COAL STRIKE IN WAIKATO

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23747, 19 September 1942, Page 4

COAL STRIKE IN WAIKATO

HON. A. M C LAGAN TO VISIT HUNTLY SENTENCE PASSED ON 182 PUKEMIRO MINERS

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, Sept. 19. The gloom which descended on tne Huntly community this morning on the failure of negotiations for tne settlement of the mining stoppage ana after 182 Pukemiro miners had been sentenced to one month’s imprisonment was relieved later in the aay by two developments of considerable significance. They were an announcement by the police authorities that the men would remain at liberty over the week-end and advice from Wellington that the Minister of Industrial Manpower (the Hon. A. McLagan) in his capacity as national secretary or the United Mine Workers of New Zealand. and Mr T. Hall, secretary of the Northern Miners’ Union, were travelling north to confer with the local union executive to-morrow. Those developments did much to restore some of the hopes that had been shattered by the proceedings in Court. When the Court resumed its sitting to-day, counsel for the miners Mr W. J King, announced that a settlement hoped for had not been reached. The Magistrate (Mr W. H. Freeman) said he had no option but to impose imprisonment. He sentenced each ox the 182 men to one month’s imprisonment. ~ _ Later, outside the Court, Mr George Lawson, Pukemiro representative on the Northern Miners’ Union, advised the men to take the decision quietly, which they did. The sentence appeared to come as a shock to the men, who apparently had not been expecting imprisonment.