AUSTRALIAN AFFAIRS

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 December 1944, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN AFFAIRS

MINERS’ CHANGED DECISION SHORTENED HOLIDAY SYDNEY, December 25. The Australian Miners’ Federation , has directed that all miners, including those striking against garnishees, will resume work on January 2 instead of January B.' The mass stopwork meetings of miners scheduled for January 10 will .be suspended pending a special meeting of the federation’s central council on January 6 ’Mr. Justice Davidson, of the New South Wales Supreme Court, will be chairman of the Commission of Inquiry into the Australian coal industry. The names of the two other members of the commission, representing the Miners’ Federation and the colliery proprietors, will be announced later. A survey of health factors in the coal industry will be conducted by a special committee oi three, comprising Sir Raphael Cilento (Queensland’s Director-General ol Medical Services), Mr. D. T. Brewster (Acting-Chief Inspector pt Mmes in New South Wales), and Mr. D. H. Murray (of tne Industrial Welfaie Division of the Commonwealth Department of Labour). Mr. Justice Davidson has carried out two previous investigations into the coal industry. His appointment as chairman of the new commission is popular. Industrial observers say there is a feeling of relief bn the coalfields at Saturday’s decision of the miners leaders to order the men back to the pits on January 2 instead of continuing the holidays in defiance of the Government’s order until January 8. In a leading article headed Christmas Truce in the Coal Struggle the “Sydney Morning Herald says: The coal miners’ principal officials have executed the most remarkable industrial somersault on record. The spec- . tator of their recent acrobatics must be equally astounded by the arrogance with which the Government was defied, and the celerity with which the declaration of war was withdrawn. But last week’s proceedings were so extraordinary as to mspire little confidence that the worst of the coal troubles are over.” AERIAL CRASH. SYDNEY, December 24. Seven airmen and one W.A.F. were killed when an aeroplane crashed m a paddock near a New South Wales air station last Wednesday. The aeroplane dived to earth after striking overhead power wires. People who saw the crash said that one of the aeroplane’s engines appeared to be labouring.