A CRIPPLED INDUSTRY

Otago Witness, Issue 3556, 9 May 1922, Page 21

A CRIPPLED INDUSTRY

SERIOUS POSITION. PERTH, April 29. Mr Mitchell, replying to a deputation of Western Australian mining companies representatives, who sought a conference with the miners with a view to a read,ustment of wages and an amendnient of the Arbitration Act enabling the Couit a decision to be reviewed within a year, said that when the mines were paying mcreasing dividends the miners loyally accepted the Arbitration awards as binding for a full vear. Analogously the mining companies should accept them similarly now when dividends were not increasing and wages were falling. He did not believe the miners would present unfair demands if they were calculated to cripple the industry upon which their existence depended. The railway freights were as low as possible, notwithstanding the contmu, ouslv shrinking railway revenue lba Government was anxious to develop the mining interests but was not prepared to grant concessions at the cost of the rest of the community- . . x Mr Newton Moore, m introducing the deputation, had pointed out that the Western Australian mines formerly produced £8,000,000 per annum and this has now' dwindled to £2,000,000, while the cost of production had increased to an alarming The cost of material had increased 50 per cent, “d Jabour ova 100 per cent, comparoo with 1914. V All tb exception of three large mines which had very good reasons for continuing, the whole of the gold mines of the State had closed down, and unless some change were made in the near future this disastrous state of affairs must continue.