The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH AND INCORPORTED The Evening News,Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, AUGUST 31, 1920. THE COAL OUTLOOK.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 208, 31 August 1920, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH AND INCORPORTED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 31, 1920. THE COAL OUTLOOK.

Aw- .fte cause that lacks assistant*, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we i_u 4a.

To New Zealandcrs anxious about the coal outlook, there is the melancholy satisfaction of knowing that other countries are in a similar position. In fact never since coal 'began to .play its dominant part in industry has the state of the world'- coal supplies and markets been so peculiar and unsatisfactory. If wo go to 'Australia, we find a movement among Victorian manufacturers to transfer their factories to New South Wales so as to be nearer the coal mines. Yet transport from Newcastle to Melbourne should be easy. But while this is goimr on, Newcastle 'has actually been sending coal all the way to Sweden, though, that country is a near neighbour of coal-producing 'Britain. If we go on to South Africa, wo find coal being sent all the way to England, and landed there much cheaper than English coal. Bud much more important is tbe entry oi American coal into European markets, especially England. For some time the United states, where it is officially stated that the cost of production is '.'A/ a ton, against J-_. in South Wales, has been sending large siiipmonts to the Continent, and it was announced the other day that American suppliers had contracted to ship 7.000,000 tons a year to England. That Tlritain, which before the war exported 87,000,000 torus of coal and coke in one year, should now have to imnort coal from America, shows how seriously developments of tlie lai-t six years have affected her coal-mining industry. I-She faces an enoTmous rise in prices, decreased outputs although the number of miners lias increased, and the threat of either a strike or an organised restriction of output. The decline in exports helps to maintain tlie adverse rate of exchange iti America, and einc« plentiful outw-ard cargoes vsed to mean cheap inward freights, add- to the cost of .food and raw material. The position in New Zealand is that with immense quantities of coal underground, we cannot got anything like enough of it to supply our wants, and neither private enterprise nor the Government appears to be talcing any steps to have the output increased. We could do with more miners and better methods of coal-getting. In the meantime we aro dependent on Newcastle, though by the time Australian coal is landed hero it costs about three times the price at the mine. However, there is the position, and we have to make tho best of it. Since we cannot do without Australian coal, that is a good suggestion of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce —that a delegation should go to Australia and try to make arrangements for a regular supply. As the mover of the resolution said, a personal intcrviow is worth dozens of letters and cablegrams. The delegation would point out the needs of New Zealand, that we have always been a good customer of Australia, and that sentiment should not be entirely ruled out of vital commercial relations between States that are neighbours nnd sister Dominions. Sweden is reported to have ordered 25,000 tons in Newcastle, but if Australia has a certain amount of coal to export, it seems only fair to the New Zealander that he should have a claim on it before a -foreign country at the other side of the world. It is not as if the market were free. The Federal Government controls the price, and has power to restrict export, and we are justified in suggesting that our country be given preferential treatment. - The

recent menace of an embargo on Australian coal exports is too serious a thing to have hanging indefinitely over our heads, and it is time that trada with New Zealand was put on a proper basis. If it was worth while sending over a delegation to get the embargo on the importation of potatoes removed, it is worth while sending over one to negotiate for a regular supply of coal.