WEST AUSTRALIAN MINES

Evening Star, Issue 17956, 1 May 1922, Page 8

WEST AUSTRALIAN MINES

COMPANIES’ CLAIMS. COSTS TOO HIGH. Press Association—By Telegraph—-Copyright, j LONDON, April 29. ; Sir James Mitchell (Premier of Western . Australia), replying to a deputation of Western Australian mining companies’ representatives, who sought a conference with the miners with a view to a readjustment of wages and an the Arbitration. Act enabling the court’s decision to bo reviewed within a year, said that when the mines were paying increasing dividends the miners loyally accepted tho arbitration awards as binding for a full year. Analogously, tho mining companies should accept them similarly now, when dividends were not increasing and wages were falling. Ho did not believe the miners would present unfair demands if they were calculated to cripple tho industry upon which their existence depended. The railway freights were as low as possible, notwithstanding the continuously shrinking railway revenue. Tho Government was anxious to develop tho mining interests, but was not prepared to grant concessions at tho cost of the. rest of the community. Sir Newton Moore, in introducing tho deputation, had pointed out that the Western Australian mines formerly_ produced £8,000,000 per annum, and this has now dwindled to £2,000,000, while the cost of production had increased to an alarming extent. Tho cost of material had increased 50 per cent, and labor over 100 per cent, compared with 1914. With the exception of three large mines, which had very good reasons for continuing, tho ; whole of tho gold mines of the State had closed down, and unless some change were made in tho near future this disastrous state of affairs must continue. How Labor is blindly dealing a death blow to a languishing industry was convincingly shown by Mr Richard Hamilton, president of tho Chamber of Mines, Kalgoorlio (Western Australia), in a recent presidential address to the chamber (stales the ‘Australasian’). Gold mining at Kalgoorlio is declining more rapidly year by year, largely as the result of oppressive wages and labor conditions, In 1921, as compared with 1920, tho number of men employed decreased by more than 15 per cent., the tonnage treated by more than 30 per cent., the total yield by more than 16 per cent., and the dividends paid by more than 28 per cent. Though tho grade of tho ore treated rose from £2 2s 7d to £2 12s Id per ton, which is far in excess of that of any other gold-mining country', tho average working costs rose from £l 14s 4d to £1 18s 7d, the additional 4s 3d going almost solely in wages, consequent upon an arbitration award which increased wages all round by 20 to 25 per cent. The \ immediate result of this award, as of all | others which disregard the condition of the industry, was that oq, the Golden Mile 1 alone some 600 men lost their employ- | merit, and this, in turn, is a shrinkage of I 3,500 in the general population. Tho ‘, worker receives by far the larger share of ' the gold ho produces. Of the cost of pro- i duction, roughly half goes to tho worker ■ directly in the shape of wages; of tho 1 other half, expended on materials, tho i greater proportion goes to tho worker who makes those materials. Thus Labor has the greatest sharo of tho benefits of the prosperity of the industry it is slowly, but surely, destroying. In 1303, in the heyday of tho Golden Mile, the industry produced 2,000,000 ounces of gold and employed 17.000 men; last year it produced only 600,000 ounces and employed no more than 6,000 men. Labor will yet awaken to tho fact, perhaps when it is too late, that half a loaf is better than no bread.