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Northern Advocate, 16 September 1932, Page 4

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WARO COLLIERY PUMPS TO BE DRAWN. ■ ‘ DECISION BY MEN. '' . NEGOTIATIONS FATE. '' • The Waro Co-operative Colliery is now virtually dead, and it will be standing idle during the week-end. A start was made this afternoon on drawing the pumps —which spells the end of the mine. This action was taken owing to the failure of the negotiations between the board of directors of the mine and Air. L. .1. Stevens, representing the HilnivangU Coal Company, and Messrs. T. H. and F. W. Wilson, of Wilsons (New Zealand) Portland Cement Company, Following conferences all day yesterday, Messrs. Stevens and F. W. Wilson returned last evening to place before the directors of the cement 1 company, the men's ultimatum that they would carry on for a fortnight, ap requested by the deputation, if Wilsons would supply them with an 800 tons a week order for. the two weeks. AYord was reeei.ved.at the mine late this afternoon that the offer had been refused. Wilsons would not make any offer to enable, the .men to keep the mine open, except that the operations of drawing the pumps could be delayed for .the fortnight by using men. from the Hikurangi mine to carry out the pumping. The Waro men" refused to consider this offer, and decided to make a start in drawing the pumps. Regret was expressed by the managing director, Mr Scott Davidson that such action was necessary, but he said, it was the only thing to do now. It will take a week or ten days to get all the gear out of. the mine, but. the pumps will, have been withdrawn far enough to allow the"mine to be idle during the week-end. Conferences were held all day yesterday between the miners’ representatives and the deputation, which left for Auckland again last evening. The Press representatives were ‘' not admitted. - Alternative Scheme. '

A statement was made late yesterday afternoon by Mr. Scott Davidson, managing director. “The deputation asked ns to abandon drawing the pumps as we had intended to do today, ’’ he said, “and offered to give us £l5O per week towards the cost of running the pumps for two . weeks, in the hope that on the return of the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates from Ottawa, he would be able to do something, to .help the industry along. “We had a full discussion covering all angles and conditions of work on the field,” continued Mr. Davidson. “We told the deputation we could not accept their offer, as our running expenses were £240 a week for pumping alone, and we could not find the remainder of the cost, as we would be producing no coal. “We put an alternative scheme to the deputation, stating that if they would offer to take 400 tons of coal for the two weeks, in addition to the £l5O per week offered, wo would recommend that to the men. That was not acceptable and when, the position was placed before the men they de eided, however, that if the deputation would extend the 800 tons a week agreement with Wilsons for the next two weeks, they would abandon drawing the pumps for that time.” That proposal was put to the deputation, said Mr, Davidson. They did not comment much on it, but Mr. Wilson said he would have to communicate with his directors. He got into telephonic communication with Auckland, but could speak to only one of the directors, who was definite that he could not see the way clear for the company to offer the miners an order for 1600 tons of coal for two weeks. “We were then asked to defer drawing the pumps so that Mr. Stevens and Mr. F. W. Wilson could get to Auckland last night to go fully into the matter,- saying they would let us know their decision by telephone tomorrow/’ said Mr. Davidson. The board of directors put that proposal before the men later, and- they agreed to commence operations to-day to get boiler and domestic- coal.