STATE COAL MINES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17283, 26 September 1916, Page 6

STATE COAL MINES.

Becavse tho State coal mines do not "show a profit" every year, and because employees in the mines are allowed to voto at political elections, a contemporary is trying to start a campaign against public enterprise. .The financial position of the State coal* mines account is not a very serious matter. Last year the business shewed a profit .of some £2500, but .the year before there was a loss of £14,150, so that the ownership of coal mines may be said in the last two years to have cost' the community" about a penny and a farthing per head of the population. But this dreadful deficit may yet be turned into a surplus. During last year the'operations were handicapped by scarcity of ships, in which particular the luck may turn, and although the workings in the Point Elizabeth colliery appear to be approaching exhaustion a substantial increase in output from the Liverpool mine is expected during the next few years. Tbo outlook is therefore less gloomy than our friends the rabid anti-Socialists imagine. Wo fear, indeed, that they have looked only on tho dark side of the picture. They have only considered the losses—and the votes. To our mind there are compensations. Not the least of these is that by entering into the retail market the State, as the Hon G. W. Russell points out, has exercised a steadying influence on prices, for which protection a book-keeping " loss" of .lid per head seems a trifling price to pay. Unquestionably State coalselling has saved the consumer a huge sum in this way since tho inception of the enterprise. Tho coal business is one that specially lends itself to the minimising of competition, since the product at its source is in the control .of a few, and the public is very wise in risking a few pounds to safeguard itself against exploitation. In this connection we may quote a paragraph from tho Report of the Cost of Living Commission, a much-neglected document, by tho way:—

An isolated, highly protected and sparsely populated country liko Now Zealand, go far distant from the world's markets, especially lends itself to the manipulations of trusts and combines. It is a comparatively easy matter for a few wealthy individuals in any given industry or business "to secure control of the output, and by slightly raising prices to levy secret taxation on tho whole community.

The State has mado that difficult, at least, in respect of coal. Rut our contemporary has missed, another important point. The retailing of coal by tbo managers of the State mines is only a side line. The railways and other Government departments have the first call on the output, and it is surely of some value for a community owning railways worth thirty odd millions to also possess mines to supply fuel for that service. If tho State sold the collieries it would bo dependent for coal upon private enterprise, which might be not

less v; unreliable as to fuel than it was in regard to shipping. And eveu then, wo suppose tho miners would retain their votes.