SURPLUS OF COAL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 262, 4 November 1932, Page 3

SURPLUS OF COAL.

PROBLEM OF MINE OWNERS. GOVERNMENT CRITICISED. HYDRO-ELECTRIC SCHEMES. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Thursday.

Discussing tho roduced coal consumption in an address at the annual meeting of tho Zealand Coalmine Owners' Association to-day, the president, Colonel Holgate, referred to experiments in the use of carbonised eoal and gas, and claimed that carbonisation of brown coals in New Zealand was not only a success, but would, in the near future, be profitable and become more generally adopted. The coalfields, lie said, were a national asset, and the Government had lost sight of the industry when developing hydro-electric schemes. Probably had the results been foreseen the Government might have considered generating power from coal, thus saving the co'untry some £8,000,000. The same amount of power could have been produced and sold at certainly the same, if not less, cost. There were now too many producing collieries for the output required, and the State was partly to blame for continuing the issue of fresh mining leases .despite tho declining output.

Many leasee of email areas had led to the flooding of the market with cheaply mined outcrop coal, said Colonel Holgate, to the detriment of the business of older established mining companies, reacting both' on the employers and workers. Some form of co-opera-tive effort was necessary between members of the association as the only means of overcoming the difficulties of the coal trade. The president suggested the setting up of a small committee to investigate the possibilities along the linos of rationalising the industry, with a view to preparing a scheme for submission, perhaps, to the Government to carry it into effect.

Discussing the economic outlook, Colonel Holgate said costs must come down. He said that obviously NewZealand miners did not realise what the coal owners were up against, and, sooner than agree to work for less wages, they seemed prepared to strike and risk losing employment.