ALLEGED DISCRIMINATION

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 42, 17 August 1918, Page 7

ALLEGED DISCRIMINATION

MINERS COMPARED WITH

FARMERS.

Mr. M'Combs, M.P., declares in a letter to tho Minister of Mines that certain farmers have enjoyed favours at the hands., of the Government, in contrast to the miners.

"The Government has guaranteed the wheat-grown™ 6s 4<l pt,r bushel for next season's wheat, which represents an 80 per cent, advance on pre-war prices, and that has not satisfied some of them, and according to your statement there is likely to be an unprecedented shortage, and to meet that shortage you have purchased 4,000,000 bushels in Australia," the letter states. "Had there been no gf>-«lvv> policy in connection with the production of wheat the shipping tonnage which had to be used to import wheat from Australia might have been available for coal, and then there would have been no coal shortage. Tf tht. Government will only show half the consideration to the miners which it has shown to the wheat-growers, who have failed us, the Government will have nothing to regret, and the people will be saved further possible privations which would result from a dislocation of the coal industry."