THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 1895.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9720, 16 January 1895, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 1895.

The balloting in connection with the proposed strike of miners at Newcastle, has resulted in a failure to obtain the two-thirds majority necessary for a , general strike. There is reason, therefore to believe that the dispute will be peaceably settled. The funds of the Miners' Association do not exceed £3000, which would go but a small way to carry on an industrial war on behalf of 3000 miners. There is no doubt that the great maritime strike of 1891 was the primary cause of the troubles which have subsequently befallen the port and district of Newcastle, but it was only one of several contributing causes. Newcastle entered upon the New Year in the gloomiest of spirits, with its harbour scantily supplied with shipping, its streets lacking animation, and the tradesmen bitterly complaining of the dulness of trade and small circulation of money. In the little townships round and about Newcastle where the miners live, the signs of poverty are said to be still more marked, owing to having been out of work for so long that their savings are all exhausted. Under these circumstances a strike would only further force the district on the path of declension and disaster. Some coal experts are beginning to question whether Newcastle will ever recover her lost supremacy in the coal trade. The successful development of the Japanese coal fields is one of the leading factors in the falling-ofi in its coal trade, and it is stated that shipmasters trading to the East are beginning to prefer Japanese coal for steam purposes. They state that at equal rates they prefer it, as it burns equally well and takes up less space in the bunkers. So that the colliery proprietors of Newcastle have, if they wish to keep their market, to undersell their competitors both at home and abroad. Miners say that for the past half century matters have never been so bad, and although the export for the past year is considerably over 2,000,000 tons, that quantity has been only sufficient to keep half the mines and half the miners in the district going full time. There appears to be nothing before the miners and the masters but ever-increasing competition—the former being now practically pitted against Asiatic labour—which is bound to force workers down to a mere living wage— the minimum level of subsistence. The coal mine owners say that the only alternative, in their position, in many instances, is either to shut down the mines or reduce the hewing rates. They can afford to wait while the workers cannot, and thus hold the key of the position. The agreement of 1893 between the miners and the masters fixed the minimum hewing rate at 3s 6d per ton, corresponding to a selling rate for coal of 9s per ton ; but the reductions in the hewing rate now forced on the men have been brought to 2s lOd and 2s Bd. The general superintendent of the A.A. Company, when he found it necessary to shut down one of the company s collieries a few months back, owing to the falling off in trade, gave it as his opinion that the hewing rate then being paid to the men—3s 2d per ton — was low enough, and rather than make any attempt to curtail expenses to meet the depression in trade by reducing wages, he preferred to close one of the pits. The present difficulty will lead to some kind of re-organisation of the Masters' Association, for, until some bond or agreement between the colliery proprietors to fix the price of coal at a fair and reasonable figure, is come to, the existing suicidal competition will go on to the injury alike of employers and employed. The following quotation from a report shows the lengths to which competition has reached at Newcastle in an attempt to recover the lost trade of the port:— Although 8s per ton is nominally the ruling price at this port, coal from some of the best seams in the district is being sold at from 7s to 7s 6d, and that from interior ueamß as low as 5s 6d per ton. Contrast these prices with the latest quotations for English and Welsh coal. On the ,V n i team , coal sell « a* from 10» 3d to V s r? d ',. a i? d household at from 12s to 13s. At Cardiff steam realises lis 3d to lis 9d, and household 12s to 13s. Surely it must appear ridiculous that in Australia-the land of high prices-coal of excellent quality can be placed on board ship at not much more than half the price it commands in British ports. Even at these prices shipmasters have informed Newcastle colliery owners that they have been instructed by their owners not to return to Newcastle, but in future to load only Japanese coal, on account of its cheapness and its suitability in other respects. Still, the Newcastle men are hopeful, owing to the war between Japan and China, that they will be able to wrest some of the coal trade from Japan. On the side of the coal mine-owner it is declared that at present prices and hewing rates he is getting nothing for his coal. He puts bis case thus: He is merely parting with it for the benefit of the buyer, and to provide the miner with employment. This employment may not be remunerative to the miner, but he profits by the trade to some extent at least, while the coal-owner or the shareholder in a coal company pets no return whatever for the capital sunk in the development of the industry, and at the same time is losing the coal. See the price at which shares ia the coal companies

can be bought, and judge for yourself of the dividends which holders of them are receiving.

The miners, on their side, complain that - ever since 1891 the masters have been gradually forcing down the wages on the plea that it was necessary to lower the price of coal to regain trade. They have successively objected to these reductions, but fruitlessly. One miners' representative states that

The masters are now seeking to make the men bear the consequences of folly in the past on their own (the masters') part. I refer to the grossly extravagant expenditure of money in opening up mines, the encouragement of the multiplicity of mines in the district beyond all requirements, and other causes which, with the financial panic of last year, have contributed more than anything else to the present unsatisfactory condition of the coal trade.

Of the 4000 miners in the Newcastle district, fully a fourth are non-unionists, and six collieries are worked on nonunion principles, so that even if the ballot bad been in favour of a general strike, there would have been no complete suspension of work at the mines such as took place in 1888 and 1890.