CONFERENCE ON COALMINING

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24743, 7 December 1945, Page 4

CONFERENCE ON COALMINING

FIRST SESSION IN LONDON

FUTURE OF INDUSTRY DISCUSSED (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 7'p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 5. Delegates to the International Labour Office industrial conference on coal mining were welcomed at their first meeting by the British Minister of Labour (Mr George Isaacs). The conference consists of representatives of the Governments, employers, and workers of 12 countries, comprising the United Kingdom, the United States, Csnada, Australia, South Africa, Belgium, France, Czechoslovakia, India, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Poland. There are also delegations from the governing body of the 1.L.0., consisting of Sir John Forbes Watson for British employers and M. Leon Jouhaux for France. Mr Isaacs said he knew of no industry in which there were more important or more difficult problems to be solved than coal mining. The chairman (M. Leon Troclet, the Belgian Minister of Labour), in his openjng speech, said that without adequate coal supplies it was impossible to get world reconstruction going. An introductory report prepared by the 1.L.0. as a basis for discussion said that there was a manpower shortage in the mining industry in almost all the producing countries. Demobilisations from the armed forces and the reconversion of war industries offered the mining industry the best possible opportunity for recruiting an excellent labour force, with training in modern methods.' >■

The report suggested that the committee should consider the possibilities of developing the best international recruiting campaign to build up a solid body of mechanics, technicians, and construction workers for employment in the mines. Such a campaign would have tb offer the miners of today and to-morrow more than good wages. It would have to offer a respectable and satisfactory career. Mr Rowland James (Australia) made a plea for definite action on the extraction of oil from coal. He said that coal, in future, would not be in such great demand as at present, resulting in a depression in the coalfields, and unemployment among the miners, if wider uses for coal were not found. Scientists had declared ; that the oil wells might exhaust-themselves in the next 30 to 35 years. / Mr James, commenting on the Indian position, said that the Indian miners received an average wage of about 8s a week. He said that real' slavery seemed to exist among miners I in India. He was concerned that human beings should be working under such conditions.