Aid For Miners9Families

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31276, 24 January 1967, Page 1

Aid For Miners 9 Families

(From Our Own Reporter) GREYMOUTH, Jan. 23. The Mayor of Greymouth (Dr M. B. Dallas) and the Mayor of Runanga (Mr C. R. Wylde) this afternoon began making £5O emergency payments to families of many of the victims of the Strongman mine disaster.

These are the first payments since the appeal fund was opened on Friday. At the week-end, in a broadcast message of sympathy, Mr Wylde said that because the tragedy had happened in the

'first week after the holidays, i many families were short of money.

| Dr. Dallas today called for ; generous financial assistance for the bereaved families. Under the Workers’ Compensation Act, the amount payable to dependants would be about £3250, he said, but this did not amount to much when a widow was left to raise a young family. It was essential, he said, that a healthy fund be built up, and he was confident that the people of the West Coast would give generously to the fund.

Dr. Dallas in Greymouth and Cobden, and Mr Wylde in Runanga, visited the families to make the emergency payments. More than £2OO was received at the Greymouth Borough Council offices today for the fund.

The Greymouth newspaper has received two cheques for £loo—one came from a Tokoroa contractor, Mr M. J. Nihill, and another from the Greymouth contracting firm of W. Greenhill and Company, Ltd., which carries Strongman coal from the mine to the bins at Rapahoe. ' The Greymouth borough list was today headed by a cheque for £5OO from Stuart and Chapman, Ltd., a subsidiary of the Fletcher group. A cheque for a similar amount

from Fletcher Industries Ltd. was sent on Friday. The Greymouth Town Clerk (Mr G. C. Hayter) said that with money pouring into different organisations, it was yet too early to collate it. The fund will be administered by the District Public Trustee (Mr K. R. Balch). Apart from the local appeals, the Mayor of Christchurch (Mr G. Manning) has launched an appeal, and another is being made by a Wellington newspaper. A cheque for £24 from the officers and crew of the collier Konui, a frequent visitor to Greymouth, was received

today. The vessel was in port on Friday and Saturday. Money had been coming in all day, in £1 and £5 lots, from persons in all walks of life, said Mr Hayter. The council of the United Mineworkers of New Zealand decided at a special meeting yesterday to levy £2 a head on all underground miners in the country who are members of the union and £1 on surface workers. The local underground officials, members of the deputies and underviewers’ union, are making a similar levy. In ail this is expected to produce more than £6OOO.