THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 1888.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9147, 31 August 1888, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 1888.

TriE closing of the coal mines at Newcastle gives an interest to the question of the possibilities of our own coal measures coining to the front as claimants for a share in the industrial requirements of the Australian colonies. Our coal has played but a subordinate part in the past, but a little consideration of the extent of our coal deposits and their character may lead us to think that they are destined to occupy a far more prominent position in the near future. It is true that some of our New Zealand coal may lie termed inferior, in the sense that it is not fitted for particular purposes for which other coal, excels ; but, on the other hand, we have New Zealand coal which ranks second to no coal in Australia ; and when we consider that in the exceedingly undeveloped condition of our coalfields., the total output of New Zealand coal was last year considerably more than a fourth of that of Newcastle during the previous year, we cannot but feel that our position as a coal producer is not at all to be despised in a crisis. It would, of course, be presumptuous to compare any of our mines to such a giant thing as the Wallsend, the Co-operative, the Lambton, the Waratah, or any other of that wonderful cluster of mines which at Newcastle are prepared to turn out sixty or seventy thousand tons a week, and can do it, we are told by geologists and surveyors and other authorities, for five hundred and twelve years to come. But when we consider that we have in New Zealand at the present time separate coal-mines to the number of 126, scattered all over the country from the Bay of Islands to the Bluff, and that though in a sense our miners, save in exceptional cases, have been but scratching the surface, still we turn out 558,820 tons of coal in a year, it requires no difficulty in seeing that if but the proper stimulus is applied these islands of ours are capable of competing with any place in the world in coal supply, not even excepting the district of the lower Hunter.

It is true that the port of Newcastle has many advantagesin the vicinity of the pits, in their continuousness and apparent inexhaustibility, but most of all in the enormous expenditure that has been made there in giving facilities to shipping and to the loading of ships. They have five miles of wharf frontage at Newcastle, with breakwaters erected regardless of expense, shutting in and sheltering the bar on which dredges habitually work; while the steam cranes, and the shoots, and the other appliances are so efficient and so many that they are capable of loading over twenty thousand tons a-day. It is obvious from this that it is the expenditure of money on improving facilities, quite as much as the quality of the coal, that has given Newcastle its prominence ; and if the strike which is now on only continues sufficiently long, there is not the least doubt that the attention of capitalists being turned to New Zealand, there are mining districts here— say, on the West Coast of the Middle Island, —that with but a small proportion of the expenditure in opening them up, would prove a formidable and permanent rival to the great New South Wales mining centre. One of our coal mines, although having been only recently opened upthe Coalbrookdale at Westport—has had an output of 115,942 tons last year ; while another—the Erunner mine at Greymouthyielded 78,607 tons, and the Wallsend of the same place gave 53,314, and the Coalpit Heath mine, on the same port, 27,437 tons in the same year. Can anyone doubt that if the ports in the vicinity of these minesproducing coals of unsurpassed excellence —were properly opened and protected for shipping, and the mines were adequately developed, and all the appliances requisite were provided, these

West Coast coalfields would si. returns that would disturb the mo' V ' poly heretofore possessed by the \., " South Wales coalmines? Even* V North Island coalfields, which our -'' provincial district appears to exclusively, are by no means to be S pised, Kawakawa having turned 35,078 tons during the past year- v } -i two Waikato mines, adjacent to oil another, have had an output or 40 km tons for the year. To say nothing 0 f the remaining points, of the 12c in all at which coal is being actually Wl) ,.^ (] all over the ishmds, and which as have stated, have had an output ' more than a fourth of the v ;ii of the mines at Newcastle it s I vious that if the demand arises ~ J if, as a consequence, the lno J, v ' .', forthcoming for the development J •■] fields, and if enterprise is not baulked by the action of the operative minermaking common cause with those •* Australia, the coal-mining capability-, of this colony may be brought i nt great prominence. Sufficient denial and a paying price are all that are ,■? quired for making everyone of the'" hundred and twenty-six New Zeak I coalmines a centre of active andextf sive industry ; and it may be hoped that even the mine-owning ,vu,,,,,.'■ in Australia, during the time of c-c- - tion of their active labours, uiavtu • their attention this way, and tind wit! us a sphere for operations 0 c IPextensive1 Pextensive and profitable than there to which their attentions have been directed in Australia.