THE MINERS' DEMANDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17230, 5 August 1919, Page 9

THE MINERS' DEMANDS.

—My excuse for commenting on a matter which at first sight may appear foreign to me is that recent events have shown to what extent different sections of the community are dependent on each other, so that all become concerned in the smooth working of each department of the general economy. Mr. Alison, in his reply to the miners, as reported in Saturday's Herald, shows himself most unconcaliatory. The miners, on Mr. Alison's owif. ( showing, are not wholly unreasonable—for instance, in their demand for £1 per day— as Mr. Alison said: "The miners in any mine could make from £1 to £1 5s per day, and that in six hours." The contract system has always suggested itself to me, as I understand it, vicious; a man's daily earnings should as far as possible be assured. Then Mr. Alison's suggestion that the miners cannot be trusted to do a fair day's work is not conducive to promoting that entente cordiale that one wishes to see grow more and more between employer and employee; in fact, which is the only correct antidote for industrial unrest. If all demands of labour were treated with the arrogance displayed by Mr. Alison, then labour and capital must inevitably become further estranged. It is time the general public woke up and got more into touch with labour's grievances and sifted out the unreasonableness from its antithesis and exerted its influence in allaying the former and effecting the latter. The complaint of the labour leaders is that the press is biased and unwilling to g ; ve their side of the question a fair representation. j Mr. Alison said: "In regard to the conditions in mines, were they not the same ' as they had been for years Surely that is self-condemnatory, and as it is in answer to Mr. O'Rourke's demand for good conditions "inside and outside the mines," I take it that it embraces both. With the outside conditions I have some familiarity as they existed in the Northumberland and Durham coalfields, and I unhesitatingly" say that they were a disgrace to those' responsible, and I am not prepared to say that those pertaining in New Zealand are sans reprocbe. I consider that much could be done by the owners encouraging thrift by giving their employees a proprietary interest in their dwellings, by the encouragement of co-operation, and by giving a lead in their social life. Miners as a class are good sports, and I feel sure if their demands, although extravagant, perhaps, were treated seriously and :in a conciliator* spirit, a settlement on a permanent basis can be effected. R. Duxfteld. Horotiu.