COAL STRIKE

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 October 1926, Page 5

COAL STRIKE

COOK INVITES SETTLEMENT.

(Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.)

LONDON, October 21. Mr A. Cook, interviewed ac Nottingham, said that the miners were prepared to meet anybody authorised to discuss or negotiate an honourable s settlement. , The Leicestershire miners’ leaders, after a conference with Mr Cook and Mi- Smith, agreed to uphold the Miners’ Federation policy, and to urge the breakaways to leave the pits. SHIPPING FREIGHTS RISE. LONDON, October 21. “It is solely due to the coal strike upsetting the equilibrium of the world’s markets and displacing the tonnage from the ordinary routes,, said a leading shipper in explaining the rises being imposed in freights, especially on the North Atlantic, where the rates are advancing with bewildering rapidity. The cost of coal tonnage from the United States to Britain, which was 13s 6d at'the beginning of the strike, is now 37s 6d. Corresponding advances have been made in prices for grain transport from Montreal and Argentina. Everywhere the rates are much above the 1925 levels. In some cases they have doubled and even trebled.

The shipowners are feverishly utilising all kinds of vessels in order to participate in th e freight boom, which the leading shippers declare will continue for a long time after the strike is settled. Ships that were laid up months, are now being commissioned, and others that are in the hands of the shipbrokers are being hurriedly repaired. N.Z. MINERS A wire received by the secretary of the West Coast Miners’ Council announced the election of Messrs Lock and Davidson, of Millerton, as President and Secretary, respectively, ■of the National Council of the United Mine Workers of New Zealand.