COAL MINING COSTS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 201, 25 August 1945, Page 7

COAL MINING COSTS

INVESTIGATION URGED USE OF OPEN CAST METHOD Parliamentary Reporter. WELLINGTON, this day. The' suggestion that it was time the Government set up a commission of practical men to make an inquiry into the coal situation and, in particular, to investigate the reason for the high cost of winning coal was made by Mr. Poison (Nat., Stratford), in the House of Representatives yesterday, speaking in the Budget debate. He made special reference to the costs incurred in open cast mining, and said that he had also been informed that a scrutiny was desirable not only of coal mining costs, but also of the cost of some of the works projects.

Mr. Poison said he was informed that in countries overseas where the open cast method of mining coal had been tried it had been abandoned in favour of the dragline method. He ad'ded that he was also told that a scrutiny was needed of irrigation costs. He had also been told that the two huge dragline plants that the Government had purchased in America were far too large to be of any practical use in New Zealand and really constituted two white elephants,. that so much electricity was required to operate them that they would inconvenience the North Island supply and that to overcome ;>at difficulty a special expensive generating plant had had to be purchased.