COALMINES DEADLOCK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18547, 3 November 1923, Page 12

COALMINES DEADLOCK.

THE WEST COAST TROUBLE. SUPPORT FOR WORKERS. .CAMPAIGN, IN CHRISTCHURCH. [BY TELEGRAPH. CORRBSrONDEVT.] V JV ■ ■." CHRIBXCHTJRCH, Friday.' The president of the Blackball Miners' Jnion, l Mr. f .T.;; G. Daly, is Jin Christchurch at present in connection with the West Coast coal deadlock. Ho addressed a meeting of employees at the railwaj goods sheds and a meeting of the executive of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. Both promised assistance. At noon to-day he met the employees at the Addington railway workshops who passed th» following motion without dissent :— "That this meeting of railway workshops employees expresses its disapproval of the- conduct of the West Coast coal employers in locking out the miners and promises its financial auport to tho women and children during the lock-out.' According to one report the miners say that if they can get. £2000 a month they can hold but indefinitely. However, the contributions receivod so far from other bodies of workers have not been coming in at anything like .this rate. A large number of other coal and quart* miners in the Dominion, including the men in the State mines and the co-operative miners at Reefton, have struck levies of 2J| per cent, on wages or have guaranteed definite monthly sums, but even so iiiiUOO a month will be difficult to raise. A curious feature of the trouble is that it is definitely a sectional one. The men who are out do tot object to the State miners and tho co-operative parties continuing in work as long as they contribute to the strike Apparently the miners' organisation expects to force the issue, not by causing hardship to the general public, but by curtailing the profits of the mining companies. The actual question in dispute is the way in whiich the parties are to be brought together, whether l through the Arbitration Court or otherwise. The : j merits of whatever points are in dispute | between the companies and the unions do ■ I not seem to have been discussed. ' j The struggle is likely to last, until wall after Christmas. '