LOST COAL TRADE.

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 12, 15 January 1929, Page 12

LOST COAL TRADE.

Australia's reduction of its .coal export trade is becoming move and more serious, to the individual miners, no less than to the industry as a whole. For 1928 there was' a shrinkage of almost 700,000 tons in the export from Newcastle compared with the outward trade of 1927. The SubCollector of Customs at Newcastle reports that" exports of cQal to interstate and oversea ports totalled 2,885,058 tons, valued at £3,391,301, during the year 4928. In 1917, when Germany's intensive submarine campaign restricted movements of shipping the world over, the totai exported was 2,786,905 tons. With this exception, last year's figures represent the smallest export coal business done from Newcastle in the 27 years • during which Commonwealth Customs statistics have been kept In 1927, when the coal trade was admittedly depressed, exports were 3,556,209 tons valued at £4,227,765—a1m05t 700,000 tons more than last year, and more than £800,000 greater in value. There are reductions in exports for the year to New . Zealand from 400,369 tons in 1927. to 26 - 477 tons last year.