THE NEW STATE COLLIERY

Grey River Argus, 31 December 1920, Page 2

THE NEW STATE COLLIERY

It will interest many to learn that the opening up of the new State mine at the Seven-Mile, the James 's •' colliery, is proceedings expeditiously, and that th& contractors for the \ tunnel have Teached the coal, and further that a bin 'to hold five hundred tons of coal has been erected, and ,the railway lines and yard got ready for dealing with the output of coal af- ' an early date. In fact, so far as work at this locality itself is concerned, we j lard assured that coal will be available in six months' time. But there is a .fly in the jam. It is only what we pointed out when the railway construction work began as being likely to happen. The fact is that the mine caii be easily got ready to produce before the railway is likely to be ready to handle the output. ''The Public Works Department adopted its own ideas in arranging for the construction of the railway, with an assurance to the public that the line would be ready in time for the mine. Had the "proposal of the workers to make the railway job a co-operative contract, - been, adopted instead, then we should not now have the prospect o¥ a country short of coal waiting on the completion of a short bit of railway line to secure supplies from a new- mine. It will be regrettable, indeed, if something is not done at once to obviate such a result coming actually to pass in the course of a few months. It would suit the critics of the workers far better if they looked into the State's responsibility for the coal shortage, rather than, 'to^blame the miners, and if they used their propaganda to hustle the Government into abandoning its go-slow policy.