WHAT THE MINERS WANT

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 107, 6 April 1926, Page 6

WHAT THE MINERS WANT

The miners want all royalties abolished, and the nationalisation of the mines in their interests. The scheme they placed before the Coal Commission on January 14th covered proposals “to transform the industry into a nationalised organisation for mining coal, manufacturing electrical power, making coke and smokeless fuel, and also producing various by-products,” the scheme being submitted “on behalf of a joint committee representing the Miners’ Federation, the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, the executive committees of the Labour Party and the Parliamentary Labour Party.” The Labour journal (the Daily Herald) states that the scheme was drafted by Mr A. Greenwood, M.P. (Socialist), the leading witnesses called in its support being mining representatives on the side of the mine employees. While they differed somewhat in their opinions regarding compensation, they were all agreed that the mining royalties should be acquired by the State, and it was reported that the Miners’ Federation was opposed to compensation. The’ proposals covered unification of the ownership of coal, tho ownership and operation of collieries, the distribution of coal and the export of coal. It was proposed that the ownership of the minerals and the collieries should be acquired by tho State, and that the coal industry should become an organisation for mining coat, manufacturing electrical power on a large scale, making both coke and smokeless fuel, and pioducing, in addition, gas, fuel oils, ammoium compounds, chemical base materials from tars and other byproducts, and that the industry thus transformed should be nutionalised. The scheme contemplated the establishment of a “power and transport commission,” to take the place of the existing electricity commission, of it “coal and power production council,” the latter composed of “an equal number of executive and administrative officials and of miners and by-pro-duct workers, say, twelve in all, elected by their: respective organisations, along with two representatives of. the power and transport commission” and other officials; tho establishment of provincial councils and of pits and works committees, and a consumers’ council, etc., a separate commission being established to deal with the export trade. The promoters of the .scheme were candid enough to admit, however, that it could not be expected to pay its way without assistance from the State, added to which it would “take at least two or three years to bring it into operation.” Tho chief spokesman supporting it on behalf of the miners said: “We have no proposals for the interim period. We have decided to confine ourselves to the future condition of the industry.” That the industry is in a precarious position seems to be indicated in the remarks made by Mr F. B. Varley, M.P., a member of the Miners’ Federation executive and of the National Executive of the Labour Party, who, speaking at Leeds, on January 10th, said, “the position in the coal mining industry was such that, if subvention was removed to-morrow, and no aid from outside, or reorganisation from within, were introduced into the industry, pits would drop out of production like rotten sheep. . . No system whatever in the next few years could possibly bo a success. If the mines were nationalised it would still be necessary that some form of subsidy should be paid.” And tliat opinion appears to be generally held by the representatives of Labour in the Mother Country.

The Coal Commission recommends the acquisition by the State of the mining royalties and a modified form of national control, but it meets neither the claims of the miners, nor the wishes of the colliery owners. The subvention ends on the Ist of May, and Mr Baldwin’s Government is faced with the necessity of meeting the crisis which will then arise. The outcome is uncertain and the position apparently grows desperate.