COAL SUPPLIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 September 1940, Page 5

COAL SUPPLIES

I MR. WEBB’S REVIEW. [PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.] 'j NEW PLYMOUTH, September 17. “We have got over the’Winter without having to ration coal, ; without having to curtail essential services, and, in fact, without serious .inconvenience,” said the Minister for Mines (Mr. Webb) to-night, referring to statistics for the first eight months of the year. Some months ago, he pointed out, the country was faced with- the possibility of a serious shortage of coal because of the increased demand of rapidly expanding secondary industry, the cutting off of supplies to gasworks from Australia because of the strike there, and the increased export of bunker coal for the navy and' transport purpose's! '• So far this'year New* Zealand had imported 50,000’tons less coal and had exported 4000 tons more compared with the first eight months of last year. Production this year was already 120,000 tons ahead of production for the same period of last year, which meant that, the output had' in-. creased by 15£>,000 tons- since March 31, up to which time, because of : flbod damage and storm delays to shipping!, production -was: 35,000 tons below "last year. The improvement was largely due to the increased efforts of the companies and the meh, who were working extended hours at ordinary rates of pay.