BRITISH COAL CRISIS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17402, 24 August 1918, Page 8

BRITISH COAL CRISIS

NECESSITY FOR INCREASED OUTPUT.

MINERS' RESPONSIBILITY,

Pratt Association—By Telegraph—Copyright

Australian and N-Z. Cablo Association,

LONDON, August 22. The Daily Telegraph says: The War Cabinet will probably appoint a small oommittee of representatives of miners and coal owners, including Messrs W. Brace (Labour M.P. and Parliamentary Undersecretary, Home Department) and S. Walsh (Parliamentary Secretary, Local Government Board), to consider proposals for increasing the output. Mr Walsh, in an interview, advocated a _ joint propaganda on the coalfields by miners and owners speaking from the same platform in order to impress upon the men the urgency of increasing their output, also to impress upon them their personal responsibility. This propaganda should be continued until the grave crisis has been passed. Absentees were the chief cause of the fall in the output. Twenty thousand coal workers in the Rotherham district struck yesterday, pending a settlement of a dispute im connection with the surfacemen's wages award. It is expected that the strike will extend to the majority of the Yorkshire pits today.

PROPOSED MINISTRY OF MINES.

CONSERVATION OF COAL.

LONDON, August 22. The Minister of Reconstruction and the Coal Conservation Committee who were appointed in 1916 recommend the establishment of a Ministry of Mines, with statutory powers, to take steps for the conservation of coal, another recommendation being that the Ministry should undertake comprehensive co-operative drainage schemes for the pits.