WELLINGTON SOUTH CONTEST

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 139, 10 December 1919, Page 9

WELLINGTON SOUTH CONTEST

MR. SBMPLE'S CAMPAIGN

"THE TRAGJJDY OF TUB MINES."

Mr. R. Sample, Labour candidate for Wellington South, gave as. address and lantern lecture with regard to tho coalmining industry before a large gathering iv Fullford's Hall, Brooklyn, last, evening. The Chairman, the Rev. W. S. Rollings, spoke of the good work Mr. Semple had done on behalf of the miners, particularly with regard to the part he had played in the bringing down of legislation to enforce conditions which had lon their aim the bettor health of the minors. The particular improvement reduced the risk from disease from the effects of dust very greatly. A. suggestion. made that the proceedings should bo opened by the singing of tha National Anthem met with no support, and was not taken more seriously than, apparently, it was intended by the mover.

Mr. Semplo prefaced his address by a mild attack on the press, which "screams names but uses no arguments." 'Hie miner, he continued, was a much maligned man. He was ever a man of courage, and before the public could judge the miner it must know the man as he was.. The mine-owner, said the speaker, looked on the miner not as a man but merely as a part of a machine which worked for his profit. There was but one way to solve the mining and coal trade difficulties and problems, and that was to nationalise the whole industry, and to produce coal "for fires and not for profit." The nationalisation of the industry was in the interests of the general public, for at present the mineowners struck at both the public and the miners and profited from both. The difference between the amount which the miner received for hewing the coal and the price which the consumer was charged was, said the speaker, largely accounted for by the excessive freight charges made by the Union Steam Ship Company, and the Labour Party stood for Stat, ownership of the mines and State control of transport from the mines to the back door of the purchaser. Tile Labour Party was the only party that had a remedy for the present coal trouble. The Government had not, for it hid disregarded the matter as an nrgent and serious question.

Mr. Semple detailed the scheme with regard mainly to transport, and then screened a large number of lantern slidesshowing conditions in New Zealand and Sonth African gold and coal mines. Housing, miners''diseases, and the lack of provision for the men's comfort and health were dealt'with, the various points being clearly illustrated with slides.

During the evening Miss Semple eang "Don't Go Down the Mine, Daddy." At the conclusion of the address a vote of thanks and confidence was proposed, but the speaker said that he did not wish to make political capital out of his address, which had been given in the interests of the public and of the miners, and he therefore would ask that the motion should be withdrawn.