THE COAL COMMISSION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12573, 7 August 1901, Page 4

THE COAL COMMISSION.

It as not very easy to understand why the Coal-mines Commission, whose report was kid on the , table of the House cf Representatives yesterday morning, should,, while urging the Government to enter the field as retail dealers, hesitate to recommend the establishment of a coal-mine owned and worked by the State. This latter undertaking, it says, “involves so many political considerations ” that it is “eminently beyond” the Commission’s functions, 'and. “ is only to be dealt with and decided by Parliament.” The retail business, however, seems to present • no difficulties to the rather illogical minds of

the Commissioners. “We believe,’’ they say, “that if the State, .which notv buys a large quantity c-f coal at a. moderate price, would Sell such coal at a fair price to consumers, the grievance now complained of would vanish, arid the result would be that, while the State would fix the fair retail price wf coal, .the present dealers would sell at such price and would pot; be injured.” We should have thought ourrelvete that', the wholesale business was much the less complicated and perilous of the two. The .State might open a coalmine, as Mr' Seddofi, by the way, proposes to do, without nnlcb danger of involving itself in either political or commercial ccmpjicdtibns; but if it commenced to buy coal ih large quantities from the proprietary companies and to retail it out in halfhundredweights and. smaller-quantities to the consumers, we should tremble- for tie result of the experiment. It is only necessary'to recall the cxperichct' of the local retailers during the recent time of scarcity, when they were compelled to, keep ‘hjjitSsf. wives waiting two or three days for their supplies and then to put them off with half their orders, to get some idea of what would have to be endured by the unhappy official placed in charge of the Government coal depot. If he escaped the charge of personal bias in : the distribution of his. scanty stocks, it would be only to encounter the crueller one o-f being the tool of the corrupt Minister at- the head of his Department. But happily the Premier does nbt share the Com-misridners’ strange notions as to the feasibility of the two schemes. He has announced that it is the intention of the Government to. open a, State coal-mine as soon as Parliament gives the necessary authority and appropriation. At first the mine will be worked for Stale purposes, which means, we presume; the supply of the immediate State requirements; but we may be sure that directly the success of the experiment is demonstrated the people will insist upon a wider application of the principle. They will not ■ be content to pay 35s and 36s a t-oh for their own supplies when they see that the State' railways and the State workshops oan obtain theirs at, half the price. 'Directly the Government opens a Slate mine the whole problem will be on a fair, way towards solution. Tho entire disappearance of' the present monopoly will then be . only a matter of time. ~