COAL PRODUCTION

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 62, Issue 8, 21 October 1941, Page 7

COAL PRODUCTION

MAXIMUM EFFORT CALLED FOR. minister meets owners and MINERS. (P.A.)' AUCKLAND, October 20. “I told them that if the companies stood in the way of greater coalpro-. duction, they would be brushed aside, and that if unions insisted on holding up production, they would suffer the same fate” said the Minister for Mines (the Hon. P. C. Webb) after conferring With representatives of the Northern Miners’ Union and Waikato coalowners. The Minister added that he had made an appeal for a settlement of past differences and for maximum production. Mr Webb said he met the executive of the union in the morning, and owners in the afternoon. Later he had a joint conference with representatives of the two parties, and asked for closer co-operation and greater effort in the production of coal. “I pointed out the great responsibility resting on the industry,” Mr Webb continued. “I told them that men and mines and workshops were really part of the nation’s war effort, and that it behoved all parties to pull their utmost weight in the present struggle. I told the companies’ representatives that if the Nazis prevailed, all they had in the way of mines and money would avail them nothing, and I told the miners that all their liberties, their rights to form unions and elect parliaments would go, too, and that their descendants would have to struggle for generations to regain these privileges.

“I wanted both to know that the country expects of them the greatest possible co-operation,” Mr Webb added. “I appealed to them to clean their slate of past prejudices and animosities and to come together with united determination to express the maximum effort in the most practical way by producing more coal.” Mr Webb said the Coal Owners’ Association planned to meet to-morrow to consider means of increasing production. The executive of the union also intended to meet to look into the matter. The Minister said he was impressed by the sincerity of all present and by their desire to do everything possible to clean the sheet of past differences and to open a new page, preparing for a better future.