THE BLACKBALL STRIKE.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 13111, 9 May 1908, Page 8

THE BLACKBALL STRIKE.

The conference between the directors of the Blackball Coal Company and the delegates from the Blackball Miners' Union has concluded, and the miners' representatives return to the West Coast to-day to lay before the members of the Union the terms offered by the directors. No one of impartial mind can say that these are not generous— that they do not go further in the way of concessions than might have been reasonably expected. So far is this the case that there remains only one point of divergence between the proposals of the two parties, andi that is <a point which -was raised after the directors had conceded all the Union's other terms. The single outstanding matter in dispute is the employment of truckers for two lours overtime. The necessity for this being done is fully explained elsewhere, and meed not, therefore, ibe dealt with here, further than to point out tiTalT until the completion of the Ngahere-Blackball railway' the mine cannot be worked to its fu" capacity unless the aerial line by which the coal is removed from the mine is worked ten hours a day. If the directors of the company agreed that the truckers should work only eight hours a day, the men would not bo able to clear away the coal hewn by the miners at the face; the latter would have to be reduced in numbers, and the output of the mine would bo lessened im proportion. To support their objection to the truckers working for ten hours, the Union officials quote one of the rules of the Union that forbids, under penalty of a fine of ten shillings for -each offence, any mimer who is a member of the Union working more than eight hours underground. This rule, it is stated, has been in existence since 1905. It is singular, therefore, that it should only bo made effective in 1908, when, all other grievances had been removed by the directors' concessions; it is even more singular that the Union, while taking their stand on that rule, offer to ignore it by allowing two truckers to Tvonk overtime wihen required on some special skilled work in connection with the aerial tram. The Union's rules are peculiarly elastic, if they can be thus enforced in some cases and overI ridden in others at the pleasure of the officials. We shall, presumably, hear in the course of a day or two whether the members of the Union will accept the terms offered them by the .directors. If they refuse them, or raise fresh points, it mil be plain proof that they do not want to work, and the Unions now contributing to their support will have to decide whether they shall continue to maintain them in idleness.