COAL INDUSTRY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21671, 15 June 1932, Page 12

COAL INDUSTRY

| REDUCED COST TO CONSUMER Tv ECOM MEN DAT lON S OF . COMMITTEE. 1 A material reduction in the price of coal to the consumer if the present market is to be retained, and if any expansion is to be hoped for is one of the important recommendations contained in a‘ report on the coal industry prepared by Messrs J. A. C. Bayne, F. W. J. Belton, and W. Donovan at the request ot the Prime Minister. Lpwer sea freights, as it is considered that the industry cannot afford the present rates, and also the encouragement of the manufacture ot motor benzole at gasworks, are also recommended. The report conies under the scope of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. . The recommendations are as follows: 1. There is no doubt that gasworks tar can be so treated as to prbduce a tai complying with British Engineering Standards Association specification. When ■ roads are being treated in New Zealand at the cost of grants from the main highways funds it should be a condition of-, the grant that the tar used should be local tar, if it is available, and complies with the specifications. 2. The manufacture of motor benzole at gasworks should be encouraged by granting it either whole or partial exemption from excise duty. Such benzole is totally exempt from duty in Great Britain, France, and Germany. BLENDING LOCAL COALS. 3. It seems likely that the amount of imported coal necessary for gasworks could be reduced by better use of blended local coals. ■ An endeavour should be made to get gasworks now using imported coal to experiment with blends of local coals in order to see to what extent it would be practicable to use the latter in place of imported coal. 4. There seems good reason to think that in localities such as Southland a briquette of good calorific value could be manufactured from a mixture of browncoal slack and bituminous-coal slack at a cost which would enable it to compete successfully with screened bituminous or imported coal. The matter should be investigated as soon as possible. 5. To retain the present coal market and permit of any expansion in the future it is imperative that the cost of coal to the consumer should be materially reduced. Many of the coal companies are now working at,- a loss. Mining costs must be brought down to enable some companies to carry on and the grave danger is that the companies will he compelled, in order to exist, to take action which will be bitterly opposed by the miners’ unions and lead to more unemployment and suffering among the workmen. Co-operative mining has been widely advocated as a means of reducing mining costs, and it is probable that an effort will be made to work more mines under this, system. But co-operative mining is neither the best solution nor a permanent solution of the present difficulty. Considerably better results could be obtained by co-operation between the coal companies and the miners, based on a frank recognition of the facts of the industry on both sides. At no previous time in the history of coal mining in the Dominion has there been such urgent need for a joint sustained effort by companies and workmen, an effort whose only objects should be to reduce the cost of mining to such an extent as would enable the com'panies to carry on and to secure to the workmen a reasonable standard of living and regular employment. WORKING CONDITIONS. A large part of the increase in the cost of mining since 1914 is not the result of increased rates of wages, but of alterations in the working which have been of little material benefit to the workers, but which have added greatly to the cost of production. It should he possible for both parties in the industry to get together, examine the working conditions on their merits, and get rid of any conditions of working which are found to increase unnecessarily or unjustifiably the cost of mining. Such a revision of working conditions would be of very great advantage at the present time to the industry and to those employed in it. It promises better results than anything else, and would forestall the demand for a further reduction in wages. 6. A large part of the cost of coal to the consumer is made up of freight charges. Sea freights from the West Coast are, roughly, double what they were in 1914. The coal industry cannot afford these high rates at the present time, and every effort should be made to get them reduced.

7. The existing mines are capable of producing more coal than cdn be sold. The opening up of new mines should be discouraged, and leases under the Coal Mines Act should not be granted to new companies at the present time.