BRITAIN’S WAR MEASURES

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 June 1942, Page 5

BRITAIN’S WAR MEASURES

MINERS’ WAGES INCREASED

RUGBY, June 19

All workers in the coal-mining industry, over 21, and all underground workers, between 18 and 21 years, will receive an unconditional flat rate addition of 2/6 a shift from June 1, 1942, and shift rates, to be paid to underground workers, under 18, are raised ninepence. to two shillings and threepence a shift, in the case of furnace workers under 22. There will be a national minimum wage for all workers over 21, at the rate of £4/3/- a week for underground workers and £3/18/- for surface workers. These are the unanimous recommendations of the board of investigation set up under the chairmanship of Lord Greene, and the Government is prepared to accept them. The estimated cost will be about 201 million pounds annually. A further recommendation of the G:\.inc Committee .s that die wages of a 1! w, rkers may be further increased, in accordant 1 ; v’id. a sliding scale, for any increase in output,"beyond a certain standard. The principle of this proposal has been accepted by the Government. COAL RATIONING. LONDON. June 18. The Minis-cr ’or Fuel (Major Lloyd Gwge), in the Bouse cl Commons to-day. said that the solution the coal problem lay in an increase m' production or a decrease in consumption. Nobody wanted rationing, but the Government might nave to introduce it. Production was not keeping pace with the demand, and practically every industry Was now using a good deal more coal than was the case last year. WOMEN IN INDUSTRY.

LONDON, June 19;

Women constitute 12 1-3 per cent, of the employees in the steel industry. They are performing 950 specific tasks w’ithin the industry. Many are relations of steelworkers serving in the armed forces, and are carrying on family traditions, which in some cases go back a hundred years. A surprisingly large proportion of the women is drawn from such peacetime occupations as hairdressing. dressmaking, and stage and domestic service. A very small proportion is falling out as a result of the arduousness of the new occupations.

NATIONAL SAVINGS

RUGBY, June 19.

Speaking in cast London. Sir C. Kingsley Wood said that in the strategy of finance, the national savings group proved as effective as the tank, in the strategy of war to-day. There were nearly 275.000 groups, and about' fifteen million members, and street savings groups had almost as striking a history as ordinary savings groups, and there wore nearly a hundred thousand of these, with an estimated membership of four millions.

CONTROL OF CANALS

RUGBY. June 19

The Government has decided to bling the irincipal canals and public carriers by canal, under a scheme of control, simdar to that exercised over the railway companies.