NEAR DISASTER

Grey River Argus, 20 October 1943, Page 5

NEAR DISASTER

DROP IN COAL OUTPUI Australia Seeks for Remedy, (Special to N.Z. Press Assn.) (Rec. 1010.) SYDNEY, Oct. 19. Australia’s coal situation is described as having' “drifted to the brink of disaster.” This has been the result, not of any. great wholesale strike throughout the mining industry, but of incessant small dislocations to steady routine production. Few days have passed without some mines, because of local stoppages, being unable to produce. Absenteeism also has contributed heavily towards a reduced output. After a record production in 1942, the Australian mines this year have lost two and a-half million tons of available coal, thus necessitating the curtailing of essential industries, and of transport, and domestic fuel services. A total saving of forty thousand tons of coal per week must now be effected in the Commonwealth’s com consumption. Only shipping will have absolute priority in' the use of coal. Until the depleted stocks can be replenished, the rationing of coal for all other uses will be strictly enforced. New restrictions operate from next week. Domestic users have been placed on their honour to reduce gas and electricity consumption by twenty per cent. Those who do not, are threatened with “a sharp reminder of their responsibilities” when their meters are next read and compared with the pre-rationing period.

An extensive publicity campaign will be directed, towards the saving of domestic fuel. Every industrial user of coal must reduce consumption by twelve and a-half per cent. New or idle plants may not be brought into operation without the approval of the Department of War Organisation of Industry. The railway services are to reduce the train mileage to save twenty-five per cent, of coal. Already the number of trains running has been cut down considerably. As part of the effort to retrieve Australia’s coal position, former coal miners who are now working in other industries must this month furnish; their names to the Coal Commissioner. It is stated that there are five thousand fewer names now on tne books of the Australian Miners’ Federation than there were a few years ago. The return of even a proportion of these men to the mines would make a big difference to production, since each miner is able to produce an average of three to four tons ot coal per day.

The Australian news commentators are unanimous in calling for strong 'disciplinary measures against a small malcontent section of the miners, who are regarded as being mainly responsible for the loss of coal production. They fall into l three classes, viz: (1) Young irresponsibles who are “protected” from national service by the fact that they are mineworkers; (2) older “dilutees,” many of whom run bookmaking businesses, or who train greyhounds, and who absent themselves from, work to follow these pursuits; (3) a few careerists, who believe that the promoting of strikes is a means of securing union leadership. In its attempts to check the holdups, the Miners’ Federation has fined absentees and strikers a total of six thousand pounds. However, the fining does not appear to have been a deterrent, and the suggestion is now being strongly made that anyone responsible for industrial unrest must remove from the coalmining industry, and be made available for a Military or Civilian Construction Corps callup.