AUSTRALIAN COAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 85, 7 October 1943, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN COAL

CONCERN OVER STOPPAGES Rec. 11.30 a.m. CANBERRA, This Day.

His faith that Australia's coal miners will produce the coal urgently needed has been expressed by the Prime Minister, Mr. Curtin. He has agreed to the miners having nine days' holiday over the Christmas-New Year period. However, he admitted to the House of Representatives that because of increased stoppages Australian coal production was less in the; last three months than in the corresponding period of 1942. An Opposition member claimed that there had been more than a hundred stoppages in New Sputh Wales mines during a recent five-week period, and that they had resulted in the loss of about 100,000 tons of coal output. Mr. Curtin answered by pointing out that the present Australian coal production was a record.

Earlier, Mr. Curtin had told coalminer representatives that he would have taken skilled men from the Army and put them into the mines long ago if he had been able to find enough skilled men. He said that the workers who caused unnecessary stoppages were "scabbing on their mates." The miners will submit a number of suggestions for increasing their output to a Cabinet sub-committee appointed to investigate the Commonwealth's coal position. The "Sydney Morning Herald" today refers editorially to the coal situation as "intolerable," and says that a serious coal famine is looming daily closer. The paper says that the outcome of Mr. Curtin's conference with the miners is disappointing, and adds: "Australia is being let down every day by men who appear to be convinced that they are above the law and can defy it with impunity."