The Mines Statement

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22478, 12 August 1938, Page 10

The Mines Statement

The rapid expansion in the last few years of New Zealand’s coal production, until it is now not far short of the total reached in the industry’s palmiest years, is gratifying news for everyone; and the Mines Statement presented in the House of Representatives this week by the Hon. P. C. Webb sets out with justifiable pride the extent of the industry’s recovery from the many set-backs of the depression. More men have been absorbed in the industry (perhaps it is more accurate to say that many men have returned again to mining now that it is more lucrative); more coal has been produced, and higher prices have been received for it. And the outlook is for a continued improvement. But many connected with the capital side of the coalmining industry will have their enthusiasm at all this prosperity tempered by another part of this same Mines Statement. The State mines accounts, which can be taken as typical of those for the whole industry, show that higher costs are an important factor in the industry’s future. The State mines produced more coal, sold more, and soid it at a higher price, and yet at the end of the year the net profit is slightly smaller. The State mines work under the same conditions as private mines, and it can be reasonably assumed that many private companies will have balance-sheets reflecting the same effect of higher costs. This prospect .of continuously rising costs, and the recurrence of the labour troubles which have retarded the industry since it, first began in this country, are the clouds in an otherwise clear sky. Actually the State mines accounts compare in many respects with the Working Railways account. More gross revenue and less net profits are a familiar story, and familiarity seems, to the ‘Government, to have dulled its lesson. Nevertheless, the rise in production is a heartening sign, and on the West Coast, where the increase has been about 30 per cent, in the last two years, it is most heartening of all. The opening of the State iron and steel works at Onekaka must, apart altogether from the other and rather doubtful economic considerations involved, result in an even bigger demand for West Coast coal. One thing for which the Minister for Mines, who brought a real experience of mining to his work, deserves much credit is the further decrease in the wastage of slack coal by the simple method, which should have been applied years before, of standardising and controlling the size of screens. This saving has meant much to the smaller companies in the Waikato and Southland districts, where the problem of wastage particularly applies, and mineowners have reason to be, and are, grateful for it. One warning note sounded in the report of the Minister is of special interest. Investigations into the Dominion’s resources of • bituminous coals, the report points out, seem to indicate that the resources are less than the estimates previously held of them. There has been a tendency in the past to regard New Zealand’s coal resources as almost illimitable, and in some years a belief in this has led to wasteful methods of coal winning. If it is true that resources of coal are smaller than has been thought, then no effort should be spared to conserve them as much as possible. The uses to which science is beginning to put coal give coal deposits a much more valuable and economically significant future than most people assign to it; that future must be safeguarded.