COAL MINE INDUSTRY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22671, 8 March 1937, Page 12

COAL MINE INDUSTRY

EMPLOYERS AND WORKERS FURTHER MEETING ARRANGED A further conference between the Coalmine Owners' Federation and the Minors' Federation has been arranged by the Minister of Mines, the Hon. P. C. Webb, with a view to arranging a basis for a now industrial agreement. The conference will be held in Auckland to-morrow, when the Minister himself will be present, as lie is arriving from Wellington, to-day in company with the Prime Minister, Mr. Savage, and other members of the Cabinet.

Matters to bo considered at the conference were discussed at a mass meeting of miners in the Huntly Town Hall on Saturday, when delegates reported on the outcome of the recent conference between the employers and the miners at Wellington. It was reported that the union would take no definite action in tho dispute until' tho results of tomorrow's conference wore known. Mr. Webb himself is anxious to secure full co-operation between all parties in tho coal mining industry. In a statement in Christchurch on Saturday he said he was hopeful that a satisfactory settlement "would bo reached as a result of tho Auckland conference. There was a strong demand in some quarters, he said, for tho importation of coal. Such a step should be strongly resisted, but if tho local industry could not produce sufficient to moot tho of the country, coal Would have to bo imported.