ENDING COAL CRISIS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 25085, 26 December 1944, Page 6

ENDING COAL CRISIS

SHORTER HOLIDAY AGREED COMMUNISM IN AUSTRALIA (Eecd. G. 30 p.m.) SYDNEY, Dec. 25 The coal minors' leaders, after a conference in Canberra with Federal Ministers and representatives of the Australian Council of Trades Unions, ordered all miners to take only ten days' Christmas holidays, instead of 16. This order reverses the stand taken by the miners' central executive last week.

The acting-Prime Minister, Mr F. M. Forde, announced that, in view of the new attitude of the miners, the Government will immediately set up a. commission of inquiry into the coal industry, and an expert committee to report on mining health problems. Mr Forde also reaffirmed an earlier Cabinet decision to consider the establishment of a Commonwealth pensions scheme for miners. Mr .Justice Davidson, of the New South Wales Supreme Court, will bo chairman of the commission of inquiry. The names of two other members of the commission, representing tlio Miners' Federation and the colliery proprietors, will be announced later. The survey of the health factors in the industry will be conducted by a committee consisting of Sir Raphael Cilento, Queensland's Director-General of Medical Services, Mr D. T. Brewster, acting-chief inspector of mines in New South Wales, and Mr IT. D. Murray, of the Industrial Welfare Division of the Commonwealth Department of Labour. DESTROYERS LOST (I!ml. 5.35 p.m.) WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 The United States Navy has identified two warships recently announced as lost off Ley to as tho destroyer Malum and the destroyer transport Ward. The latter fired the first American shot of the war when she sank a Japanese submarine at Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941.

NORWEGIAN MARINE (Herd, "i.'.io p.m.) LONDON, Dec. '2-1 Preliminary steps toward rebuilding the Norwegian mercantile marine, of which nearly 50 per cent has been lost during the war. are announced by the Norwegian Minister of Shipping. Swedish shipyards already have practically completed the construction of 300.000 deadweight tons of merchant ships on orders placed by a Norwegian mission, while contracts for an even larger tonnage already have bi>on placed. At a British shipyard a large floating whale factory is now being built for next year's whaling season.