MINERS WARNED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 64, Issue 1, 12 October 1943, Page 4

MINERS WARNED.

POSITION “JUST INTOLERABLE/’ COAL INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA. (Rec. 11.50 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. The present position in the coal industry is “just intolerable” and the Government must face the obvious fact that a coal crisis has existed, declared the Prime Minister (Mr J. Curtin) in a communication to the miners’ officials. |rhe Prime Minister said that drastic curtailment of Australia’s war industries and production of food appeared to be unavoidable because of the shortages of coal. He warned the miners that unless they continued to work he would cancel the plans for their nine-day holiday break over Christmas and New Year. Because of the shortage of coal the railway service in New South Wales will be reduced by 10 per cent, from next week. Both passenger and goods services will be affected. Mr Curtin also announced that the Government had rejected the miners’ propoosals for nationalising the coal industry during the war. The reasons why nationalisation had been rejected were: Firstly, the Government already .had full power under the National Security Regulations to obtain from the owners any coal required and, to put that coal to whatever use it wished; secondly, fo pay large sums in compensation to owners for their mines to achieve exactly the same results would merely add to the war budget. A report from Melbourne stated that the Government had begun grading war industries according to their degree of essentiality. In the case of coal, rationing had become necessary. The president of the Miners’ Federation (Mr Wells) admits that if the mine stoppages continue there will not be enough coal at Christmas to keep the industries going. He advocates the release of all men with mining experience for work in mines and the appointment of conciliation officers who could settle disputes on the job. This latter move, he says, would produce another 1,000,000 tons of coal a year. . “The refractory section of the miners, and they alone, are responsible for the shortage and consequent deprivations, except so far as Government weakness must share the blame,” says the “Sydney Morning Herald” editorially to-day. “Every practicable device has been employed for settling the grievances, real or fancied, of the coalfields workers, in the hope of averting the crisis which has now arisen. Appeasement having failed, an attempt at real coercion appears to be the alternative before the Prime Minister to pronouncing the position ‘just intolerable’ and leaving it at that.”