BRITISH COAL INDUSTRY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20870, 9 November 1929, Page 12

BRITISH COAL INDUSTRY.

The Labour Government at Home is not- finding the fulfilment of its election pledge for the reduction of the working hours of the British coalminers a simple or an easy matter.) Its invitation to the coal-owners to attend a conference for the discussion of the situation has been declined. The Government may legislate to reduce the length of the miners’ working day to seven and a-half hours, which is what it proposes in the meantime, but this will afford the miners little satisfaction if their wages are reduced in consequence. That, however, is the prospect, for the coal-owners have said emphatically that the reduction of the hours of work must have the effect of bringing about a reduction of wages. The Government has no power to guarantee that there will not be a

lowering of the wage rates, and is finding itself, accordingly, in a difficult position. Mr J. H. Thomas, whose chief ministerial task is that of dealing with the unemployment problem, has done his best to stimulate a demand for British coal in Canada. .But it has been pointed out that new orders resulting from his efforts during his Canadian tour could play but a very small part, at best, iu increasing the volume of the coal exports. Three hundred thousand tons of "Welsh steam coal, the amount mentioned in connection with Sir Thomas’s Canadian orderf, would, not go far towards making up the difference of 37,000,000 tons between the coal exports of 1913 and those of 1928. Even were the figure increased to a million tons, observes the Daily Telegraph, it would represent only about a day s output of the British' mines. The obvious fact that the industry in Britain is in anything but a healthy state renders the question of the effect upon it of a reduction of the working hours of the employees so much the more important. The miners have demanded a reduction from eight hours to seven, but the Government is not prepared to go that length immediately. The Minister of Mines asserted recently that the reversion to the eight hours’ day, as provided for by the previous Government, had been attended by no successful results in its operation. On the other hand it has been stated by a leading coal-owner, to whom the Minister was making reply, that the increase in the hours of work from seven to eight brought with it a reduction of two shillings in the cost of coal per ton, and that this reduction had helped the British industry to regain by slow degrees some of its best markets. Conversely, "the owners argue, a reduction in the length of the miners’ working day must entail an increased cost of coal per ton and the loss ■of the regained markets. Clearly the position is one of very considerable perplexity, which is only intensified by the controversy over the issues that are involved. Nationalisation of the mines represents a. policy which the Labour Government has in reserve,, but about which it is discreetly not saying much at present. If it gives the concession respecting the miners* hours in the meantime, — and the pressure upon it to do so is of course considerable—and if wage reductions follow, nobody will be satisfied. . Trouble will no doubt be created, and, whatever happens, the industry mil probably suffer. One of the requisites for improvement in the position of the British coal industry is reduction in production costs. From the point of view of organisation, it has been contended, the industry stands in. a very poor position indeed, so much so that this is one of the chief factors to which its present unsatisfactory condition is attributable.