A PAYING PUBLIC ENTERPRISE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8295, 5 December 1912, Page 6

A PAYING PUBLIC ENTERPRISE

Those good but misguided people in Australia who predicted failure for Victoria’s State coal mine enterprise will probably direct their criticism in some other direction.

The report of the general manager of this State enterprise for the year ended last June shows that a profit of nearly £IO,OOO was made. The gross output for the year was 470,261 tons, and tho not output (after allowing for mine consumption, etc.) 454,221 tons. More than half of the coal won was sold to the State railways and other departments, and 186,925 tons sold to the public. The average number of employees throughout the year was 1191. Of these 598 were miners, and their daily earnings came to 13s Bd. Tho output (and the profit) suffered through a labor difficulty, the mine being idle for about six weeks, but it is satisfactory to know that tho dispute was settled with very little acrimony—“the men’s representatives fighting fairly for the best conditions obtainable, and the management feeling confident that the terms offered wero fair.’’ Tho manager considers the development of the mine is retarded owing to insufficiency of capital funds, and points out that, on a conservative estimate, there is at least twenty million tons available for extraction. Tho opening of this mine has settled in tho vicinity a population of about five thousand souls, greatly benefiting tho farming community in the neighborhood -, since its inception the mine has supplied over 340,000 tons of fuel for manufacturing purposes and a million tons for the railways, other departments, and tho public; and it has kept over £500,000 for local circulation which would otherwise have been sent outside Victoria in the purchase of supplies. To anybody who does not make a positive fetish of Private Enterprise, the Victorian State mine looks extremely like good business.