collieries are not paying their way, and one pit, belonging to a noted limited company, is about to be closed, owing to the unprofitable state of affairs.

The mild, open weather is operating against the sale of house coal, so that the tonnage of both Silkstone and Barnsley thick coal to London and the South is limited. The demand for Lincolnshire and the Eastern Counties generally is even quieter than it was a short time ago. Steam qualities were never more difficult to sell, and hence buyers are fast running down prices. Notwithstanding all that is said with regard to the stacks on the pit hills, the fact of their being very large cannot be denied.

At Denaby Main, Monk Bretton, Pinder Oaks, and other pits large stacks are to be seen, and in the present state of trade nothing but a stoppage of the pits could clear them off. This being the case, it cannot be wondered that the masters should so quietly look upon the threatened strike against a reduction. There is but little to note with regard to the finished-iron trade, which remains dull.