RAILWAY COAL.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 36, 11 February 1920, Page 8

RAILWAY COAL.

MR. McVILLY OX PROFITEERING. (By Telegraph.—Own Corrcsp-ondcnt.) WELLINGTON, this day. Suggestions from the South that the Railway Department is profiteering in coal supplied to essential industries, are resented by the general manager, Mr. R. W. McVilly, whose attention was called to the matter by your correspondent. The Railway Department takes up the view that coal supplies at the risk of curtailing the railway services can ill be spared at any price. Extra point is given to Mr. McVilly's comments by the arrival of the steamer Argonne in Wellington with 7000 tons of South African screened coal, which costs £4 a ton. "We do not want to sell railway coal,'' said Mr. McVilly, "but if industries are obliged by the Department they must pay the price at which the Department charges up the supply in its own books. We have to average the price owing to varying costs of different supplies. You cannot expect the Department to'dispose of coal to help industries at a price actually less than it pays for its own purposes. Every ton of railway coal is expected to be utilised for profit earning, but supplies have been sold outside at less than the rate at which the Department debits itself. Critics of the price must not forget that the Department, in common with other consumers, has had to pay ' very high prices to keep going, and there is no reason why the Department should sell coal to privnte industries which it can ill spare, and which may cost even a higher price to replace. There was a case where coal sold to a Canterbury private industry had to be replaced from Dunedin. Objection was taken to the freight charged, but why should the Department have to pay for obliging another industry? We arc not anxious to sell coal, but only let it go to help industries over a temporary disability. They must be prepared to pay as the Department pays. Have these critics forgotten what the Department and the community lost through the last coal famine cut? Every person who gets railway coal in an emergency is definitely told that if the price is not satisfactory they need not take it, and the Department would be very glad to keep the coal, because the first consideration must be the preservation of its own coal stocks so as not to jeopardise its services, which are of such vital importance to the community."