GOOD ATTENDANCE OF MINERS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 66, Issue 58, 18 December 1945, Page 3

GOOD ATTENDANCE OF MINERS

SEAMEN ALSO DECIDE TO RESUME Challenge to Arbitration System Fails (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright.) SYDNEY, December 17. All but six miners in New South Wales resumed work today. Attendance at the mines was good, absenteeism in many cases being lower than normal. Three mines* on the south coast, in line with the decision of the Australasian Council of Trade Unions, refused to work with black power from the Australian Iron and Steel Company at Port Kembla. Miners at two other south coast mines defied the decision to resume production and stayed out in sympathy with other idle miners. The only northern coal not being worked is at the Caldare < open cut, where the drivers of bulldozers for a reason unknown | did not report for work. Seamen in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane decided to resume work to-day and similar decisions are expected from other ports where meetings are being held. The seamen’s decisions will mean that available coal quotas will speedily reach Sydney and other i coal-starved States.

The miners and seamen having returned to work, the strikers’ challenge to the national system of industrial arbitration has failed. The bluff of the Communist leaders responsible for the strike was called and the result shows that they do not represent the rank and file of the organisations they control.

The strike failed because the people recognised the significance of the challenge and stood fast. As the “Sydney Morning Herald’’ says, it was not the Government of the Commonwealth, but the'people of New South Wales who really won in the last fortnight the intense battle to keep native Australian democracy safe against The challenge of immigrant Communist totalitarianism. The Australian Labour Party has now openly and vigorously declared war on the Communist Party, i The stocktaking shows that the strike threw out of work 550,000 persons in New South Wales and thousands more in Victoria and South Australia. It imposed hardships on the community usually suffered only through war, and the damage it has done will be evident for a long time. The general attitude is that all this will have been worth while if there is an end to lawlessness in key industries. . The ironworkers and seamen have gained nothing; the miners have gained promises, on their five-year-plan. The political roundsman of the “Daily Telegraph” says that officials of the Miners’ Federation have been promised drastic changes in theccontrol

of the New South Wales coal industry next year. The correspondent adds that this was, one of the principal behind the scene reasons for the change of front last week by the Miners’ Union in the strike. Earlier plans for Federal control had been discarded because of constitutional difficulties, but there is no constitutional bar to State control (90 per cent of Australia’s coal is mined in New South Wales). It is interesting to record that, though New South Wales produces six-sevenths of Australia’s black coal, this State had the most severe domestic restrictions on cooking and lighting. Sydney residents have spent thousands of pounds buying emergency lighting and cooking appliances. Stores and shops have sold out of heaters and lamps, and there is no prospect of getting more until power is available again for industry, (Sydney residents also spent a lot of money on fuel for backyard cooking. According tO' trade spokesmen, men’s clothing and many foods are now running short. The president of the Retail Trades’ Association said the shortage in men’s clothing was fast developing into a tragedy. The proverb, “it’s an ill wind, etc, applied even in this . paralysing strike. Medical men and dietitians say Sydney’s health would get a fillip, because most people went to bed early as a result of the 9 p.m. home blackout, and they ate more grills, more salads and more fruit and had to cut out cakes, pastry and heavy meals.