THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 1926. THE BRITISH COAL INDUSTRY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19737, 13 March 1926, Page 10

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 1926. THE BRITISH COAL INDUSTRY.

! The report of the Commission, which was appointed several months ago under the presidency of Sir Herbert Samuel, to make recommendations as to the future control and management of the British coal industry, will probably give complete satisfaction to no section of the public. The cabled summary of the report, which we have published, lengthy though it is, is not free from obscurity on some points. On the other hand, it is clear that there is no lack of definiteness in the Commission's recommendations in certain important respects. The continuance of the subsidy which the Prime Minister, at his wit's end to know what to do, offered to the industry in July, 1925, and which has involved the British taxpayers in a payment of more than twenty millions, would, in the opinion of the Coinmission, be indefensible. There is no more clear-cut. declaration in the report than this condemnation of the system under which the industry is being spoon-fed at the present time. The Commission rejects also the Miners' Federation's panacea of nationalisation of the coalmining industry. A solution of the problems of the industry that would be found along the lines of nationalisation would be as mischievous as the subsidy method which is at present in operation. Under the subsidy the Government makes good the losses suffered in l those districts which cannot pay the 1924 scale of wages without encroaching on the owners' percentage of profits. It is a plan which discourages the efficient operation of the industry since the taxpayers have to meet any losses that are incurred. The argument by which the scheme of nationalisation is supported is that the miners must have a certain minimum wage, whether ifc is economic or uneconomic, and that if the industry cannot pay it the community must make up the difference. Under either plan, the long-suffering taxpayers arc severely scourgad. The Commission, it is not surprising to find, is unable to discern any advantages which would accrue from nationalisation as a set-off against the grave economic dangers that would have to be faced. Yet the Commission does favour a form of nationalisation, though the extent of it is not quite clear. It speaks of "the past error in allowing the ownership of coal to fall into private hands," and this suggests that the principle of the State-ownership of natural resources is regarded by it with approval. But how far its recommendations that the State should acquire and administer mineral property have any bearing on the present condition of the coalmining industry is not apparent. There seems, indeed, to be a certain inconsistency between them, and the fact that the Commission contemplates the continuance of the industry under private enterprise subject to reorganisation in a number of particulars. Tho crux, however, of tho ivhole report, so far as the miners are concerned, consists in the statement that "a revision of the minimum percentage addition to the standard rates of wages fixed in 1924 during a time of temporary prosperity is indispensable to save the industry from impending disaster." That is the feature of the report upon which, more than upon any other, the criticism of the miners' organisations will be fastened. The Miners' Federation is not prepared—it was said in evidence before the Commission —to discuss lower wages or any extension of the working day. It is, however, because of the high costs of production that the industry does not rest on an economic basis. And any refusal to discuss the question of costs of production brings the whole question back to the point it occupied when tho subsidy plan was evolved last year. I

A CONSTITUTIONAL MATTER. Current political controversies ia New South Wales are so much mixed with violent partisanship that there is a clanger of the serious constitutional issues at stake being obscured. Sober consideration is always at a discount iwhen polemical passions are in the ascendant. Disapproval of the policy of the Lang Government does not necessarily moan approval of all the tactics which have been employed with a view of defeating that policy. There is no doubt that the Governor of the State and the Labour Ministry have been mutually antipathetic for some time past. The Governor, after consulting the Secretary of State for the Dominions, whose counsel was probably general rather than specific, appointed twenty-five new Legislative Councillors. The Premier who had asked for thirtyfive, found the accession of strength inadequate to his purpose of abolishing the Council. This was, however, less because the appointments were insufficiently numerous than because some of his own nominees left him in the lurch at the critical moment. Sir Dudley de Chair is not disposed to make additional appointments, and it will have been on the general ground that such appointments ure unnecessary that he has declined to accede to Mr Lang’s request that the Council should be increased by the nomination of several women, who would, of course, be pledged to support the extinction of the Second Chamber. Xhe Premier is in a combative mood, and it is reported that he has even gone to the length of asking the imperial authorities to recall the Governor. That suggestion is not likely to materialise. It is not considered as even remotely possible. Governors are not “recalled” except in extraordinary circumstances, though convenient transfers have sometimes been diplomatically arranged. It is true that Sir Charles Darling, Governor of Victoria, was virtually recalled or dismissed in 1865, the intimation of the Colonial Secretary being couched in polite but unmistakable terms: “As soon as yotir convenience will permit of your leaving the colony I should wish you to place the Government in the hands of the Lieutenant-Governor, whose duty it will be to administer it until your successor shall be appointed.” Cut Sir Charles Darling had made himself impossible, so to say. Sir Dudley de Chair is not likely to receive a •similar missive, though further communications may pass between Sydney and Downing Street tending to place constitutional principle and practice on a thoroughly intelligible basis. The precedents of the nineteenth century do not afford reliable guidance in these days. Stop by step it has come to he recognised that the representative of the Sovereign in a self-governing State must accept the advice of his Ministers, unless he can secure other advisers likely to command the confidence of the popular chamber. The Governor of a dominion has to he entrusted with a measure of discretionary power, without which his office would be of nugatory import; but it is incumbent upon him to disregard his private view's and to try to interpret the democratic will in a dispassionate spirit. In regard to the present crisis in New South Wales an early appeal to the electors might provide an effective solution, though there is always the chance of an inconclusive decision, and the constitutional points to which we have alluded will have to be settled sooner or later.