MINERS' DUTY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17264, 4 September 1916, Page 3

MINERS' DUTY.

STATEMENT BY -MR WEBB. [Fkom Our Correspondent.] WELLINGTON, September 2. Mr P. C. Webb, member for Grey, states that the Minister of Defence intends urging tho coalminers to remain at their work instead of enlisting, as they could do far more good for the Empire by producing coal to keep transports' and industries going. Mr Webb states that New Zealand is so short of miners through early enlistments that it would be a suicidal policv to allow them to continue to go to the front. Coalminers must have three years' experience before taking charge of a working place, and it would be a bad matter to induce men to go underground unless they had been brought up to that class of work. A few incanadtated miners were- returning from tho front, and would again talce up their old work, but coalmining was essentially a business for strong, healthy and experienced men.