STATE COAL MINES

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 November 1934, Page 2

STATE COAL MINES

REPLY TO PETITION. The following letter has been received from the Minister of Mines by Mr W. Pendlebury, of Runanga, m reply to the petition recently forwarded from the Grey district residents, praying for an enquiry into the State coal question: W. Pendlebury, Runanga,—

Bear Sir,—l desire to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 18th. ultimo, with which you enclosed a petition signed by 239 persons requesting that an inquiry should be held into the State Coal Mines question. You will no doubt remember that a similar request for an investigation was made by a deputation last year in response to which oh August 12, 1933, I addressed a long, letter to the late Mr H. E. Holland, M.P., in which the position at the State Mines was exhaustively reviewed. This letter was given wide publicity in the Press. It was then disclosed that the position at the State Mines bore very favourable comparison with the situation at other West Coast mines. The real trouble lies with the coal-mining industry as a whole and you are no doubt aware that the difficulties afflicting the industry are not by any means' restricted to New Zealand. The reasons for the state of the industry in this and other countries are well known, and on this account I have felt that to accede to past requests for a commission of inquiry into the whole industry would not be justified. Similarly I feel that an inquiry into the State Mines in particular would not at the present time be of much real assistance. Increased output from the mines is no doubt .What is chiefly desired by the mine employees and by the signatories of the petition. The staff of the Department is doing its utmost to achieve this object, and I am pleased to say that the outlook is definitely improving. CHAS. MACMILLAN, Minister of Mines.” MR PENDLEBURY’S COMMENT.’ In connection with the above let-

ter, Mr W. Pendlebury, writes: “I wish to contradict the portion of the Minister’s letter which states that ‘what is chiefly desired by the mine employees and signatories of the petition is increased output from mines.’ This is incorrect. What is wanted is an equal distribution of work instead of the mines lying idle for a week at a time, such as the James mine does, while co-operative parties in the same district, are working every week. On Monday last, 61 trucks passed down to the Rapahoe siding, and returned loaded, yet the, James mine will not work one shift this week. This is the reason for an enquiry, and the matter will not be allowed to drop until an enquiry is granted.”