The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 1893.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 175, 26 July 1893, Page 4

The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 1893.

■" For till cause that lacks a33istanca, '" For tho rrrong that needs resistance, ■'?. For the future ia the totanoe, And tho gooi that wo can 00.

Our cable messages have contained references several times lately to the depressed condition of the coal-mining industry in New South Wales. We were informed a day or two ago, that 800 miners were unemployed in Newcastle, and that the New Lambton colliery had closed down. There is reason to fear this is only the beginning of a fresh series of disasters. The Newcastle coal trade has suffered severely of late years from industrial conflicts. The strike of miners in 1888 caused heavy losses to the proprietors. Then followed the disastrous maritime strike, which inflicted a blow upon the Newcastle coal trade from which it has never recovered. It was predicted at that time, when for months operations were suspended at the Northern mines, that trade would be diverted from Newcastle, and would be competed for by colonial and foreign coal milling companies. All this has come to pass. The foreign countries with which Newcastle had an extensive coal trade took alarm, and began to look for supplies nearer home. The coal trade with India, which a few years ago was very valuable to Newcastle, has dwindled away till it has reached the vanishing point, and the Straits Settlements, Singapore and Hongkong are now also practically independent of Australian supplies. The opening afforded by the maritime strike stimulated the Japanese to develop the coal mining industry in their country, and their coal is rapidly commanding the trade of the Eastern seas. Owing to abundance of cheap labour the Japanese coal can be placed on foreign markets at a price with which the Australian companies cannot compete. The Japanese coal is of good quality. It is regularly used at Hongkong and Singapore, and in 1891 no less than 1,500,000 tons were worked. In San Francisco, Newcastle coal is being superseded by a supply from British Columbia, which, although inferior in quality to the Australian coal, is lower in price. The export returns show that there is a general shrinkage in the exports of Newcastle coal to other countries as well as those we have named.

In addition to a diminution in the volume of foreign trade, the Newcastle coal mining companies have suffered severely from local and intercolonial competition. The output of the mines in the south and west of the colony bas greatly increased during the last few years, and a trade which at one time belonged almost exclusively to Newcastle, is now the subject of keen competition. The strike at Newcastle in 1888 furnished the southern collieries with an opportunity of working their coal into larger use in Victoria and South Australia, and local circumstances enable them to do this at a price with which Newcastle coal proprietors cannot successfully compete. The Victorian Government have also lately given great encouragement to the production of coal in their own colony, and the local product is gradually superseding the supplies that Victoria has hitherto drawn from the neighbouring colony.

The position is considered so serious in Newcastle that a conference has just been held between the representatives of the Coal Proprietors' Association and those of the Hunter River Miners' Association. The chairman fully explained the position. He said, that although they had made a reduction of the selling price of coal in 1892, it would be necessary to further reduce the price from 31st July. There was in addition no alternative but to make another reduction in miners' wages from the Ist of January next. Unless the proprietors could be put upon more even terms in competing with the South, the trade of Newcastle would soon be gone.

It is encouraging to notice, in the face of the frequent failures to bring employers and workmen together for discussion, that the tone of the proceedings at the Newcastle Conference was of the most cordial kind. Colliery owners and miners have at last been brought to a suicidal frame of mind by the recognition of a common danger. Both parties have suffered severely in industrial wars, which might have been averted if there had existed some fair and workable.law by which such disputes could have been settled upon an equitable basis. For these past conflicts the employers have been quite as much to blame as the men. In the present crisis, the mine-owners have pursued a different course, and at their conference with representatives of the miners, the latter fully admitted the gravity of the situation, and paid a tribute to the action of the proprietors in taking counsel with the men. It was agreed to appoint a joint committee composed ot proprietors and miners, to discuss the matter from every point of view before further changes were made The Newcastle miners are well known as an exceptionally fine body of men, and we should be sorry if circumstances compel a reduction in their wages, butjt is admitted on all bands that unlu»*tome unexpected re-i

vival of trade speedily occurs, the Newcastle collieries cannot be worked much longer, at what the chairman termed " the present ruinous rates."