COAL INDUSTRY

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 October 1921, Page 5

COAL INDUSTRY

L OWNERS AND MINERS COAST CONFERENCE FAILS. I (Special to me Star.) All agreement was recently entered into by the Coal Mine Owners’ Association, and the Miners’ Federation, that a Conference should be held in each mining district, between Tcpr.--sentatives of the local companies, local unions, the Goal Owners’ Association and the Miners’ Federation, for the purpose of making working agreement for the coal mines ; the one condition to this arrangement being that if any such conference failed to agree upon all points the matters remaining in dispute should be referred to the Arbitration Court for decision. In accordance with this agreement, it was arranged that a conference should be held in Westport on October 25, to prepare agreements for the West Coast Mines, but before the date of the meeting arrived the Federation objected to go on with the proceedings unless a representative of the State Mines took part therein. At first this appeared to be an insurmount bile obstacle, as the Mine Owners were unwilling to accept as a delegate on their side one who was not in any way connected with their Association, but finally the difficulty was overcome by the Minister of Mines promising that the State Mines Department. would make an agreement with the State Miners’ Union on the basis of any agreement entered into, between the other mine owners and unions in the. district with special provisions to meet any local conditions. Mr. Parsonage, manager of the State Mine was instructed to attend the conference and report upon the proceedings to the Government. The Conference met yesterday in the Borough Council Chambers at Westport. At the outset the President of the. Miners’ Federation informed Mr. Bishop, who represented the Coal Mine Owners’ Association, that a lock out has occured at two mines ,in Southland sometime ago, and the Federation declined to proceed with the discussion of Most Coast agreements unless Mr. Bishop could arrange that work should be immediately resumed at these two mines, and carried on tinder the terms existing prior to the stoppage, until such time as a new agreement is made for the Southland district. \ They agreed to wait until noon the next day for a. reply (about 26 hours) and stated that unless within that time they were advised that these two mines had resumed work they would not continue negotiations. Air. Bishop stated tout the Southland trouble had been is existence since early in July, but that it had not been mentioned by the 1 ederation Representatives when the agreement to hold local conferences was entered into in Wellington. This agreement, was subsequently ratified by both the Federation and the Mine Owners’ Association. and stilt no mention was made of any difficulty. It was not until soino days later that 31 r. O’Rourke had suggested to him that it would create a bettor feeling generally, between miners and owners if the Southland Mines could bo brought to resume work prior to the sitting of the first district cqnf-. rence, and even then no indication was given that the non-resumption of work was likely to interfere with the present negotiations He stated further, that the miners in Southland had ceased work of their own accord rather than resume the use of forks for filling coal, that the use of forks was provided for by the agreement ami had been only temporarily suspended dining the scarcity of coal, and moreover tna* Tim time given was altogether too short to permit of his consulting members of his executive and obtaining their decision He appeal'd to the delegates present not to hold up the proceedings for this cause, and offered to uo to Southland with Mr. Davidson as soon as the West .Coast agreements were concluded, and do his Lett to bring about a satisfactory settlement. This tho Aliners’ Delegates declined to accept, and the Companies representatives retired to consider the situation. On the conference resuming Air. Bishop stated that the Mino Owners Delegates had unanimously decided to offer the following alternatives: (1) That Air. Davids->n and Air. Bishop should leave at once for Southland, make the best arrangements possible regarding the two idle mines, and tlu n arrange for a meeting of the Otago an<, Southland Companies and Miners Unions to make new agreements tor those districts. The West Coast meetirm to stand adjourned in the meantime (2) That tho present negotiations should be allowed to proceed and that immediately after their conclusion, Messrs Davidson and Bishop should go to Southland and endeavour to reach a settlement there. Both these proposals were declined bv the Miners’ delegate. They suggested that Messrs Davidson and Bishop should go to Southland and endeavour to settle the dispute there, and if successful should return to the West Coast Conference. Mr. Bishop declined to agree to this on the grounds that it was simply wasting' time and made no provision for reaching finality. . The Conference then terminated. ;

MR. HOLLAND AND PREMIER (Special to the Star.) WELLINGTON, October 26. “Tliis country knows whose fault it was, and I don’t think yOu are altogether blameless in the matter, declared Mr. Massey, with emphasis, after Mr. Holland in the House this afternoon had .strongly complained of the serious position m which the coal miners find themselves, owing to the large coal importations causing reduced working at the mines. He 'repeated his former suggestion that the Government should do with coal as with wheat; takes the whole output. , ~ Mr. Massey replied that there was no comparison between coal and wheat and he had nothing to add to his previous statement on the subject, excepting that about 70,000 tons ot Welsh coal had still to come on contracts which had not b.en cancelled. Ho took his full share of the responsibility for the coal importations tor lie had instructed the General Manager of railways when the supply v.as down to last six days’ requirements and it was a question of getting coat or closing down, that coal must be obtained from any source. . , Mr. Holland : It was not the miners fault. - _ - . , Mr Massey ’ T don t think you should raise that; this country knows whose fault it was, and I don t think VOU are altogether blameless. If you want to place the blame on thp proper shoulders I am quite prepared to do

The Member for Buller also raised tho ca.sc of ‘a coal miner immigrant who hadvbecome destitute in search for work, though induced to emigrate from Scotland owing to the statements of ample work being available. Mr.

Holland asked that misleading statements shoud bo stopped and that, tho Government should relievo destitute immigrants of this class. Air. No'Sworthy replied that no notice had been given of the question, and he wanted time to investigate tho case as it sometimes transpired that such statements had no justification. _