FUTURE OF COAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 78, 12 January 1928, Page 3

FUTURE OF COAL.

INCREASED UTILISATION. The prospects of the opal industry were discussed in a speech at the beginning of Jast month by Mr Frank Hodges, secretary of the Miners' International Federation. He said that there had been a gerat deal of loose talk about the future of coal. Some people said the industry was doomed. According to one phrase which he had heard, it was "tumbling into the tomb." If that was true the doom of British prosperity had indeed been sounded. He did not share that view. In spite of the advent of oil, the growth of hydro-electric power, and the greater utilisation of peat and lignite, there has been an increase of 129,000,000 tons of coal produced as between 1925 and the years 1909-13. That showed the industry was not as much in the doldrums as was generally believed. Unfortunately, Great Britain's proportion of that increase had not been maintained. There was the cause for real gloom. The coal stoppage, up till then, had deprived the world markets, including Britain's 1 home market, of something like 100,000,000 tons of coal. Even in that short period countries like Poland, Germany, and America had gained in the world markets between them about 12,500,000 tons. To what extent they had permanently gained the future alone would reveal. Great Britain least of all could afford to lose ground in the world market. She could regain her position by an improvement in the technique of the industry, which, in turn, rested on the quality of the education of the young men. For that a fair measure of industrial peace was This everlasting dagger-fli-hand business was bringing ruin on them all. This yearly squabble, this' annual row, made them the laughingstock of the world. America_ had long since learned wisdom in this respect. In the coal industry, it did not enter into agreements between employers and miners for less periods than five years. In that five years theyjiad the opportunity, free from limitations and restrictions, for all the technical expansion that the industry required or that American inventive genius could create. There was where Britain could learn a profitable lesson.