The Daily Telegraph. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1890.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5932, 10 September 1890, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1890.

Wk said a few words in Monday's issue in reference to the loss of trade to New Zealand by tho unions of this colony making common cause with a quarrel that occurred in Australia. We pointed out that if the labor combinations had remained neutral tho troubles across tho sea would have been New Zealand's opportunity. But as tho Maritime Council at Dunedin has thrown away this chance it is very little use crying over spilt, milk. Rather than make hay while the sun shone, tho supreme governing body of misrule has deliberately run tho colony into the thick of the storm clouds which "should have been confined to tho country where they arose. It is consequently impossible to estimate what we have actually lost, and still more difficult to say what we shall lose in the future. But the Taranaki Herald fears that tho

strikes in these colonies will ho tho means of driving tho coal trade from Australia and New Zealand to Japan. Our contemporary says it is well known that coal of first-class quality and in inexhaustible supply is to he found on the islands near Japan, and as there is cheap labor to work them, there need be no fear of steamers becoming short of fuel even if the men at our mines continue to refuse to work. Already San Francisco is receiving nearly all its supplies of coal from Japan, and the day will come, if tho strike lasts, when tho Australian coaling trade will bo a thing of the past. Sprockets Bros., tho owners of tho Oceanic line, havo been importing from Australia to San Diego alone an avorago of £13,000 worth of coal a month, and with the P. and O. line must certainly become competitors for the Japan trade. The Japanese, with more than European facilities for the appreciation of the changing conditions of commercial progress, havo not beeu slow to realise the benefits they may gain by opening up tho mineral riches which aro at present buried beneath their soil. They equal, we believe, anything that can be produced either at Newcastle (Australia) or Westport, in this colony, and the density of tho population in Japan enables them to command labor nt a rate of remuneration which is far less than normal. At the island* of Takashima, Matsashima, aud Nakanoshima thero are mines which are already being developed at high pressure, whilst from Nagasaki up coastwards for a hundred miles stretches a coal belt Mailing to bo tapped. Labor there, which is slavery in everything but name, is utilisod in working theso mines. At the Muke. in Chekugo, 1700 convicts maintain a ceaseless daily toil of twelve hours, from week's end to week's end without intermission. At Takashima thero are 5000 miners employed, who, kidnapped by the labor agents, are virtually slaves. The average wago paid to tho miner does not exceed ~\d per day, on which munificent sum he has to support existence aud briug up a family. The Japanese are not content to supply their own wants, but have already entered with energy upon the field of exportation, and now the strike amongst the coalmiuers in Australia and New Zealand has taken place, thoy will bo prepared not only to supply steamers, but send men with the vessels to unload them at depots. Such being tho case', the Maritime Couucil cannot, we are certain, be aware of the amount of mischief they aro bringing upon the laboring classes in the colony by ordering men to leave their work iv the manner they havo done.