COALMINERS’ WAGES

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 194, 12 May 1924, Page 7

COALMINERS’ WAGES

REPORT OF COURT OF INQUIRY PROFITS INADEQUATE TO MEET DEMANDS FURTHER NEGOTIATIONS SUGGESTED The report of the British Court of Inquiry regarding coalminors’ wages says that the profits of the industry are inadequate to meet the increases demanded, but the miners’ claims for the reorganisation of the industry involve a political question with which the Court is not competent to deal. It suggests a resumption of the negotiations with a view to arriving at a modification of the 1921 wages agreement. By Telegraph—Press Association. Copyright. London, May 9. The mining reort states that it is really not disputed that the agreement of 1921 failed to provide adequate wages. In many of the poorer districts the real issue is far more fundamental. The miners assert that they are entitled to secure full living wages for all engaged in the industry, primarily out of the total profits, but if these are inadequate it rests on the mine owners, bv altering the organisation at the mines for the disposal of the produce, to increase the amount, and, if it is still insufficient, to paj f the wage necessary for the tarrying on of the coal mining industry, which is the foundation of all other industries, the country requires that other and more fundamental measures should be adopted. The Court was not concerned with the merits of this contention. It was a political question, and it was unable to express any opinion in regard to the economic possibility and effect of increasing the price of coal or reducing the costs sufficiently to enable the present claim to be met. From the figures before the Court it appears, the report says, that under the present condition of profits the industry, particularly in some districts, was unable to meet the miners claim fully. The owners showed an aggregate profit over the whole of the coalfields from October, 1921, to December, 1923, of £37,318,000. It was estimated that had the miners’ present claims operated at this period £102,500,000 additional wages would have been paid.. In any case, the increase of 2s. per shift recommended by the Sankey Commission would alone cost annually as much as the whole of the stated profits of 1923. The report suggests the resumption of negotiations with a- view to modification of the terms, as the agreement of 1921 appears to offer an immediate practicable means of effecting a new wages agreement. It expresses the opinion that tho provision of a minimum wage should have precedence over the distribution of profits, but it cannot specify the conditions in regard to the basis whereon that minimum should be fixed. —Reuter.